God shows no partiality!

(Romans 2:11) “For God shows no partiality.”

When we look at others we will somehow formulate an opinion on them, whether they are good or evil, in our summation we either accuse or excuse! Yet when we reason like this we reason as mere men, we forget that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That there is none righteous, no not one! This type of reasoning is often to our own detriment. Why? We are quick to look at others and compare them against ourselves looking to excuse our sin as “not so bad”. It is just one of the millions of decoys that are out there to get us to forget Calvary and what it meant for Christ to die for us! Once we put on our spiritual thinking caps, it is plain to see that anything outside of what Christ achieved on Calvary is futile no matter how brilliant it may seem. Sell all you have and give it to the poor, but deny the work of the cross and your will still face the wrath of God… your destiny HELL!

Do you remember the ruler that came to Christ? He was a good man as far as men reckoned; concerning their customs and abiding in the law he seemed outwardly blameless. People must have look at him with admiration; he was definitely amongst the excused! Until he came face to face with our great Saviour, the Lord Jesus! This is how the story unfolded… “And a ruler asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.'" And he said, "All these I have kept from my youth." When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." (Luke 18:18-22) - Note: - He was a law abiding citizen, and he was aware of “right and wrong” as he claims to have kept the law. What was his fault then? He was not willing to sell all, in other words loose his life for Christ, wealth was far more important to him as he was not willing to follow the Lord. What then can we learn from this parable? Let us not look around at others but lets us search out our own hearts, is there anything in our lives that is more important to us then following the Lord. Whatever we find we must live a life of repentance "around it" always praying that we may find deliverance from its deadly yoke. We must never accept it as the norm; if we do it will be to our detriment. The purpose of this life is to learn this lesson; we must leave all behind if we are to be useful to our Master. Am I for one minute implying that I have arrived? Absolutely not! Far from it, but it must be a resolution in our heart that God would strip us of every self want that opposes His will for our lives. The enemy will look to keep us busy with self, taking our eyes off the cross and its purpose. And yes the devil does play his part, but let us not be fooled as we remember what the Apostle James teaches; “Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.” (James 1:13-16) – Note; He is addressing believers. 

The only way we can ever achieve acceptance before a righteous and holy God is in and through His Son, our beloved redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ! As soon as we take our eyes off Him we are in danger of judgment. May we always remember to consider what it cost our master as he laid down His life for us and others, may we too remember to lay down our lives for Him. What a daunting thought! Nevertheless when we learn to live by this rule, the law of grace, we will understand what is meant by this statement; “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:30)

Father God help us we pray to lay down our lives so that your name would be glorified on earth as it is in heaven. I am aware of the areas in my life that keep me from glorifying your name and I ask for forgiveness. Help us all to become more like our great Saviour, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

As the rain belts down this morning do not be surprised if you see a rainbow the other side of the storm as the day soon approaches when the Lord will return to fetch His people. May we always remember to pray and not to faint!

Signing off

Tyrone

Various Trials...

(2Corinthians 7:4) “… In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.” 

What amazes me although it shouldn’t is how often we are tested on what we preach. It is refreshing and yet frustrating. Let me explain… In yesterdays post I exposed what I believe to be factual according to scripture and yet this morning the opposition I now face is almost incomprehensible. I have three computers in which to blog from and all are faulty at the same time. This I only discovered this morning. Obviously I need them to post my daily blog. I am now working with my oldest laptop and it is somewhat laborious as I keep getting error messages, nevertheless we must press on and fly the banner of truth and glorify our great King, Jesus Christ out Lord and God. We have a hope that one day we will be like Him and forever be in His glorious presence. How I long for that day! No more burden to bear; we will then enter into our rest, even so come quickly Lord Jesus! But until then let us press towards the mark of this high calling.

Without opposition in our lives, when we stand for the truth and life seems to always move in a smooth direction it should leave us questioning our stand in the Lord Jesus. I am thankful for the trials of life as they are designed to produce patience, although at times is easy to say but in reality not so easy to believe and welcome. Yet they are there for a reason! God does not allow trial in our lives without a specific purpose. We may often look to shirk the test, but the sooner we understand that it is for our benefit the better.

