All posts by Gwenyth

I live on the outskirts of Whangarei, the northernmost city in New Zealand. I enjoy many things, ( writing amongst them), have been married to Keith for sixty-one years, have three married daughters, nine grandchildren and seventeen great- grandchildren who are scattered in various countries. No cats and no dogs as they would cramp our life-style.. We are obviously retired, but were farming further north before moving to the town over thirty-five years ago. We attend one of the local churches across the same side of town that we live.

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The Arrival of God’s Promised One

December 11, 2016 Gwenyth Leave a comment

Luke 2:1-7; (Matthew 2:1-23)

The old Testament prophecies had said that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and yet Mary and Joseph were living in Nazareth, many miles to the north. How would this come about? Even unbelieving rulers are moved by God to perform His purposes, and we see this happening here….

All the population of Israel had received notice from the Roman Caesar that they were to return to their birthplace and register for a census. Joseph was born in Bethlehem, so he and Mary packed up and prepared for the long trip on foot from Nazareth to Bethlehem. We are all familiar with the pictures of Mary riding on a donkey and Joseph walking beside here, but we must remember that Mary was a fit young woman, and that she would have walked a good part of the way if not all the way. The Bible doesn’t tell us how they actually travelled, only that they got there. There were obviously many travellers reaching Bethlehem for the same purpose and all the accommodation was full when they arrived.

Matthew and Luke give us the accounts of the birth, while the other two Gospels present Jesus to us as a grown man beginning His ministry. While some might say that the Bible is contradicting itself, yet we can see how these two accounts dovetail together perfectly to give us the full picture. Matthew shows us how the Old Testament prophecies are all fulfilled in this Child, with three mentions of entirely different places that God’s Son would come from…Bethlehem, Egypt and Nazareth (Matthew 2:1-6, 14-15,23). Matthew tells of the wise men from the east (please note there is no mention of how many wise men there were!), and we can see how these three types of gifts that they brought would have provided the means for them to stay in Egypt. Luke gives more intimate details of how the Baby was born and how Mary wrapped him in the clothes she had brought with her, and how He was put into a cattle feeding trough (manger) for a bed….note that He was NOT born in the manger as so many people, even preachers, say!

Jesus Christ the Highest One, Came to earth, God’s well loved Son, Took on Him the lowliest place , So man could see the Father’s face.

Stories for Teens

Books!

December 5, 2016 Gwenyth Leave a comment

Sarah was curled up on the couch doing what she liked best…. reading! It didn’t matter to her if all her Christmas presents were square parcels, every book she got was a friend! It didn’t matter if it was an old fashioned book like Anne of Green Gables or if it was a modern one written by Rosie Boom. She loved them all and would read them over and over again.

Bobby couldn’t have cared less about books. “Books!” he would say scornfully, “Who wants to read a book! We have enough of them at school!”

Uncle Jeff came into the room one day in time to hear him say this. “What’s this you are saying Bobby?” he asked, “What do you think is better than a book, hey?”

“I like doing things,” Bobby said, “Things like pressing buttons and watching a screen. There are so many things you can do with an I-Pad!” He heaved a big sigh.

“But you are allowed to use Mum’s I-Pad for a bit every day, aren’t you?” asked Uncle Jeff, “What’s wrong with that?” “But that’s only if we have earned good points”, said Bobby, “It’s so hard to earn good points. You have to be good ALL the time or you lose some! If I had my own I-Pad, I could play with it all the time!”

“Do you think that playing with the I-Pad all the time would make you good?” asked Uncle Jeff. “Well, I wouldn’t have time to be naughty”, said Bobby, “I’d be too busy playing with it. Bang,bang, shoot ‘em all dead!”

“Do you think that it’s a good idea to fill your mind with those sort of things?” asked Uncle Jeff.

Bobby wriggled uncomfortably. “Well, no, I s’pose not”, he said.

“You know it wouldn’t hurt you to read a book now and then”, said Uncle Jeff, “It’s surprising what you learn from reading a good story! Did you know that God has books too?”

“No, does He really?” asked Bobby.

“Yes, He does, and everything we say, do, or think is written down in one of His books!”

“Ooh, that’s scary!” Bobby said, “You mean EVERYTHING that we say or think is written down?”

“Yes, and there’s another book called the Book of Life that God has written in too…He writes in the names of everyone who loves the Lord Jesus”. (Revelation 20:12)

“I love Jesus!” Betty piped up.

Sarah stirred herself on the couch, and sat up. “Yes”, she said, “and that book was written before the world was made wasn’t it Uncle Jeff!”

“That is true Sarah,” Uncle Jeff said, “So you see Bobby, books are very important, not only to read, but also to write. We each one have to make sure that our names are written in God’s book. Just being good isn’t enough. We have to tell God we are sorry for the naughty things we’ve done, and then we’ll know our names are there. So you see Bobby, books are very important!”

