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Retired pastor

Daily Bible thoughts 973: Tuesday 22nd September 2015: Psalm 119:33-40: ‘’Teach me’’

Psalm 119:33-40: ‘’Teach me’’(please click here for the Bible Passage)

‘’It is only with God’s help that we can even begin to keep God’s law.’’ Tom Hale: ‘The applied Old Testament Commentary, p.912.

‘’The spirit of dependence continues with nine requests in eight verses…The section is in three parts:33-35, total commitment, keeping God’s word with the whole heart; 36-37, inner threats, the divided heart; 38-40, divine, faithful care and supply.’’ J.A.Motyer: ‘The New Bible Commentary, p.567.

As we focus on verse 33 today, please remember that God wants ‘doers’ of His Word and not just ‘hearers’.

When I was a young boy I started to have piano lessons. I was unable to play the piano and I needed someone who could (an expert) to teach me how. A teacher is someone who is further on than you in knowledge and ability. They help you know what you don’t know and do what you can’t do.

The Bible is to be obeyed. More to the point, God is to be obeyed. He is ‘’LORD’’. Our obedience to it (to Him) is not meant to be spasmodic; hit and miss, but continuous. God’s ‘’decrees’’ are to be kept ‘’to the end’’. For this to happen we will need a Teacher. We have the very best. The One who wrote the Book will be your personal tutor. Begin each session with your Bible with a prayer to the Divine Author: ‘’Teach me…’’ But let that always be with a view to obedience: ‘’Teach me…then…’’ As you read your Bible today are you looking for directions; wanting to see what you must ‘’follow’’? It is important to not only read the Bible but also pray before you read. Be humble enough to ask for help. Don’t assume that you can just suss it out for yourself. Yes, of course, apply your mind; use the wonderful mental ability God has given you. Think. But do it all prayerfully. Stay in the place of humble dependence on God. When I got into my teenage years, for a time my mum arranged for me to have a personal tutor in maths, because I was struggling a bit as I approached my ‘G.C.E.’ exams. He was convinced that he could help me. (I think he was less certain after a few weeks!! But that’s another story!) Mum had to pay for this personal tuition, but our ‘lessons’ with the Divine tutor are totally free. What a gift! What a Teacher! Make the most of the opportunity. You, who are book lovers, just think if you could have an hour with your favourite author! How excited you would be. Yet our Christian privileges go way beyond that.

I think one of the ways God teaches us to stay on the right road is by allowing us to experience the consequences of taking wrong turnings. These sobering and salutary experiences encourage us to keep listening to God’s ‘Satnav’, and to heed His map. Stay on the clearly marked path today.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I still can’t play the piano! I can read a bit of music, and that is, in part, a legacy from that time. But I cannot play the instrument I love so much. When I was a young boy, the call of riding my bike was louder than the need to tediously labour over scales. It was getting more and more difficult to practice, and I gave up. Mum told me I would regret it, and I do. She was right. But I can’t expect to play. I gave up on my lessons. Don’t do that with the Bible. Keep asking the Teacher to teach you.

Prayer: ‘’GOD, teach me lessons for living, so I can stay the course.’’ The Message.

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Daily Bible thoughts 972: Monday 21st September 2015: 2 Thessalonians 1:12b: Serving grace.

 2 Thessalonians 1:12b: Serving grace.(please click here for todays Bible passage)

‘’…according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.’’

Everything in the Christian life is ‘’…according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.’’

This applies to:

  • Our entire experience of salvation (5-10);
  • The ability to persevere through trials (3,4);
  • The answers to prayers for spiritual growth (11, 12). In our passage it seems to particularly relate to this latter point – and especially to the request about the double glorification: Christ in us and us in Him.

Grace is (God’s) undeserved favour. Everything we receive from God comes to us as an unearned and undeserved gift. We can’t boast about these things or consider that we merit them. We don’t.

John Stott wrote that not only is there saving grace, but there is also such a thing as serving grace. It takes grace to make a person into a Christian; but it also requires grace to live as a Christian. We sometimes fail to grasp this. We can’t live the Christian life from out of our finite resources, but according to God’s infinite riches.