In fact all the Apostles teach this; “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4) - Note James does not say accept the trial; he says, “Count it all joy.” There is a vast difference; we must learn to start appropriating the truth of scripture into our lives as it is for our benefit. – “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1Peter 1:6-7) – And the Paul has this to say; “I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.” (2Corinthians 7:4) 

 

So instead of skirting trials and afflictions we must start learning to welcome them as they are there to prepare us for the ministry, for service in whatever measure God will choose to use us. But until we begin to correctly apply scripture and in particular the trial of our faith we will be useless and not effective for our Jehovah God. When people witness a joy within us although reason would demand bitterness, people will then have to sit up and take note. Our God will be glorified!  Our sole purpose is to find obedience toward God and to exalt His name. His name will be glorified regardless whether we remain unfaithful as he cannot deny Himself. But we have (all those who have His Spirit) been afford the opportunity to find grace in time of need, it is this grace we must lose our live for, whatever the cost, it will be worth it all!

I did say we would look at God’s brilliance and highlight some of His character in and through the foolishness of men who believe themselves to be wise. God often takes the rule a man will institute and then traps him in his own ruling.

The Israelites were slaves in the land of Egypt some four thousand years ago, and Pharaoh passed a law that all of the Jewish baby boys were to be thrown into the Nile River; “Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live." (Exodus 1:22) – Here we have a king who looks to destroy the seed of Abraham and the way in which he sets about achieving this is by throwing the baby boys into the river. A law had been passes and as the citizens of that country it needed to be followed or you would face the penalty of breaking that law. A Levite woman then has a son, Moses is born. He should have been thrown into the river, that is what the ruler of the time had intended. Man opposing God! What I find now very interesting is the same river that was used to kill baby boys now becomes the life giver for Moses and all of Israel. If Moses had died, who then would have led the children of Israel out of Egypt? Someone else you may say, maybe! But let us stick to the facts as it was Moses whom God chose for the job. Moses was placed in the river, he may have well been in a basket, nevertheless he was as it were, “thrown into the river”. But instead of that action bringing death it brought life for so many. God’s brilliance on display! - “The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." (Exodus 2:2-6) – “When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, "Because," she said, "I drew him out of the water." (Exodus 2:10) – Note: - not only had Moses’ life been spare but he now became the son of Pharaohs daughter, in other words Pharaohs adopted grandson, can we see the picture unfolding? There is much more that can be said about the account but due to time we must now rap up. This account concludes with God using Moses to bring the final plague on the Egyptians and that was all of their firstborn males were to die. The full circle is now complete; God had turn Pharaohs own judgment on him; “and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.” (Exodus 11:5) – “At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.” And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. (Exodus 12:29-30)

We see the brilliance of God and how He chooses to work out His plan. What then can we learn from this? We must trust Him in and through His Word even if we don’t understand what is happen here and now. We can all relate to certain times in our lives when we have felt defeated and almost without hope, I know I have at times felt like this. God is in control and we must learn to walk by faith, if we already walk by faith let us learn to become more dependent upon our Saviour as He will see us home.

Praise the name of Jesus!

Signing off

Tyrone

 

 

  

Faith in the Word...

(Hebrews 13:7) “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”

We now will hopefully spend some time over the next week or so looking at the brilliance of God’s “apparent foolishness” as he exposes the hearts of men as they profess to be wise but in fact are fools. Simply put, God laughs at those who take Him on as He openly exposes their own folly! We will also look at individuals that embraced faith with both arms and then some. And why they were so persuaded and hopefully draw some parallels for our own lives, furnishing us with new vigour to serve God faithfully through faith.

But before we open this amazing topic, I would like to remind you how I find daily inspiration for this blog and how it takes its direction. Without the application of faith to it, it would be a futile exercise. Why? It would be so man-centred that it would be no heavenly good. I strongly believe in the work of God the Holy Spirit as He guides and leads God’s children. As much as this blog is for me as it deals with my emotions and struggles I do strongly believe that it is also speaking to others. This is the way God in His brilliance is able to minister into the hearts of His Children. How then do I find the direction this blog should take? I often wake up in the early hours of the morning with a thought. Take this morning as an example; I was challenged with death and faith and that those who lived by faith would not ever fear death. That was the thought, so now before I let that consideration run riot I need to seek out scripture that will confirm my reflection. This is a safe and accurate way to be sure that we are listening to the voice of God and not our vain imaginations. For many will come claiming to have been of service to God on judgment day and He will reject many as evil workers.