Grandma's Stories, Stories for Teens

Taking Verses out of Context.

November 27, 2016 Gwenyth Leave a comment

“Brrrm, brrrm, bang, bang”, Bobby cried as he ran through the living room waving his arms as though he were flying.

“Bobby! Whatever are you doing that for?” Mum called out over Bobby’s noise.

“I can do anything!” Bobby said as he flopped down on the couch.

“What do you mean, you can do anything?” Mum asked, “I can tell you one thing, you aren’t to make so much noise when you come flying in here like that!”

“Well, that’s what the preacher told us about yesterday at church….he said we could do anything through Christ who give us strength”, Bobby said picking up a cushion and using it as a shield.

“Did not!” Sarah said, “It just shows how much you weren’t listening to what he DID say!”

“Well, what did he say then?” Bobby said a little sulkily.

“He said we weren’t to take a verse out of its context and make a rule about it like you did just then,” Sarah said, “He said that that verse you just said, has to be read with all the. other verses ahead and behind it”.

“Oh!” said Bobby somewhat crestfallen, “Well, what does ‘contect’ mean anyway?”

“Context!” Sarah corrected, “It means you have to read all the verses around the one you like, and then see what makes sense!”

Mum was listening and smiling as Sarah went on with her explanation. She knew that Sarah had got the real sense of what the preacher had been talking about.

“All the verses before that one are talking about being content with what we have got”, Sarah went on. “We are not to want what other people have, and it’s not always easy to be like that!”

“Ho, ho,” said Bobby, “What about that latest model phone like the one that Michaela has that you were wanting? Huh?”

“Well, I know that,” Sarah said, “I know I have to be satisfied with the one I’ve got, and it is only the Lord Jesus who can give me the strength to be like that! That’s right, isn’t it Mum?”

“Yes, that is exactly what the preacher was saying”, Mum said, “And I’m glad that you’ve made sense out of what he was saying Sarah, because you will find lots of times you will need to remember that or you will be unhappy or jealous of other people if they have things that you haven’t got. Now Bobby, ” she went on, “You just pick up your wings and fly outside to do your chores….you will have plenty of strength to do that!”

“Brrm, brrm”, said Bobby as he got up and ran outside still making aeroplane noises as he went.

Daily Devotionals

Devotional Thoughts from Psalm Seventy-Seven

November 21, 2016 Gwenyth Leave a comment

The Weeping Man

I cried aloud to God on High, He heard my call and every sigh,

I felt that things were most unfair, I was bowed down with all my care,

I felt that God forgot me then, I was the most miserable of men!

But as I thought what God had done, I remembered vict’ries won,

I meditated on His ways, And thought of all His grace always;

He has given salvation free, And pours the rain upon the sea,

As thunder comes from heaven above, He gives all things in His great love.

How often we feel like this! This is what makes the book of Psalms so relevant for us today….those who wrote it had the same feelings of despair and being downcast as we do today. The human heart is still the same. We often forget that when we read of these people of old times what their feelings would have been as they surveyed their surroundings and circumstances. But when we remember what God did back then, we know that He is still the God of miracles and encouragement. Our current attitudes depend entirely on ourselves….are we going to wallow in our misery, or are we going to praise God for our blessings? It all depends on us!

Adult Testimonies

Another Funeral Service.

November 12, 2016 Gwenyth Leave a comment

We went to another funeral today, the memorial service actually….very different to the one we went to a couple of weeks ago. Unlike the first one, this was the funeral of man we had only known for a few months at the church we now go to. He had had cancer for a few months and the doctors had told him he couldn’t last past Christmas. As a result, he had organised a lot of the service himself, knowing that his time was short. He had not known the Lord all his life as some do, but had come to the realization of his need of salvation when in his forties.

His main passion in life until then was running marathon races, and he had put all his effort into this. But once he became a Christian, he felt that the Lord must come first, and his running took second place. But he never lost his love for running, and still did as much as he was able to right into older age.

As a result of this love of racing, he had excerpts of the film, Chariots of Fire, played during the service. These were the parts of the story where the main character, Eric Liddell, had been training for the marathon race in the Olympics back in the 1920s. When he found that the race was scheduled to be run on a Sunday, Eric said he would not run it, but changed to run a much longer marathon that he hadn’t trained for, on a weekday. No-one expected him to do well in this, but he committed it to the Lord and as a result won the race. After this time, he went to China to become a missionary there.

This was now the theme of this man’s life, and he wanted all present at his memorial service today to know this. Just as Eric Liddell honoured the Lord in his racing so this man did also to the best of his ability. He wasn’t able to go out as a missionary himself, but he took a great interest in missionary work, and supported those who did go.