Grace:

  • It is God’s undeserved blessing on our lives in Christ;
  • It is the divinely bestowed ability to live the life of a Christian disciple;
  • It is deeply humbling and reminds us that we will always be incapable on our own;
  • It brings us to our knees in wonder and causes us to sing that it is

‘’Grace is behind and through all of this, our God giving himself freely, the Master, Jesus Christ, giving himself freely.’’ The Message.

Could there be a more fitting conclusion to this first chapter? It provides the key to everything we have read in it.

Prayer: Thank you that I am not alone, or left to my own devices.

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Daily Bible thoughts 971: Friday 18th September 2015: 2 Thessalonians 1: 11, 12

 2 Thessalonians 1: 11, 12(please click here for todays passage)

Paul practiced what he preached! (11a; 1 Thessalonians 5:17). It wasn’t a case of just, ‘Do as I say’, but ‘Do as I do.’ We can’t be continually saying prayers, but we can live in a spirit of prayer. It’s been said that you can take the teaching of Jesus on prayer, as you find it in the gospels, and essentially summarise it in one word – perseverance. Stick with it. Never stop praying for the church; don’t stop asking for each other’s spiritual growth. There is a link between what is requested and what happens. Do you believe this?

‘’Understand that God hears every prayer you pray in Jesus’ name – and that he will either do exactly what you ask, or something even better, which he probably would not have done had you not asked (Mt.7:7-11).’ Steve Fuller.

What did Paul pray here?

  • That God would count them worthy of His calling (11c). He already saw this happening in their persistence and progress through persecution (5), but Paul was not one to rest on his laurels. We have seen elsewhere in the Thessalonian correspondence that where Paul saw a good fire going he was quick to put on another log or two (1 Thessalonians 4: 1, 2; 9, 10).
  • That God would enable them to do everything that was in their hearts to do (11b). He wasn’t asking that the Lord would enable them to do every single thing that entered their heads, but everything that God put into their hearts to perform.
  • In all of this, his heart’s desire was to see Jesus ‘’glorified’’ in His church (12a).
  • But he also looked to the ultimate goal of believers being ‘’glorified’’ in Christ (12b). When someone becomes a Christian, a process is set in motion that will lead finally to their glorification – to their being made perfectly in the image of Jesus and shining with His glory. This final outcome is so certain that Paul could write about it as if it had already happened, even when it hadn’t. But, for him, God’s sovereign purposes were so certain and sure it was as good as done. God finishes what he starts.

Prayer: Lord remind me to pray for the spiritual growth of my brothers and sisters, and help me to believe, as Paul clearly did, that praying will make a difference.

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Daily Bible thoughts 970: Thursday 17th September 2015: 2 Thessalonians 1: 5-10: Pay back.

 2 Thessalonians 1: 5-10: Pay back.(please click here for todays message)

‘’God is just…’’ (6a). You may not want to hear that. You may prefer it if I say ‘’God is love’’ (1 John 4:16). Both statements are in fact true of God. His love is seen especially in that He has made a way for us to be forgiven through Jesus. But if we reject His way we will keep our sins and we will experience His justice (8). If we refuse ‘’the gospel’’ – the good news of Jesus, then we will be left facing the bad news of eternal punishment. The offer of the gospel is addressed to the human will and it can be declined (8). There has to be a response of faith (10b).This passage could hardly be clearer in spelling out the results of such rejection.

At least three things stand out here:

  • God will ‘’pay back trouble’’ to the church’s troublers (6). The apparent triumph of the persecutors is but for a season. ‘’You’re suffering now, but justice is on the way. When the Master Jesus comes out of heaven in a blaze of fire with his strong angels, he’ll even up the score by settling accounts with those who gave you such a bad time.’’ The Message. (See also Isaiah 66:15, 16; Matthew 13:40-43; Luke 3:17).
  • God will ‘’give relief’’ to His suffering people, and to all who care about them (7).
  • Those who do not want Him will not have Him: ‘’Those who refuse to know God and refuse to obey the Master will pay for what they’ve done. Eternal exile from the presence of the Master and his splendid power is their sentence.’’ The Message. To my mind (9) expresses the essence of Hell. Those who do not want God’s company/companionship in this life will not have it in the next. As Jim Packer notes in his fine book, ‘Knowing God’, ultimately all that the Lord will do in judgment will be to underline the choices we have already made. Surely no-one can read the words in 2 Thessalonians and not see that there is going to be a day of division, of separation in the universe. Not everyone will get to live with Christ in heaven because many have made it clear they do not want Him. We will not all live ‘’happily ever after.’’