How is it then that I need to walk by faith and not be so in control that I hinder the work of God the Holy Spirit in my life? The answer is simple! Find contextual scripture and verse to back up what you believe you have heard. I have often heard sincere people, usually babes in Christ, say that they speak to God in their own way and they have a very close relationship with Him, praise God for that, Christianity is a very personal experience. But when you hear a voice speak against the Word of God, it cannot be God’s voice as He will never deny Himself. It is imperative that when we walk by faith that we use God’s map (the bible) to guide our footsteps along this Celestial Road toward the culmination of our hope, Heaven!

It is the Word that Satan will attack, that has been his ploy from the beginning. Remember the Garden of Eden and what the devil said to Eve; "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" (Gen 3:1) – Lets us now observe how this type of reasoning affects us today... God spoke and gave Adam an instruction, and that instruction was not to eat of that tree’s fruit. The instruction was clear and concise, but what the serpent now does is he twists the command as he realises that Eve had not listened to God’s Word accurately (now whether Adam was guilty in conveying that message accurately or not to His wife I cannot say, God knows!); her response to the serpent was; - “but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"(Gen 3:3) – Through this text God said nothing about touching the fruit; Eve was not paying attention to the voice of God. Satan as the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field and he exploits her weakness and gets her to then eat the forbidden fruit, objective accomplished! Satan twists the words of God to lure His children into sin; it is as simple as that! What then is our safe Guard? It is to accurately listen to the voice of God through scripture. It must be unpacked in context; as soon as we take scripture out of context we then open ourselves to be lead astray by the wiles of the devil. .

Let’s use another illustration to support this train of thought; through Matthew 6 the Lord Jesus instruct those who surrounded Him then, but now instructs us through the written Word, the Bible! He teaches us many truths and points out some safe-guards on how we should conduct ourselves. At the end of the chapter the Lord then tells us not to be anxious and illustrates through creation how God is perfectly in control and then instructs us to be anxious for nothing. Much of the concluding chapter addressing our daily needs, “food and raiment” and He makes a promise to us the believers, He tells us that God will supply all our needs. I have often heard people misquote the next verse; they say God will give me all I need and they read Matthew 6:33 like this; “But seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you.” But that is not accurate. Look at the difference when we read it appropriately; “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” The promise is to those who first seek out God and His righteousness, only those who put God’s plans first will be beneficiaries of this promise. Now this is what it means to live by faith and how we are to use the Word correctly in order to reap the rewards of God’s promises.

Satan also uses the Word of God, but his objective is to misrepresent it. Even the written Word Himself, the Lord Jesus was challenged by the devil as he endeavoured to use God’s Word against Him, trying to get the Lord to sin...

“And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, "'He will command his angels concerning you,' and "'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"” (Matthew 4:3-7) – Note the importance the Lord Jesus places on the Word of God when combating the devil, in fact even Satan notes the importance of the Word of God as he tries to misrepresent it. Do you then think we should take the Word of God seriously?

In conclusion; we must align our faith with the Word of God as it is of utmost importance if we are to be effective in this dying world, where so many apparent Christians hold the Word of God with such low esteem. May God equip His children to fly the banner of truth, without compromise to His Holy Word, Amen!

Signing off

Tyrone  

  

The Fruit of Faith!

(Hebrews 11:8) “By faith Abraham obeyed ...”

Over the next week or so I thought we could look at the actual effect God’s Word has in reality. We often, or I often am the first to say we must believe the Word of God above everything else and even when our emotions resist the “Word” and it seems like a futile exercise to obey, it may even at times go against ever fibre in our bodies, against all common rational, nevertheless we must obey! Why? Well for many reasons; God is the only true God and He is the supreme ruler over the entire universe, therefore all are subject to Him, regardless of whether we agree with Him or Not, He is the final authority! If someone was to say, “If that is how your God operates then I want nothing to do with Him”. Will that now excuse that individual from His authority? Absolutely not! If the law of the land stated that its residence must pay taxes and we were amongst the number that disagrees with that law would we be excused from the punishment that government would impose on those who break the law on taxes? Obviously not! The “creature is subject to the creator” and not the other way around. Imagine if you had scientific skills and created a helper, let’s say a robot to help with the daily chores and that invention now operated against your will and its intended purpose, in fact it was now causing more damage than good. Would you let it run riot and make your life even more difficult as you now had to run around cleaning up after it? Your work load having now doubled. No you would not! You would either fix the problem or do away with the robot. As the inventor you would have final authority. Now then, why do some then think that they are not accountable to God? The answer is simple; they have been blinded by sin. Sin has had its part to play in society and all have been trapped by the snares of sin, this is why our great Redeemer came to defeat sin and its power by dying a cruel death on a Roman Cross. Now as believers and individuals who live with His Spirit we still find ourselves waging war against sin on a daily basis. We are instructed to find grace in time of need. Grace is now available to believers and not the unbelievers in that sense. What chance does someone have who does not have the Spirit of God? Absolutely zero! But that does not excuse them; "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." (John 3:16-21)