It made me wonder what we each one would like to be said of us at our funeral services. Would we like our great deeds to be mentioned, with all the trophies we have won in our life, or would we count it greater to have said that we were faithful to our convictions. God does not expect us to be successful, but He does want us to be faithful to Him!

Adult Testimonies

Neil.

October 30, 2016 Gwenyth Leave a comment

We went to the funeral last week of an old friend of many years. We had seen him periodically over the years since we all grew up together, and he was always a joy to meet. His hearty “Ho,ho,ho” would ring out during the conversation each time, and he never failed to ask “How are doing Brother?” We knew what he meant, and also knew what he wasn’t asking. My mind went back to the time that Neil became a Christian….this is how it happened….

We grew up together in a small country area that was serviced by a large timber mill where most of the men folk of the district were employed. It was the sort of place where everyone knew everyone else and all of their business as well. The district was sort of loosely divided into those who attended the local church and those who didn’t….Neil was one of those who didn’t.

There were about half a dozen young fellows at that time in the early nineteen-fifties who were at a loose end at the weekends and who used to get together and roam around the road (there was only the one road in the place!). One Sunday afternoon one of the men who went to the church was on his way home from delivering the children who had been to the Sunday School and he stopped when going past this group of loitering young chaps.

“Hey,” he said as he pulled up, “Why don’t you guys come to the service tonight? We’ve got a good preacher speaking, you want to come and hear him!”

So later on most of the group did turn up at the service, sitting rather sheepishly at the back of the church. There was some hearty singing to the old pedal organ playing the hymns, and then the preacher spoke. He was indeed very interesting, talking about the way the stars were all put in place by the Great Creator, and then telling the timeless story of Jesus Christ.

For the next few Sundays, the group turned up again at the church, and then after that most of them drifted off having lost interest. But for some reason Neil kept on going, and one of his mates turned up as well. The next Sunday, Neil was walking along the road heading for the church when Keith pulled up beside him in his old Morris 8 car.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m off to church”, Neil said.

“Well, hop in,” said Keith, “That’s where I’m going too!”

So for the next few Sundays, the two boys went to the little church together. There was a variety of preachers, some of them local men and other visitors who came and preached the old, old story of how Jesus Christ came to earth to pay the price of sin for all people.

Gradually these truths began to sink into the hearts of these two young men and they became convinced of the truth of what they were hearing and turned to the Lord in all sincerity. Their other old mates left them alone now, knowing that they weren’t interested in the old ways of loitering around the roads.

Neil spent every spare minute with Keith and the two of them would talk of what they were learning from the Bible and from the church services. Later on Neil left the district and moved to the big city. Over the years he had his ups and downs, as we all do, and for a period neglected his Bible reading. But when things got a bit tough for him, he turned back to the Lord with all his heart.

Keith met up with him again one day, and said, “You seem to be happy all the time….why is that?”

“Well, it’s like this”, Neil said, “I know I wandered away from the Lord for a while, but I realised that I was in the wrong, and I asked God for forgiveness for my slack way of life. There are things in my life that I can’t change now, but I’ve confessed it all to the Lord, and I’m back into reading the Bible again. That’s why I’m always happy!”

It was always a joy to meet up with him after that, and to hear his cheerful “Ho,ho,ho” which preceded his conversation. So it was a shock to hear that he had had a severe stroke which he didn’t recover from. Keith felt honoured when he was asked to take his funeral service, and this was the story he told about Neil during the service.

Of the original group that had wandered the roads on those Sundays long ago, some had passed on, but there were still a couple of them at the funeral service. They are old men now, and have never come to see what Neil saw all those years ago and sadly they haven’t made preparations for this, the greatest trip of their lives that will overtake them shortly. This is the trip that Neil prepared for, so that we can be confident of where he is now….rejoicing in the presence of his Saviour in heaven!

Random Devotional Thoughts

Our Good Friend Rameka

October 23, 2016 Gwenyth Leave a comment

Our Good friend Rameka……

Many years ago we had a good friend by the name of Rameka. He had come to know the Lord from a dark background and the difference in his life was noticeable to all who had known him previously. He now had a perpetual smile on his face, and went around singing all the hymns he knew. It was always a joy to meet him and to hear what he had been discovering as he read his Bible every day. He was growing in his Christian life noticeably from day to day.

But there were things we learned from him too. His infectious grin was always heartwarming. He was always very careful where he put his Bible down. Never would he put it on the floor beside his feet when he was sitting down. To him, this was an insult to Almighty God. As far as he was concerned there were plenty of other places to put it, rather than on the floor. This was one thing we never forgot.

One day he came to us very concerned. “I feel so ignorant of the Word”, he said, “How can I remember and learn it better than I do? I was never very good at school,” he went on, “What can I do about it?”

