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Daily Bible thoughts 612: Thursday 8th May 2014:

 Psalm 105:12-22

Here are some lessons from the history of Israel about being the covenant people of God:

  • He prospered them (12): I take great encouragement from this verse that the growth of the church is in the Lord’s Hands. It’s not that we have nothing to do but ”…God…makes things grow.” (1 Cor.3:8). We know that this tiny group was to become a great nation. God can take the ”few indeed” and make them many. (Just recently I heard about a small group of Christians meeting in a home. They have now grown to be more than 60 people and hire a church building for their Sunday evening services. This is a wonderful story of growth in our day. Jesus is the builder of His church, and we should not despise the day of small things.)
  • He protected them (14, 15; Gen.35:5): Even when they made serious errors of judgment God took care of them (Gen.12:10-20; 20:1-18; 26:1-11). Note, by the way, that Abraham was the first person in the Bible to be called a prophet (15; see Gen.20:7)
  • He provided for them (16-22): However, God’s protection did not mean that they were always shielded from hard times. A famine came into the land of Canaan (Gen.41:56, 57). Times were hard and the situation they faced was deathly serious (16). But God’s providence meant that He ”sent a man before them” into Egypt (17). It was, someone said, an ”anticipatory providence’ ‘At first things didn’t look good for Joseph (17, 18). But Joseph had a divine gift to interpret dreams accurately. In God’s timing, that ability was his ticket out of prison. In an astounding reversal he was raised to high office in the land, becoming second only to Pharaoh. He was lifted from jail to serve God’s purposes. Effectively he was authorised to rule, and he saved the people. God’s man suffered terribly, but the Lord was working in grace and mercy to have a ruler in Egypt to welcome and feed His needy people. (When you look at Joseph’s story closely you see that there are remarkable parallels to the life of Jesus, who came to be the Saviour of the world in an even deeper and more meaningful way).

”The Lord not only holds sway over all the earth (7) but executively ordains earth’s events (16). Again we face a mystery, for we cannot trace the paths and patterns of divine providence. But where we cannot understand why this or that experience has been called down, or why necessities of life have been withdrawn from us (16), we can be sure that he is still on the throne…and that he has made a provision for our future…” J.A.Motyer: New Bible Commentary, pp.554, 555

Today you may feel that your feet are bruised, and that in some real way you are in chains. But there is a ”till” in the purposes of God, and at the right time He will bring you out. Trust Him. He is able to do far abundantly above all you can ask or imagine.

Prayer: Help me to believe that in your good timing Lord, a light will shine in every dark place in my life.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 611: Wednesday 7th May 2014:

 2 Corinthians 6:14 – 7:1

There are stark differences between Christians and non- Christians. This is spelled out in the contrasting descriptions given in (14-16). Believers and unbelievers belong to different kingdoms; vastly differing worlds. They don’t speak the same language. Therefore there are certain close relationships (what Paul refers to as being ”yoked together’’) that Christians should not enter into. Paul does not state precisely which he has in mind, but it has long been believed that marriage is a major example. How can you become one with someone who is ”darkness” when you are ”light in the Lord.’’? (Eph.5:8). The Christian in such a situation will usually reason/argue that he or she will win their partner over. Of course it can happen. But the normal flow of events is in the other direction. I heard that Spurgeon was in conversation with a girl from his church who proposed to enter such an unequal partnership. ‘But I’ll pull him up’, she protested. Spurgeon had her stand on a chair in the middle of the room. ‘You pull me up from there,’ he said. She couldn’t, of course. ‘Now let me show you how easy it is for me to pull you down!!’ It is not the case that we are to avoid friendships with people who do not share our faith. But any tying together of our lives is to be avoided. In such a relationship we will constantly pull apart and want to go off in different directions. There will have to be compromise to keep moving forward together, and the disciple of Christ must not compromise his beliefs or commitment to holiness (17 -7:1). The central truth here is that God lives in His church (16), among His people. He also lives in each of us (see 1 Corinthians chapters 3 and 6). We belong to God; we are not our own. Therefore we must put separation between ourselves and anything that would prevent us from fully living out the implications of this relationship. It is a privilege to be God’s people, but it also carries responsibilities.

”Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil?…Don’t link up with those who will pollute you. I want you all for myself…With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends, let’s make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without. Let’s make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God.” The Message.

When you are wearing your best clothes you will do everything you can to avoid staining them or getting them dirty. As a Christian you have a responsibility to be even keener to avoid contact with moral filth. Remember always who you are and whose you are.