We must also obey because God has chosen what is foolish in this world to confine the wise; “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;” (1Corinthians 1:27) – I would like to unpack some great examples throughout scripture highlighting God’s brilliance in this area. We will see how His wisdom unfolds even though initially at times our minds would scream out against what we are called to do in obeying our God and His instruction. This is the test of faith. When God instructs will we obey or will we feel the need to help Him along the way. I know this deliberation will make us feel very uncomfortable at times and so we must be sure of what God is saying, we must use scripture in context to back up our findings. I am somewhat excited about what we will find. 

I remember when I was in the process of writing my auto-biography for the first time. It was a daunting task as I never thought that I would be proficient. With much help in the post editing arena we eventually ended up with a thin paper-back. But along the way, I faced a serious challenge. I had just fallen very sick and was no longer able to perform any work duties, my days as a photographic journalist had been shelved. I was put on permanent disability, in other words I was paid seventy five percent of my basis salary and was not entitled to do any other work to supplement my income, and this was part of the disability insurances agreement. I had however been given permission to write a book. I wrote this book on my Apple laptop. About halfway through I hit a snag, my laptop needed serious repair work, and it now no longer was an aid but a hindrance. Many questions needed answers; was I doing the right thing? My mind was full of doubts but unless I could have it fixed I was not going to finish this project. It was a substantial amount of money and I did not have it. I was barely coming out on my abridged salary. What was I to do? I was despondent and feeling rather defeated. Just as I was about to throw in the towel, out of the blue I got a phone call from the office informing me that through some fund raiser they had been involved with that they were left with a positive balance and after a management meeting they had decided to give me the money. Without over mystifying this encounter I must tell you, that it was a surprise, there was no reason whatsoever for them to give me this money, except that God through His goodness and mercy was proving to me that He was in perfect control. The situation was totally outside of my control and this is where we need to find ourselves before God will step in and teach us to live by faith. It was such a wonderful experience, but at the time I must confess I was feeling rather defeated and almost without hope.

I realise that these kinds of experience are a “dime a dozen” and people misrepresent the application of faith in so many bad ways. People often use living by faith to excuse themselves from any biblical responsibility, or they manipulate the use it to for self gain. There are many dangers we must be on the lookout for, but the Word is very clear, “the just shall live by faith”! It is true faith we must learn to appropriate into our lives and it must become a way of life for every believer.

All that really means is we must learn to trust God’s Word even when logic rejects it. Abraham the father of faith has this testimony; “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-10)

We must learn to look beyond the here and now and we must resolve to trust the Word of God above everything else, we must look to God and not our circumstances as they will often leave us walking in unbelief.

Signing off

Tyrone

Kindness & Love...

It is good at times to consider the deliberation from other sound men, let us hear from Uncle Charles...

(Timothy 3:4) “The kindness and love of God our Saviour.”

How sweet it is to behold the Saviour communing with his own beloved people! There can be nothing more delightful than, by the Divine Spirit, to be led into this fertile field of delight. Let the mind for an instant consider the history of the Redeemer’s love, and a thousand enchanting acts of affection will suggest themselves, all of which have had for their design the weaving of the heart into Christ, and the intertwisting of the thoughts and emotions of the renewed soul with the mind of Jesus. When we meditate upon this amazing love, and behold the all-glorious Kinsman of the Church endowing her with all his ancient wealth, our souls may well faint for joy. Who is he that can endure such a weight of love? That partial sense of it which the Holy Spirit is sometimes pleased to afford, is more than the soul can contain; how transporting must be a complete view of it! When the soul shall have understanding to discern all the Saviour’s gifts, wisdom wherewith to estimate them, and time in which to meditate upon them, such as the world to come will afford us, we shall then commune with Jesus in a nearer manner than at present. But who can imagine the sweetness of such fellowship? It must be one of the things which have not entered into the heart of man, but which God hath prepared for them that love him. Oh, to burst open the door of our Joseph’s granaries, and see the plenty which he hath stored up for us! This will overwhelm us with love. By faith we see, as in a glass darkly, the reflected image of his unbounded treasures, but when we shall actually see the heavenly things themselves, with our own eyes, how deep will be the stream of fellowship in which our soul shall bathe itself! Till then our loudest sonnets shall be reserved for our loving benefactor, Jesus Christ our Lord, whose love to us is wonderful, passing the love of women. (C.H.Spurgeon)

Signing off

Tyrone

Hope Eternal!

