Monthly Archives: March 2024

Random Devotional Thoughts

The Easter Story

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The Easter Story inspired the following thoughts….we too often sanitise the Bible stories, but reality would be very different….

Sitting Down They Watched Him There.

We read these words in the peace and quiet Forgetting the crowds, the noise, the riot, That surrounded our Lord so long ago, When rulers had wickedly taken Him so. The noise, the cries, and the prisoner’s grunts, The shouts of the soldiers, the awful thumps, Of the nails going into the human flesh, As they lay on the scars and bruises so fresh; The heat and the dust that rose in the air, The scorning of those who were standing there. The laughing and jeering of the soldiers who, Were casting lots for His garments too. The thieves were cursing Him to His face, Get us down and out of this place! Then we’ll believe that you truly are King And one day Your kingdom You’ll really bring” Suddenly one turned and said to his mate, We really deserve all that’s on our plate, But this Man here has done nothing amiss, Lord, remember me now in spite of all this ” The Saviour looked and in tones soft and light, Said “Today you’ll be with Me, in Paradise bright Joy filled the heart of this one so  depressed The noise and  the dirt were now repressed In spite of those who watched them there, The rulers uncaring, or friends in despair, The soldier declaring ‘This IS God’s Son, He only is the righteous One! ” His Spirit given up, the night now was near, The people had gone, the silence was clear. Still there were those who were watching Him there When His body  was put in the tomb with  care, The guards would wait the next  nights out, No one could move while they were about. But in spite of it all, God’s  purposes won, And Jesus became, the Resurrected One!

And that my Friend, is the reason so clear,        That Easter for us presents no fear,                          Tis only for us to humble our mind, Accept what’s written and then we’ll find,  Satisfaction within and no more  grief,  With  peace in our hearts beyond belief.

Life Lessons

The Seasons of Life

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Have you ever thought of life in this way? We went to a funeral the other day, and it struck me again of the brevity of life when you have come to the end of it. When we are younger, the years stretch ahead endlessly (we think) and there always seems plenty of time to do the things we want to, or the things we know we ought to do. “Tomorrow” we tell ourselves, “We’ll do it (or think about it) tomorrow”.

But you know, tomorrow never comes. A wise king in the Bible called Solomon thought about these things and this is what he had to say about life…..”To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…” He wrote more on these lines in  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8… His father, King David wrote these words….”As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes; For the wind passes over it, and it is gone; and its place shall know it no more.” It sparked these thoughts…

Spring….         ages birth – thirty….       Seeds sown This is the time of life that we lay our foundations….of education, relationships and careers. We learn more in these years than at any other time of life. 

Summer ..        ages 30-50…                 Weeds grown These are the busy years…we are so busy raising a family, buying a home and getting established, that we allow the weeds of busyness to stifle any thoughts we might have towards God and the spiritual side of life.

Autumn…         ages 50-70…                 Deeds  reaping time It’s now the time of reaping what we’ve been sowing during the previous years. The habits we’ve formed, either bad or good; our families have grown and gone, and now we have time for the hobbies we’ve always promised ourselves to take up; we still have the energy to travel and see other parts of the world. Our habits take over and we are so busy having a good time that again we put thoughts of the future out of our minds.

Winter…           ages  70-?                     Needs…time’s flown!       Our grandchildren have grown and are now having problems which we can’t help taking on our own shoulders as we watch them flounder along making the same mistakes that we once made. Now we are brought up with a round turn by health problems, and we find that we have new needs. We have to downsize; things we once did with ease, now take all day. Then when we come to the next big-0 birthday, we realise that there is very little time left, and maybe no quality time at that. Our minds are not as clear as they used to be, and it is an effort to think of the future and spiritual things. “Well,” we say, “We’ve lived without God all these years, so we can die without Him too!”

This is the biggest mistake we can ever make. We should take time right NOW to think about the future and get ready to meet our Maker. Remember the trips we used to take and the preparations we made for them? The research we put into where to go and where to stay?  Our final trip is the greatest trip we will ever make….let’s make sure we are ready to go!

                                             

Random Devotional Thoughts

How Old is Our Soul?