“Well, you know what a sieve is like?”, we asked

“Yes,” he said, “And that is just what I feel like, not able to hold anything at all!”

“Ah,” we said, “But the point is that the water going through all the time keeps it clean. In the same way, the Water of the Word keeps you clean as you read it, even if you don’t remember much later.”

His face broke into a big beaming smile. “Oh, I see it now”, he said, “It’s just a matter of keeping on keeping on!”

Another time he was still worrying about his lack of knowledge. “What should I do about it?” he asked.

“Well, the Lord knows all about it and how you feel so inadequate,” we said, “But the main thing is to be obedient to the little bit you DO know, and then tomorrow or maybe the next day, He will show you the next step that you should do!”

“Oh, that’s great!” he said, “I’ll do it that way then!”

“It’s just a case of one step at a time…..as we do that one, then we will see the next step to take!”

We moved away from the district shortly after that and heard of him periodically. But always, he was still going on for his Lord and rejoicing in Him until the day of his death some years later. We still smile as we remember our good friend Rameka and the things that he taught us as we interacted with him.

Stories for Teens

Why Do Bad things Happen to Good People?

October 16, 2016 Gwenyth Leave a comment

(Read Luke 7:11-29)

“Well”, said Dad as the family sat down around the lunch table, “What did you learn at church today?”

“The preacher told us about John the Baptist being in prison”, Bobby said munching his lettuce and ham.

“Yes, and it was all because he told the king he shouldn’t be doing wrong things”, said Sarah, “Everyone knew about it so I don’t see why John should have been put in prison.”

“That’s right”, said Bobby, “Why DO bad things happen to good people anyway? Can’t God stop them happening?””.

“What do you think Uncle Jeff?” Sarah said, turning to him.

“Well, it’s like this”, Uncle Jeff said, “John was given a special job to do by God….can you remember what it was?”

“I remember”, Betty piped up, “Our teacher told us about John. It was his job to tell people that Jesus was coming wasn’t it?”

“That’s right” said Uncle Jeff, “And now that job was finished. Jesus was there, going around teaching the people and doing miracles for them, and they could see and hear Him for themselves”.

“I know that”, Bobby said, “But it still doesn’t seem fair for John to be put in prison”.

“John was a strong man”, Dad said, “And God knew He could depend on him, even in prison”.

“Yes, but he did wonder what had gone wrong”, Sarah said thoughtfully, “Because he sent that message to Jesus asking if he had been mistaken.”

“Can you remember what happened to the messengers then?” Uncle Jeff asked.

“Yes, Jesus didn’t answer them straight away. Instead He took them with Him while He was healing the sick people, and making blind people see and deaf people hear. And all the time He was preaching to people around Him”, said Bobby.

“Then He told them to go back to John and tell him what they had seen Him doing. He specially said to not be offended by Jesus because he was in prison…he wasn’t to blame God for what had happened”, said Sarah. “I DID notice one thing though”, she carried on, “Jesus didn’t growl at him for wondering these things.”

“No, that’s right” Dad said, “What do you think that shows us about Jesus?”

“How understanding He is”, Sarah said.

“Yes, and then He went on to tell the people what a great man John was and how strong he was for God”, Bobby said.

“I heard that too”, said Betty, “John did what God told him to”.

“That’s right Betty”, said Uncle Jeff, “Jesus told the people that John had been a special announcer telling people that God’s Messenger was right there with them. John was a tough man, one who wouldn’t change his mind, and he never did. But he DID want to make sure he was right. Once his friends returned and told him what Jesus had been doing, he knew for sure that Jesus was the real Messiah”.

“Yes,” said Bobby, “But you still haven’t said why God allowed all this to happen and then didn’t the king chop his head off in the end?”

“Well, like I said before, John’s job was done. He had done all that God asked him to do, and now God was ready to take him to be with Him. We can’t argue with God….when it is His time to take us, it will happen. John was obedient to what God had asked him to do and we must be the same, and then we will be ready to meet Him, no matter when”.

“Mmmm”, said Bobby thoughtfully, “That’s a hard ask.”

“It sure is”, agreed Sarah, “But after all God has the last say for all of us doesn’t He?”

“I want to be ready”, said Betty as she reached for a piece of apple pie.

“Now, now”, said Mum, “That’s the second piece you’ve had Betty!”

Betty quickly began to eat it.

“I guess that life isn’t always about being fair”, Sarah said thoughtfully.

“That’s right”, said Dad, “That is what makes us strong Christians and better for God rather than being bitter against Him. Big winds make plants grow stronger. Without that they stay soft and weak”.

“I don’t want to be soft and weak”, Betty said.

Mum looked across at Dad and smiled. She knew only too well how little anyone knows about what lies ahead in life’s journey.

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