(Job 17:15)  “Where then is my hope?”

What a privileged it is to be able to communicate in a language that allows us to convey certain words that are so full of hope! The word itself speaks volumes, what comes to mind when we consider the word “hope”? It is a confident desire, it sparks a feeling that something desirable will happen and yet with hope on the back of God’s promises it takes on a whole near dimension, or so it should! The world is full of hope with a somewhat distorted reality attached to it, the world is full of promise and we see great men like Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela and many others. They all are and were driven by hope to achieve. Everyone will face death, well almost everyone; those involved in the rapture will not, but for the rest it is a given. Death has called out Einstein’s name and as brilliant as he was he now awaits judgment, eternal judgment! I wonder how much time he spent considering life after death whilst captivated by endeavouring to prove his “theory of relativity” or many other scientific truths we now hold too. Yes, a brilliant man in deed, but what of it if he no longer has any hope. He no longer houses a human body as he died many years ago, but his soul is well and truly alive, he is in a spiritual conscientious state of mind but I can assure you that he is not contemplating any of his “relativity theories” or his political view which was, “I advocate world government because I am convinced that there is no other possible way of eliminating the most terrible danger in which man has ever found himself. The objective of avoiding total destruction must have priority over any other objective.”  (Albert Einstein, 1947) – And yet he never flew the gospels banner. 

Judgment awaits all who reject Christ sacrifice on Calvary; now whether he accepted it or rejected it I have arrived at a conclusion, but I will not voice my opinion, God will judge in righteousness and His judgments will be perfect, for He is perfect! Did Einstein’s efforts help the world, yes! But did he call upon the name of the Lord to find forgiveness for his sin? Time will tell! You see there are many different things we hope for, a student hopes for a degree; a married woman for a child, a sportsman for a trophy and a politician for votes. Once those dreams have arrived we then need to look for new hope, until eventually we breathe our last and then what? The world and most of its inhabitants have been duped into believing the greatest of all lies; we “hope” all will be well when our loved ones pass from this life into the next; this type of hope is futile! I tell you on the authority of God’s Word, without Christ’s blood covering our loved ones they will be doomed to an eternity of torment in hell. 

I suggest that if Uncle Albert’s knew what he now knows, most if not all of his time would be dedicated to getting this message out; that without Christ’s sacrificial covering everything ever achieved in live will ultimately be in vain. And there was a wise man, far wiser than most that shares my sentiments, or rather I share his, his name is King Solomon, King David’s son and he had this to say; “and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 12: 7-8) – “My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12: 12-14)

Hope for an existence with God in heaven overshadows every other hope, there is nothing that we must place above this hope, we do loose our way at times but when we remember our hope, how sweet is the reality of that thought. It is sweeter than honey in the rock. Look at a man like Moses, what a great example! He was adopted by Pharaohs daughter when she discovered him amongst the reeds on the banks of the Nile River. He was entitled to ever privileged the palace had to offer and yet he chose to lead God’s people through a barren land without any of those luxuries he was once entitled too. WHY? It should be obvious! He understood “eternal hope” and the potential it has on offer; “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.” (Hebrews 11:24-28) 

   

Let us then embrace our hope in faith, as God has promise to get us home, we must trust and obey. Help us to learn to obey please Father as we know in whom we have believed, praise the glorious name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen!

Signing off

Tyrone

    

Half-full or Half-empty?

(James 2:17) “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Another day like the day before, instead of the glass “half-full” I find myself erring on “half-empty”. I have so many thoughts travelling through my mind that it is hard to hold onto one. This morning as I sit near the fire, as it now rages, finally the wood although initially a little wet is now serving its purpose, it is fuelling the fire! I have come to love this time of day, the sun far from appearing and the still of the night as silent as a thieving mouse. There is a beauty in this stillness, and not all understand what I am learning love; initially getting up early in the mornings with the intention of finding some sort of discipline to my life with these blogs was tough. But now I am thankful on so many fronts. We are now well into the winter months and even the birds are silent! I sit at my desk and just relish my time in front of this keyboard with my great God and Saviour. These are sobering moments.