As someone said, ‘’We make our choices, and then our choices turn around and make us.’’

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Daily Bible thoughts 969: Wednesday 16th September 2015: 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4: The snail and the Ark.

 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4: The snail and the Ark.(please click here for todays passage)

I remember well the May night in 1999 when Manchester United won their first European Championship under the management of Alex Ferguson, in the Nou Camp Stadium, Barcelona. Really and truly, United looked like they had been screwed down by the efficient German team, Bayern Munich, who took a one nil lead in with them at half time. But throughout the second period there was a sense of growing momentum with the Manchester team. They kept trying; coming back at Bayern in wave after wave. With a matter of minutes to spare, Teddy Sheringham scraped an equaliser. Then on came ‘super-sub’, the Norwegian striker Ole Gunner Solskjaer. With almost his first touch of the ball he scored from a corner, and United had won an improbable victory. Interviewed after the match, an elated Alex Ferguson said he was so proud of his team. ‘They never gave in’, he said. It was obvious to everyone watching that this was the case. They refused to be beaten.

However much the odds may seem to be stacked against you, God will help you to keep going if you trust in Him. That was the experience of the Thessalonians. This church was persecuted from the beginning (see 1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:5), but, with Divine help, they never gave up.

In his opening thanksgiving (a thanksgiving that Paul says is right and should be continuous), he expresses appreciation for:

  • Their ever-increasing faith (3a);
  • Their continuously growing love (3b);
  • Their endurance in trials (4).

These things surely link to the triad of graces we saw in the first letter as hallmarks of genuine Christianity: faith, love and hope.

The wind was blowing fiercely against the Thessalonians, but they just kept going.

Perseverance has been called ‘’stick-to-it-iveness.’’

C.H. Spurgeon said, ‘’By perseverance the snail made it to the ark.’’

It is said that Sir Winston Churchill spoke at his old school and delivered the shortest message of his political career: ‘’Never give in; never give in; never give in!’’

There are more serious things at stake than a football result. So, ‘’Never give in.’’

Prayer: Lord, at times life is so hard. You know this for you lived here as a Man, and you experienced the worst that this world had to throw at you. Still, you endured. Please give me the grace to follow your pattern.

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Daily Bible thoughts 968: Tuesday 15th September 2015: Jeremiah 16: 19-21: Living on smoke.

 Jeremiah 16: 19-21: Living on smoke.(please click here for todays passage)

‘’The godless nations will come from earth’s four corners, saying, ‘’Our ancestors lived on lies, useless illusions, all smoke.’’ Can mortals manufacture gods? Their factories turn out no-gods’’ The Message.

This lovely prayer of Jeremiah’s (19-21) comes at the end of another rather dismal chapter, and it should encourage us. Someone described prayer as ‘’the flight of the lonely man to the only God.’’ This particular prayer is ‘’a burst of faith and prophetic joy…’’ Warren W. Wiersbe: ‘The Wiersbe Bible Commentary (OT), p.1228.

Jeremiah’s Strength (19a): We have seen that Jeremiah had a difficult calling. He lived a lonely life. He was single and childless and had very few friends. He had a message to give that made him deeply unpopular with the majority. He was persecuted for his beliefs. He was ‘’like a speckled bird, set on by all the birds of the flock.’’ F.B. Meyer: ‘Great verses through the Bible’, p.300. So how did he manage to go on? God was his strength. Let that thought put fresh nerve into you today. If Jeremiah could persevere with God’s help, then you certainly can!

Jeremiah’s refuge (19a): Jeremiah was repeatedly attacked, verbally and even physically. But God was real to him. Jeremiah entrusted himself to God. He was conscious of being enveloped within the impregnable walls of God’s love (Romans 8:39). The Lord was his ‘’fortress’’ and ‘’refuge’’; his place of safety. In the midst of your pain and hardship God wants you to know this reality.