Prayer: Lord, if I am going to make a ‘’clean break’’ with everything that would stain my life – and I do want to – I will need your strength. I look to you to help me keep my clothes unstained this day.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 610: Tuesday 6th May 2014:

 2 Corinthians 5: 3-12

”We try to live in such a way that no one will be hindered from finding the Lord by the way we act, and so no one can find fault with our ministry. In everything we do we try to show that we are true ministers of God.” (3, 4a). Here you have a fine personal mission statement for every church leader to adopt. Paul recognised that it’s not just about speaking, but ‘living’, ‘acting’ and ‘showing’. If what people see in your conduct contradicts what you say in your sermons you are going to have a big credibility problem. Here, then, are some hallmarks to be found in a ministry of integrity:

  • Patience in troubles (4b, 5): Hardships will be faced by every faithful leader. It ‘goes with the territory’ as they say. Very few of us in the West know anything of the intensity of the difficulties faced by Paul and certain of his colleagues. But whatever comes our way will still be painful to us. Even if you are only run over by a single-decker bus (whereas Paul got hit by a double-decker), it’s still a bus and it will injure you. But patience in trying circumstances shows a vital connection with the Holy Spirit, as He grows His fruit in you.
  • Commitment to holiness (6): These character traits all speak of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit within you and show you to be the genuine article. It is possible to translate part of this verse as: ”We have proved ourselves by…the holiness of spirit.” It’s good to remember that no-one drifts into holiness. (Note in verse 7 how ”righteousness’ ‘ is both an offensive and defensive weapon. See Eph. 6:13)
  • Faithfully preaching God’s Word (7): There could be a temptation to go quiet and seek out a hiding place when you suffer so much for what you say.
  • God’s power at work in you (7b):
  • Serving as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (7c): You are willing to engage in the spiritual battle. You are not a ‘chocolate soldier’ who melts in the heat of the fight.
  • Serving whatever comes your way (8-10): Even though a gale is blowing against you, you keep on going into the teeth of the biting wind. Nothing can stop you because God has called you.

We can’t reproduce for ourselves the context in which Paul lived and served, nor would we want to. But where we are, where God has called us to be, let us determine, as leaders to be faithful in the way Paul was, so that the way we live is never a stumbling block to anyone.

Prayer: May my life never become a blockage, getting in the way of others who are seeking you Lord. I pray rather that I may be a clean channel through whom you can flow.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 605: Tuesday 29th April 2014:

 Psalm 105:1-11

This psalm starts with a call to give thanks to the Lord, sing praise to Him, worship Him and earnestly pray to Him. All of this is staring us in the face in the opening four verses. It’s a great start! But there is a further element. It is what I will call the evangelistic or missionary aspect: ”make known among the nations what he has done…tell of all his wonderful acts… (1, 2). ”Just standing in church singing praise songs to God is not enough; we then must go out from our churches into the world and proclaim what God has done.” Tom Hale: The applied Old Testament Commentary, p.900. There is this evangelistic spirit in the Old Testament. The Jews were not meant to keep the Lord to themselves, but share Him with the world (see Ps.9:1, 2). ”Hallelujah! Thank GOD! Pray to him by name! Tell everyone you meet what he has done! Sing him songs, belt out hymns, translate his wonders into music! Honor his holy name with Hallelujahs, you who seek GOD.” The Message.

It is a good thing to deliberately ”Remember” (5-7) God’s miracles. When I moved to Leeds in 1983, I was given a copy of a book entitled ‘Fifty glorious years’, produced by ‘Bridge Street’ church to celebrate their ‘golden’ anniversary. I read with excitement and joy various stories of people who were healed during the George Jeffries ‘crusade’, which proved a springboard for this little Christian community to grow significantly. These were remarkable ‘testimonies’ of healing, and I was soon to meet people who knew the individuals whose stories I read. They could verify the truth of the accounts. Even today I regularly think about that little book and am inspired by it. It is right to remember what the Lord has done, and even write it down. It will inspire others who come after us.