Why is it that we have to learn lessons that are painful? I know the answer, but at times I wish it wasn’t so! Sin, has robbed me of so much through life and even with the glorious Word of God, the Bible and all it teaches, lesson are learnt only when we are hard pressed, when our bodies and emotions take strain. It is failure that brings us to our knees, but how terrible is it when we fail. It is through these experiences that we learn, or should learn, to become more dependent upon our Lord and Saviour and the finished work of the cross.

I am rather fascinated but somewhat discussed at times how I seem to forget what I have learnt. Let me use an illustration to exemplify; for awhile now I have suffered from reflux and live on medication to help combat its advances. But there are a few tricks that help; avoid white bread, lots of sweets and a few other things. Although I am aware of this, I seem to forget the effect this can have on me when the acid is at bay. This should never happen as I am aware of its downside but it does, take last night for example; I overindulged with sweets and chocolates and then I feel asleep, but not long into my rest I woke up choking, yes this is a common occurrence, however what I eat does effect the severity of my reflux and yet I sometimes ignore what I have already learnt, go figure!

Now it does not stop there although it should, there are many areas of my life where I seem to stumble in application. When the Apostle James was bold to point this out to his fellow brethren; I confess it was with me in mind: - “Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.” (James 1:13-16)

“If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.” (James 2:8-11)

He then hammers home the point; “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” (James 2:26) – So then it is not enough to talk the walk we need to learn to walk the walk; “but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” (James 3:8-10) – He challenges us to examine our own faith and to test it; “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” (James 2:14-18)

This type of application has to become part of our lives; we must at least in principle resolve to find it by the grace of God. However like any good teacher he does leave us without some clear instruction to follow; “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5:13-16) 

Signing off

Tyrone

 

 

 

   

The little foxes!

(Song of Solomon 2:15) “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines.”

How often have you heard the phrase, it’s only a “little lie”, or a “white lie”? The truth of the matter is a lie is what keeps someone from the truth. It has an agenda, and there is nothing “white” about it! In fact sin actually began with the human race in the Garden of Eden with a lie; it is the liar that lures us into sin. Whether we swindler ourselves in order to find justification for our actions or someone else misrepresentation the actual facts, it still results in the same outcome, SIN! Let’s use an illustration to help us position ourselves; the devil is the father of lies, it all began with him! So then we have the “father of lies” on the one side and we have God who lets say is the “Father of love” on the other, love and truth great allies! “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1John 4:8) - If someone habitually lies, they then prove their allegiance to their father who is the devil! But before I run away with myself lets back this up with scripture... “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) – So then anything that is contrary to the truth comes from him! He is the root of all sin! This is why the gospel is such a glorious message for all who believe, we now have a new Father, Almighty God has afforded us the privilege to address him as “Abba Father”. It is through adoption that we have been ushered into His family. It was and only ever will be the Lord Jesus who has made the way, praise His name! He has defeated the devil, He has defeated the liar! And we now have His Spirit, in fact His Spirit actually lives within us; “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2Corinthians 6:16) – This does not make a reference to whether we drink coffee, eat sweets or have a glass of wine etc. There is a far deeper implication to being the temple of God, in today’s context if we accommodate a lie or a liars then we defile the temple, but when we declare the truth we uphold the temple of God! If we say we must respect other religions that oppose God then we defile the temple, as we accommodate a lie, but when we declare that the Lord Jesus is the only way, the only truth and the only life, regardless of its outcome, prison and the like, we then uphold the truth and speak out against the liar! The Lord Jesus’ ministry here on earth was full of this type of contention! He came to speak the truth and we must also seek it out.   

This morning I pray that we would have our eyes opened to the deception of sin and the intricacy that it has on our lives, we must be sharp to its trickery and the first thing we like to do is look at others, instead of looking at ourselves, this is very important! A good soldier does not entangle himself with trivia, but focus on the job at hand. So my Great Jehovah God help me, help us, all who have this desire to be alert and honed to the dishonesty of sin like never before, open our eyes to it, help us see with acute clarity. I know that you hear our prayer, for we ask it in the name of Jesus our Saviour and we know we are heard because it is in accordance with your will. For your Word has taught us that all who name the name of Jesus must depart from sin! We often fail, but understand at least in part the magnificence of your mercy and grace, but for some of us (me) our lives have been so filled with squandering your grace that I have often found myself weeping when I reflect on the past. Help us become more like our Saviour and bring glory to your majestic name, for you alone are worthy of all praise!