Jeremiah’s confidence (19b, 20): Although he was ostracised and largely rejected in his own day, Jeremiah was enabled to see that a day would come when the Gentile nations would flock into God’s Kingdom. We are living in these prophetically foreseen days right now. The church is growing and spreading all over the world (see Isaiah 2:1-4; Micah 4: 1, 2; see Habakkuk 2:14). Many people are seeing the idolatrous mirages they have trusted in for what they are. They are recognising that they have been living on ‘’lies’’, ‘’illusions’’ and ‘’smoke’’. God is able to do this. He breaks the stronghold of idolatry over minds and hearts. As Jeremiah prayed, God spoke (21). What God said was that He would do the very thing that Jeremiah saw that He would do. God’s Word informs and strengthens and shapes our prayers. God is able to change people; He is even capable of influencing  whole nations. You may be in a dark place, as Jeremiah was, but God can light up your life with an awareness of something significant He is yet to do. His bright ‘torch light’ can penetrate your ‘fog’.

Prayer: ‘’Let God speak, and I will listen.’’

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Daily Bible thoughts 967: Monday 14th September 2015: Jeremiah 16: Some further thoughts.

Jeremiah 16: Some further thoughts.(please click here for todays notes)

Here are some further observations on this chapter:

  • Verse 5 contains a warning for the church today. Think about the letters to the seven churches in the book of ‘Revelation’. ‘Lights’ can go out. ‘Candles’ can be extinguished. God can withdraw His blessing. Someone made the point that the local church is never more than a generation away from extinction. We can’t just live how we please and think that all will be well. God, in His patience, may well give us time to repent, but the time will not be infinite. A day will come when it is too late to change.
  • See once again that a note of hope is embedded within a message of severe judgment (14, 15). Jeremiah was enabled to see that there was going to be a second and greater ‘exodus’. In future days people would see the deliverance from Babylonian as the supreme example of God’s power in Israel’s history – even more than ‘the great escape’ from Egypt. (There is a repeated theme in this book that God will not destroy his people ‘’completely’’ : 4:27; 5:10, 18; 30:11; 46:28; see Psalm 94:14; Romans 11:1-5). When Jeremiah wrote, God’s revelation was not complete. Jesus, God’s final Word to mankind had not yet come. We now know that the supreme demonstration of God’s delivering power in human history was displayed at the cross where Jesus died for our sins.
  • Nothing is hidden from God (16-18; see 17:10). We are well and truly ‘bugged’. Jesus has ‘X-Ray vision (Revelation 1:14b).
  • Essentially, what God does in judgment is to give people what they have chosen (13). They would be where there hearts were – with their gods in the land of their gods. “When you tell this to the people and they ask, ‘Why is God talking this way, threatening us with all these calamities? We’re not criminals, after all. What have we done to our God to be treated like this?’ tell them this: ‘It’s because your ancestors left me, walked off and never looked back. They took up with the no-gods, worshiped and doted on them, and ignored me and wouldn’t do a thing I told them. And you’re even worse! Take a good look in the mirror—each of you doing whatever you want, whenever you want, refusing to pay attention to me. And for this I’m getting rid of you, throwing you out in the cold, into a far and strange country. You can worship your precious no-gods there to your heart’s content. Rest assured, I won’t bother you anymore.’ ’’ The Message.

Beware of what you set your heart on, for it will surely be yours!

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Daily Bible thoughts 966: Friday 11th September 2015: Jeremiah 16: The cost of ministry.

 Jeremiah 16: The cost of ministry.(please click here for todays passage)

In his remarkable book, ‘Intercessor’, Rees Howells says something along these lines: ‘’The Holy Ghost was stricter with me than any schoolmaster.’’ This Welsh man had a remarkable ministry in prayer, but there was a lot of self-denial and self-sacrifice behind the scenes. God will sometimes deny a person certain legitimate things for His own good reasons. He has a particular purpose for each life. We are not to compare ourselves with others, but faithfully do what the Lord asks of us (John 21: 20-23).

There is a price to be paid for an effective ministry. Indeed, there is a price to pay for a high profile ministry. Although, humanly speaking, he was largely unsuccessful in his day, and unpopular, Jeremiah has become one of the most famous names in history. But there was a price tag attached to what he said and did.

It must have been hard for a man ‘’of Jeremiah’s affectionate and sympathetic nature’’ to obey the commands in (2, 5 and 8). But this was part of his message. It gave him a platform to speak (10ff).

‘’When people asked Jeremiah about his strange behaviour, he would have opportunity to declare the Word of God.’’ Warren W. Wiersbe.

His life was his message, in a way. (In a slightly different way, it should be the case for us as well – that the godly way we live backs up what we say, and causes people to ask questions.)