It is important to remember that God keeps His promises. This is the central theme of this psalm (compare 11 with 44, 45) He is as good as His Word. A covenant is a freely made commitment of God, a stated intention to be God to Abraham and His descendants, and that they will be His people.”It was made initially with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3, 7; 15:7-21) and then confirmed with Isaac (Genesis 26:2-5) and with Jacob (Genesis 28:10-15). The particular aspect of the covenant emphasized in this psalm is the promise of the land (verse 11). Though individual Israelites might forfeit the enjoyment of the land because of disobedience, God’s promise of the land stands firm forever: God will remember His covenant!” Tom Hale: The Applied Old Testament Commentary, pp.900/901. Of course, it is true to say that God’s covenant with Abraham is not merely ancient history. We also are heirs of the promise given to Abraham (Romans 4:16, 17; Gal.3:6-9). This promise has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ through whom we receive the ”promised land” of an eternal home in heaven.

Prayer: I rest my life on your utter reliability Lord. You are always as good as your Word. Thank you.

 

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 597: Thursday 17th April 2014:

 2 Corinthians 5: 5 – 10

Eternal life begins the moment a person believes in Jesus. This is one of the key messages in John’s gospel. You don’t have to wait until you die to receive it. But it will only be fully entered into at death. So there will always be something of an aching and longing in our hearts while we reside on earth, because God has made us for a purpose that cannot be fully realised in this world of time and sense. We have been made for resurrection life; an eternity in God’s presence (5). In our DNA we know we have a higher purpose. He is the first instalment, the down payment of heaven. Someone said: ‘How do you know you’re going to heaven?’ The answer is: ‘You’ve got a little bit of heaven inside you right now!’ You have ‘heaven on the way to heaven’. A deposit is a part of the full amount and also a commitment that you will receive the remainder. It is a promise. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is the ”deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.(On this subject see also 2 Cor.1:21, 22 and Eph.1:14). ”We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less. The Message.

Believing in this resurrection future and seeing it just over the horizon, makes the heart skip a beat. The conviction provides a confidence (6, 8) for while we are still living in this world. We have a sense, while we still live in the body that a day is coming when we will actually be in the glorious eternal presence of Jesus. (It is not surprising, then, to find Paul writing as he did in Phil. 1:21, 23, especially when you go on to read verse 8 in this chapter.)

”That’s why we live with such good cheer. You won’t see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don’t get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead.” The Message.

None of this can be proved in a scientific sense of course: ”We live by faith, not by sight. ” The world says, ”Seeing is believing” but the Christian says ”Believing is seeing.” Jesus can so prove Himself to you that ‘you know that you know that you know’ and can say, ”Therefore we are always confident…”

Whether we are in this world or the next, the whole purpose of life is to please Jesus, and we are going to be assessed and held accountable for how we have lived and served (9, 10). So not only does the thought of seeing Jesus provide an encouragement to cheerfully press on through everything we face on earth, it also acts as a moral spur to live straight and clean. This great hope we have is both exciting and sobering.

‘’When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming…Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that’s what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions.’’ The Message.

Prayer: Thank you risen Lord Jesus for this Easter hope. May it live in my heart every day of the year.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 556: Wednesday 19th February 2014:

 2 Chronicles 35:1- 6

After the commitment had been made; a definite decision to be wholly God’s (see the end of chapter 34), it was time for celebration (1). But let it be noted that celebratory acts of worship that do not have such radical dedication behind them are mere froth on the surface of the church. At the core of the Passover festival lay the slaughter of the Passover lamb. The death of this animal foreshadowed the sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross (1 Cor. 5:7). It is a paradox that the suffering of Jesus for mankind has given us the greatest ever reason to celebrate. (We need to ensure, by the way, that our celebratory type meetings are to the LORD and not just a chandelier swinging knees up for our own personal enjoyment! Let’s keep the God focus sharp.)

(2)We believe in the ‘priesthood of all believers’: i.e. that every Christian is a ‘priest'(1 Pet. 2:9; Revelation 1:6), having a.) the right and enormous privilege of access to God’s presence through the sacrifice of Jesus (Hebs. 10:19ff.), and b.) a unique ministry with which to serve the Lord. But I don’t know a single ‘priest’ who couldn’t use some encouragement in their life of service. So let’s be proactive in seeking to lift people up. Who can I encourage today?  It’s a terrible thing to ask someone to do a job in church life, but then show no interest in them and what they are doing.(Gordon Macdonald writes beautifully about his wife, Gail: Having learned the discipline of aggressive thanksgiving from her mother, there was rarely a week in my young wife’s life when she did not write or connect with at least 20 people to express her gratitude about something. I came to see this exercise was part of her spiritual disciplines. It was as if she awakened each morning and asked, ”Who can I elevate today by spotlighting something generous they’ve done?” From her I learned the significance of written thank you notes. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that, more than once, I have seen people approach Gail and pull out from their wallet a thank you note she wrote them ten years ago. The Thankful Exchange: Leadership Journal, pp. 75, 76: Fall 2013 )