We (believers) must learn to lose our blinkers; we must not let the “little sins” rob us of walking in victory; it is sin that keeps us from walking in love! Let us not look to quantify, but rather be on the look-out for the little foxes in our lives.

“A little thorn may cause much suffering. A little cloud may hide the sun. Little foxes spoil the vines; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart. These little sins burrow in the soul, and make it so full of that which is hateful to Christ, that he will hold no comfortable fellowship and communion with us. A great sin cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make him miserable. Jesus will not walk with his people unless they drive out every known sin. He says, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” Some Christians very seldom enjoy their Saviour’s presence. How is this? Surely it must be an affliction for a tender child to be separated from his father. Art thou a child of God, and yet satisfied to go on without seeing thy Father’s face? What! thou the spouse of Christ, and yet content without his company! Surely, thou hast fallen into a sad state, for the chaste spouse of Christ mourns like a dove without her mate, when he has left her. Ask, then, the question, what has driven Christ from thee? He hides his face behind the wall of thy sins. That wall may be built up of little pebbles, as easily as of great stones. The sea is made of drops; the rocks are made of grains: and the sea which divides thee from Christ may be filled with the drops of thy little sins; and the rock which has well nigh wrecked thy barque, may have been made by the daily working of the coral insects of thy little sins. If thou wouldst live with Christ, and walk with Christ, and see Christ, and have fellowship with Christ, take heed of “the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.” Jesus invites you to go with him and take them. He will surely, like Samson, take the foxes at once and easily. Go with him to the hunting.” (C.H.Spurgeon)

Signing off

Tyrone

Ruler Supreme!

(1John 5:14) “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”

Can anything ultimately keep us from the love of God? Our immediate answer must be no! Why? Because there is nothing that can or ever will defeat God; “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)

 

God is the ruler supreme and yet with all His power He rules under the banner of love, yes He is the only true God but He is also our Father, who loves His children, because we have learnt and are still learning to love His Son, praise His glorious name! But having now stated the obvious we must understand our role as believers, we do now have a responsibility to walk in love, but that will take obedience to God’s Word and not opinion polls or preconceived ideas; “Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.” (John 14:22-24)

  

And only the elected will be equipped to keep his Words; all those whom He elected before the foundation of the earth: - Ephesians 1 – Probably the trickiest of all self examination is this, am I amongst those elected by God! Somewhere alone life’s journey we all ask this question and we must ask it! It is important to understand how true love operates; it definitely does not take the easy out, sin does! Do we always look for the easy out and succumb to sin, I know I am often guilty as charged, how about you? An Institution is not only ever filled with model students and if God has come to save sinners and not the righteous, what kinds of characters does He begin with! Those who receive adoption are often the off-scouring of the earth. God has a majestic brilliance about the way He chooses to reveal His glory, the way he exalts His name is often totally opposite to the way men deal with each other. His ways are far above our ways; “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33)

We must ask ourselves this question, am I subjected to God’s discipline when I ignore His Word? You alone can answer that question! If our answer is No! Then we need to fall to our knees and plead forgiveness for our sin and seek out salvation in and through the Lord Jesus Christ; forget religious intuitions and their traditions and what liars they may tell you, it is all about self-examination. Let’s say somewhere along life’s journey I responded to an alter call, but since then my life has continue with very little change and no discipline to it. Then I must conclude this may well have been a man-centred response to what I thought was salvation. This is simply not good enough; we must have a will in our hearts to love God and we prove this by looking to keep His Word. Even the apparent problem children (I fall under this category) will have a burning desire to eventually seek out obedience in pleasing our great Father by putting a smile on our great Saviour face when they seek out God’s will even if it may seem an impossible task as some often find themselves having to dust off their knees. We may have been batted and bruised along the way, mostly due to our own disobedience, but God who is love does not operate as men BUT AS GOD! He disciplines those whom He loves! If we are without discipline then we do not belong to Him, we have not received His Spirit, and we may even think we are but in fact we are bastards and not sons. Can I prove this statement from scripture? Yes! – “And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ”My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” (Hebrews 12:5-8) - And there will be many that fall under this category! - "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'” (Matthew 7:21-23) 