‘’Jeremiah has already used a sign to reinforce his message (13:1-11); now his whole life becomes a sign (1-4). Being unmarried was unusual in ancient Israel, and so his singleness and childlessness stand out as noteworthy. In fact, they are intended by the Lord as a sign that all normal life in Judah will cease…Jeremiah is also forbidden to participate in normal funeral ceremonies, as a sign that death will be so widespread in Judah that such mourning ceremonies will become impossible (5-7). Gordon McConville: ‘New Bible Commentary’, p.686.

Jeremiah was also told that this was no time for feasting (8).

So, he was a lonely man: unmarried, childless, and with few friends. Someone pointed out that what Jeremiah was called to was tantamount to self-imposed excommunication. Perhaps these things were the kind of increased difficulty envisaged in (12:5).

‘’Jeremiah’s apparently anti-social conduct was to be a witness to the devastation that was about to descend upon Judah, when all normal activities of a community would cease.’’ A.E. Cundall.

How unpopular are you prepared to be for the cause of God in this world? As we will go on to see, although Jeremiah trod a lonely path, he was not alone. He had a ‘’refuge’’ (19). So do you and me. He will be our ‘’strength’’ to carry on.

Prayer: I am grateful Lord that when you ask something of us, you also help us to do that thing. Otherwise we would never have the courage or fortitude or ability to get on with the job.

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Daily Bible thoughts 965: Thursday 10th September 2015: Psalm 119: 25-32: Watch where you run (Part 2).

 Psalm 119: 25-32: Watch where you run (Part 2).(please click her for todays notes)

Some years ago we had a guest preacher visit our church and in one message he declared, ‘I want to be Bible man!’ I’ve never forgotten those words. That was the determination of the psalmist also. In yesterday’s reading, we considered how this passage shows the renewing power of God’s Word (25), the strengthening power of God’s Word (28) and the keeping power of God’s Word (29). But to experience all of this, there has to be a definite commitment, on our part, to the Bible.

We must:

Choose it (30a): There is a definite choice to be made in order to become ‘Bible man’ or ‘Bible woman’. We must choose to have God’s Word at the very core of our lives; we won’t drift into such a commitment. But it’s one a believer can make because of God’s work in his ‘’heart’’, setting him ‘’free’’ for the life of obedience (32b).

Set our hearts on it (30b; see also Colossians 3:1): Within this there is a recognition that we must look to the Divine Author of Scripture for understanding (26b, 27). ‘’There is a heavenly wisdom, which can only be acquired from the lips of the Greatest of Teachers, at whose feet Mary sat.’’ F.B.Meyer.

Hold fast to it (31a): Meditation (27b) helps us to do just this. ‘’I grasp and cling to whatever you tell me…’’ Meditation helps you to ‘keep’ whatever it is that you are learning in your reading of the Bible. Yesterday we thought a little about George Muller and the place God’s Word had in his life. He saw it as his first duty each morning to ensure that his soul was supremely happy in God. For him, that meant starting the day meditating on the Scriptures, and then he turned those meditations into prayers.

Run in it (32a): Yesterday morning I left my home around 6 a.m. and ran along a clearly marked path by the River Wharfe in Boston Spa. That’s an image I have in my mind as I read (32a) – something of the joy and freedom, as well as the effort and discipline of running. But the run takes place on a path I have not made. I get the sense, in this psalm, of someone who delights to be out on these well-travelled paths. It’s not drudgery to him.

As ever, Alec Motyer has some insightful comments on the passage before us: ‘’Humiliation (25), weariness (28), temptation (29), potential disappointments (31) are all part of life. Things ‘get us down’ (25, ‘My soul cleaves to the dust’), life becomes too much (28, ‘My soul is sleepless with depression’). But more than anything else, the time of trouble is to be a time of prayer. These eight verses contain seven prayers…The time of trouble is also a time of special commitment, to fix the mind on his wonderful word (27), to choose and set the heart on his truth (30), to meet trouble with obedience (31, ‘I cleave to your statutes’), to make the effort, (‘I will run’). But the time of trouble is also a time of rest, for God will always be true to his word (25b, 28b, 29b better ‘in accordance with your law’). ‘New Bible Commentary’, p.567.

Prayer: ‘’My sad life’s dilapidated, a falling-down barn; build me up again by your Word.’’ The Message (Verse 28).

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