(3) Josiah exhorted the spiritual leaders to fulfill their calling with servant-hearted devotion to God and His people. He saw that it was essential to their ministry that they, and all the people, should know the presence of God: Put the sacred ark in the temple that Solomon son of David king of Israel built (3). It was also vital that all that they did should be governed by the Word of God: …according to the directions written by David king of Israel and by his son Solomon (4)…doing what the LORD commanded through Moses (6). In addition, they must never forget that they needed the Passover lambs as much as anyone else, for they too were sinners. They had a special work to do, but they were not superior to others.

These must remain as  great priorities for those of us in the contemporary church, i.e. that we are firmly founded on the Holy Scriptures, centred in the cross, and continually seek the manifestation of God’s presence by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer: ‘Come Lord Jesus, pour out your Spirit we pray…pour out your Spirit on us today.’

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DailBible thoughts 785: Tuesday 6th January 2015: Proverbs 23:19-28

Here are three more sayings of the wise men, from that collection of 30 proverbs that begins at chapter 22:17.

The first is a warning against excessive living, particularly with regard to food and drink (19-21). There are practical reasons for self-restraint. If you go down the route of over-indulgence it will take your money and sap your strength and health. Again, we marvel at the down to earth wisdom of the Bible. If only the world heeded it! This could have saved a lot of people a lot of problems over the Christmas season. ‘’Don’t drink too much wine and get drunk; don’t eat too much food and get fat. Drunks and gluttons will end up on skid row, in a stupor and dressed in rags.’’ The Message. Live like that for too long and you may well end up featuring in a documentary about obesity or binge-drinking! Perhaps both!!

The second proverb concerns honouring father and mother throughout life, and bringing joy and delight to them (22-24). Live in a way that will make your parents proud, if at all possible. The writer envisages doing this by obeying the ‘’truth’’ (23) taught by parents. For him, this will mean the truth that is in God’s Word, or in agreement with it. This is an important word to us all. Whatever God our Father has shown us we should cling to tightly, and live it. ‘’Buy truth – don’t sell it for love or money.’’ The Message. ‘’Do not sell the truth at any price…It costs something to live by the truth, but it costs even more to abandon the truth.’’ Warren W. Wiersbe: ‘With the Word’, p.429. (See also Proverbs 4:7)

The third is about the danger of falling into sexual immorality and adultery, and the destructiveness of such behaviour (26-28). This is a repeated theme in ‘Proverbs’. The ‘fruit’ may look delicious on the tree, but once eaten it is found to be poisonous.

How many lives and marriages could be saved by this Bible passage alone!

Prayer: Lord, let your Word spread through all the earth, and cause men to hear and heed its wise truth. Thank you Lord that ‘a fence at the top of the cliff is better than ‘an ambulance at the bottom.’ Thank you for your ‘fences’ – lovingly put in place to protect us; not to ruin our fun!

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Daily Bible Thoughts 764: Monday 19th January 2015: Isaiah 65:17-25

Isaiah 65:17-25:

This is a remarkable prophecy. It’s theme is picked up and reiterated in the New Testament ( See, for example, Revelation 21, 22.) Although Isaiah may have had in mind, to some extent, the joy and peace to follow the restoration of Jerusalem and return from exile, it is obvious that he had in mind something greater and far more glorious; a reality that even now is obviously still future tense. The vision of the Bible is immense, and we so often scale it down. God’s purpose is nothing other than a totally renewed cosmos, free from the ugliness of sin, suffering and pain. The allusion to (11:6-9) implies that this will be brought about through the Messiah.

‘’The new is portrayed wholly in terms of the old, only without the old sorrows; there is no attempt to describe any other kind of newness. Hence the familiar setting, Jerusalem, and the modest satisfactions, largely the chance to ‘enjoy the work of (one’s) hands.’ This allows the most important things to be prominent in the passage: the healing of old ills (17b); joy (18-19); life (20…); security (21-23a); fellowship with God (23b-24) and concord among his creatures (25). The point of a hundred years old is that in this new setting a mere century is shamefully brief, so vast is the scale…all this is expressed freely, locally and pictorially, to kindle hope rather than feed curiosity.’’ Derek Kidner: ‘New Bible Commentary’, p.669

Prayer: Thank you for the glorious hope you hold out to all your people,

 

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