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    The older we get, the more we tend to think about what lies ahead. We get to the stage of avoiding going to reunions where everyone looks SO old! Then we realise that they are probably thinking the same about us!    It gets to the stage when invited to a grandchild’s engagement or birthday party, that we look around and see with horror that we are probably the oldest ones there!

   I stopped to think about this one day and remembered an incident when a young man said to his grandmother, “Granny, tell me, how old do you feel?” (She was in her early eighties by this time). “Well,” she said, “It’s like this, I know my outside looks old and wrinkly and my bones ache when I get up, but inside I don’t feel any older than fifteen!” “Really!” said the young man astonished, as he went on his way.

    The reason for this is, that a soul is ageless. It never ages. It has been made to live for ever regardless of the age of the body it inhabits and when it dies. Every soul is precious in the sight of God, and His great desire is that each one will live with Him for ever.

    But along with God’s great love which people like to think about, goes God’s innate holiness and sense of justice. All wrongs must be righted and dealt with, and we would all agree with that. God knew that man could never pay the debt of all these injustices so He took on Himself to pay for these in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ, the only sinless Person who has ever lived on earth.    We may choose to not believe this, and this is our right, but then we must bear the consequences of this choice. God has done His part, and now we must do our part which is humbling ourselves to accept this free gift  so that our soul will live for ever in God’s presence. Don’t let anyone put you off making the right decision because the alternative of living in darkness without God or anything good for ever and ever doesn’t bear thinking about!

Life Lessons

How Should We Behave?

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     The sermon we had at church yesterday was quite challenging. Once again, it was taken from the book of 1 Peter, chapter three, and the topic was forgiving others when they have treated you badly. Now this is not easy to do….our natural inclination is to hit back and to show the person a thing or two! But this is not the way that Peter is talking about here, and it certainly wasn’t the way that Jesus Christ taught His disciples to behave. If we treat bad behaviour with kindness, we never know what the end result will be. It reminded me of a true story I heard once…..

    One time we visiting some folk in an area we hadn’t been to before, and they took us for a sightseeing drive around the place.  As we drove along,  our driver pointed out a house across the paddock. It was an old place, but he said it had once belonged to his uncle and aunt. They were Christian folk and went to church regularly, and their neighbours next door weren’t, and didn’t. The man neighbour was really nasty to them, just because he didn’t like Christians and had no use for this church going business. He would do all sorts of things to annoy them, like throwing mud and stones  on their roof, and everything else he could think about, short of them having to get the police onto him.

     The ladies of both these households were expecting a baby each about the same time, and eventually had them. The Christian family’s baby did very well, it had plenty of mother’s milk, and it grew happy and contented. But the nasty neighbour’s wife didn’t have much milk for her baby, and it was fretful and cried a lot, and didn’t grow at all. The parents were very worried, and of course in those days there was nothing they could buy that would suit a new born baby like mother’s milk. So in the end the worried father went to his Christian neighbour, and apologised for the way he had behaved, and asked if there was any chance of them being able to get some milk from the lady with the good baby.

    The Christian man talked it over with his wife, and they came up with a plan.  He went to his neighbour, and said, yes, his wife had enough milk to feed two babies, and that they would help them out on one condition. If the non-Christian family was prepared to come and live with them, they would feed the weak baby as well as their own. But they had to come and live in, and sit through morning and night Bible readings around the table.      The neighbour was getting desperate by this time as his baby was always crying because it was hungry, and no-one was getting any rest. So they moved in with their neighbours, and the Christian lady fed both babies. The more the babies drank, the more milk she made. It wasn’t long before the sickly baby was looking nice and plump, and didn’t cry incessantly as it had before.

    By this time, the non-Christian neighbour was getting used to the Bible readings each day, and in fact, he even began to get interested to see what was going to happen next when it came to the story parts. By the time the sickly baby was good enough to not need mother’s milk so much and able to drink cows milk, its father and mother had started to go to church  regularly with the Christian couple.      The man who had been so mean to his neighbour all those years before, was now a changed man, and became one of the staunchest men in the church. All because the Christian neighbour decided to not pay him back for what he had done to them.      He was now able to have a good conscience before God, and the friendship of his neighbour who had tried to  annoy him so much before!

We are never the losers for following the ways that God has set out in His Word, the Bible.