The question we need to ask ourselves is how do we respond to God’s discipline? Will we be like Samson, although he found himself enslaved and without eyes because he disobeyed God’s Word, yet through the acceptance of God’s discipline his hair once again began to grow as he called out to his God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our God! And he killed more enemies in his death that throughout his life; he is mention in the faith chapter of the bible, Hebrews 11! Regardless of our mistakes along the way (not that we should take them lightly, they will and must carry serve consquences), how is it that we respond to God’s discipline, let us not become bitter and twisted but rather thankful for it, whatever it may be, as it is for our good; “And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Romans 8:27-30) – It is all about His will and not ours, yes we are and will be the beneficiaries of His grace, yes we will be called the sons of God and yes we will receive a glorified body just like our Lord and Saviours. But it will always be about God’s will and not our wants if they oppose the Word of God. If we ask anything in accordance with His will we will receive what we ask, if not, then obviously we ask according to our wills which in turn are not aligned with His will. “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” (1John 5:14) - The theory is not difficult to understand! Therefore it is His will we must come to grips with as we learn to practically apply in to our lives!

Tomorrow, Lord willing, we will look at the little foxes that spoil the vine and rob us from walking in God’s love.

Signing off

Tyrone   

 

           

The test of love!

(1John 3:18) “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

Is it possible to measure our love for God? Not measured by others or members of our church but individually. Let us call it a self examination of the “character of love” but without any suppositions or emotions attached. As an exercise let us only draw from scripture and see what our conclusion will be. I already know the answer, but need to find proof for it from scripture. There are two questions I need answered and nothing outside of scripture will do. The first; do I love God? Obviously my answer would be yes you know I do Lord, as you know all things, nevertheless the fear I have is that I may well receive the same reply that Simon bar Jonah received; (John 21) No! I am convinced of it! Secondly what keeps me from loving God? If anything!

It seems the more I focus on achieving a certain objective the harder I find it, and I am not making reference to trivia. We must understand the theory with absolute clarity before we will be able to achieve perfect results. Take the “theory of relativity”; “The Theory of relativity was developed by Albert Einstein in the early 1900s. There are two theories of relativity. The first is Special Relativity and the second is General Relativity. Both are based on the Principle of relativity, which was created by Galileo Galilei in the 1600s.” Now I know that if you are reading this your mind has now been heightened as it is on the edge of its capacity, for some anyway! I am about to lose some of you, but stay with me as it will highlight a valid point.

“Special Relativity says that every person has their own time. One person's clock says something different from another person's clock. The reason a person's time can be different from another's is because of Time Dilation, which can be thought of more easily by the Twin Paradox.

The Twin Paradox shows how time changes because of speed and mass. The faster someone or something moves or the more mass they have, then the slower time passes for them. This is shown by a pair of twins. Imagine that the first twin moves at a fast speed, near the speed of light for example, while the other twin stays in one general location. When the first twin returns from his trip, he will be younger than the second twin. Thus time and speed are related. - Speed and mass affect how fast time moves.” (Simple English Wikipedia) 

We then could look at General Relativity which then adds gravity to the equation, but enough has been said to prove our point. We must understand the theory well to end up with accurate answers. It is no different in applying accurate doctrine to our lives, if we are to walk obediently before a holy God.

Do we love God? There are many scripture that we are able to test our love against... John the beloved disciple is full of instruction and here are some of his teachings. But remember for this exercise we would take any suppositions and emotions out of the equation. But before we look into the “mirror of love” we must understand that God will never require anything from us that He has not proved, He is the greatest of leaders as He always leads by example. He would not require us to love if He had not first loved us; "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) – Here He proves His love! It is by His action that we are able to test the measure of His love.

Here are some of those tests: - “But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:” (1John 2:5) – “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1John 2:15) – “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” (1John 3:1) – “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” (1John 3:10) – “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” (1John 3:11) – “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” (1John 3:16) - But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? (1John 3:17) – “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (1John 3:18) 

There is much more John has to say on the subject but for the sake of time I trust enough has been said. We must come to grips with the theory before we can find the correct application in our lives, we must understand what it is that the Apostle John is teaching us, let us read through these verses carefully and then we will be able to look into the “mirror of love” with a clearer understanding. I am guilty as charged, were do you stand? We need to be more resolute in these areas of our lives and it is only the grace of God that will equip us to find true application to our lives. I now have a clearer understanding of what it is I must appropriate to my life, it would not help us to point fingers at others, we stand and fall before our Heavenly Father, and He alone will pass sentence as He chooses to discipline if need be. However, it is possible to test our love for God; scripture through John has proved it! Lord willing, tomorrow we look at what hinders us from living in God’s love.

There is a lot more to be said on his subject, so maybe over the next few posts we can unpack this a little deeper.

Signing off

Tyrone