Morning Musings

He Will Never Leave Us!

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      We have  here the account of a godly family living near Jerusalem …Martha (who seemed to run the house), Lazarus her brother, and her sister Mary. We don’t read of the parents so presumably they had died with the family continuing to live in their home.

    We first see them as opening their home to the Lord Jesus and presumably His disciples as well, and it was a convenient place for them to call in and rest. This particular day, Martha was bustling around getting a meal ready, but all Mary could do was to sit on a stool at Jesus’ feet listening to His every word. This bothered Martha and she went to Jesus saying, “Lord, tell Mary to come and help get the food ready! “

   But Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are fussing about too much….Mary has chosen the best thing by sitting down and listening to what I have to say!”  In other words, what you are doing will soon all be gone, but what Mary is doing will last as long as she lives! How often we fuss about things that don’t really matter, and forget the things that do! Let us take stock and make sure we do the things that matter first, and the other things afterwards!

    The next time we see the family, food was the last thing on their minds. Lazarus was very ill, and Martha sent a message to Jesus asking Him to come and see if He could do anything for her brother. She was sure that if anyone could he[p, He could. But to her utter dismay, He didn’t come straight away, and Lazarus died. How often our prayers don’t get answered the way we want straight away! But it was through this tardiness of His, that His power could be ultimately shown, and so it is with us too. We often learn more through our prayers being unanswered (as we think), than having our every whim granted. God is not a big Santa Claus in the sky….He always does what is best for us, even though we may not like it at the time. How else can we learn His grace and sufficiency in time of need? “ My grace is sufficient for you”, He says. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

   It was through this time of sorrow for the sisters, that they saw His power shown in bringing Lazarus back to life….the greatest miracle of their lives! This proved to both Martha and Mary that He really was, Who He said He was! So it is for us too! Hard times that happen to us during our life time, teach us that God is still there, and that He cares for us, and even though we may not able to make sense of what is happening around us, we can know that He is still with us as He said He would be.

  Finally we see the family gathered together with others, and once more it is centred around food, and again Martha is serving and seeing to the meal. But this time Mary is the one who is concerned with giving back to the Lord something of what she has been learning at His feet. She brings out this jar of sweet smelling ointment and rubs it into His feet, weeping while she does it. The disciples watched this with mixed emotions….they had no idea why Mary was doing this, and Judas in particular scornfully said, “What a waste!!”. But the Lord knew Mary’s heart. and He knew that she understood far more than the others, and He knew the real reason for her action. She was sorrowing for the things that were going to happen to Him, and for the pain that lay ahead for all of them.

    We can be thankful that He DOES know our motives when others don’t, and He can see the reason we do things for Him when others don’t understand.

Morning Musings

What Do You See?

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       As we were driving along a beach frontage one beautiful sunny day I noticed three teenage girls sitting on the edge of the beach beside the road. The blue sea and white sand made a lovely picture.  But their backs were to the superb view and their eyes were glued to the smart phones they were each holding.

    I thought of the story in Pilgrim’s Progress about the man confined in a room playing around in the rubbish at his feet while an angel was hovering above him holding a crown. Alas, he never looked up to see the glories above, but just kept on with the worthless stuff around his feet.  

   What a pity that these three girls were missing the beauties of the great creation that God has given us to enjoy!  It costs us nothing to enjoy a good day at the beach….these other things will still be there later on to use. Let’s make sure that we focus on the worthwhile things of life while we can!

    When those times have gone and it is too late to recover them, we will regret all the missed opportunities that we once had. Let’s do what we can, while we can because as time moves on these times will pass away for ever! Where we once had unlimited time to look ahead, the time may come when our future is down to a few years at the best. This is all the more reason to make the most of the here and now, remembering that only what is done for the Lord is all that we can take with us when we leave this world.

Life Lessons

Danger Ahead!

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        Our speaker in church yesterday was talking about the foolishness of refusing to hear God’s voice, and what will happen if we consistently shut it up. Every time we have that little niggle about doing something about that apology we should make, or fix up a problem there is between you and another person, is the prompting of God, and should not be ignored. It reminded me of the following story that happened many years ago….

   A man we knew had been taken to the Sunday night services where the Gospel was being preached regularly. But his wife wasn’t keen on him going and she tried to block him by asking the local school teacher for the evening meal on Sunday nights. In the end, he said to not ask him any more as he wasn’t able to go.

    Years passed by, and he never went back to those services again. One day he met his Uncle who knew him very well, and said, “You know Unc, I had a dream the other night. I dreamed that I could see God in heaven, and while I was watching, a big black blind came down between us, and I know now that I couldn’t come to Him even if I wanted to!”

   His uncle didn’t know what to say to this, but it proved to be true. That man never did turn to God, and he died without Him just as he had lived without Him. How sad we were when we heard this! But it serves as a warning that when we consistently block our minds to the truth of these things God says, ”OK, if that’s how you want it, that’s how it will be”. He says in the Bile that His Spirit will not always strive with man (Genesis 6:3) …He gives us our chance and we must take it as we never know when we might go beyond the point of no return!

Stories for Teens

The Four “D”s.

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    Sarah came in from school one afternoon feeling a little grumpy.

“I wish I was a bit taller,” she announced to no-one in particular as she put her bag down.

“Oh hullo Uncle Jeff”, she added, “I didn’t see you there. We haven’t seen you for a while!”

“No I’ve been busy,” he said, “But I thought I would come over and catch up with what you young ones are up to. Anyway,” he went on, “What’s this bit about wishing you were taller?”

“I always have trouble getting my bag down off the rack on the school bus,” she said, “The taller boys always seem to push it further back than I can reach.”

“That’s too bad,” said Uncle Jeff, “I can think of another person who had trouble because he was too short, and he lived a long time ago in another country….let me tell you about him…

” The story comes from the Bible and this man’s name was Zaccheus. I heard a person the other day tell the story like this. He said that the story of Zaccheus has four ‘D’s in it and if you can remember them it might be a help when things go wrong “.

Sarah settled herself down on the couch and said, “Go on Uncle Jeff. I always like hearing your stories. What was the first ‘D’?”

“He had this great ‘Desire’ to see Jesus as he had heard so much about Him. But when he saw the huge crowd that was crowded around Him, he knew that there was no way he could even get a glimpse of Him because he was only a short little man. But he was ‘Determined’ he was going to see what He was like, From this determination, came the impetus to ‘DO’ something about it, so he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed up into a large leafy tree he knew was growing there. From there he could look down on the people as they went by, and they couldn’t see him perched up there.

   The noisy crowd came closer and he could see Jesus in the middle. Then to everyone’s surprise, Jesus stopped right under the tree and looked up into it. “Zaccheus, come down!’ He called out, ‘I want to eat at your place today.’

    There was a scuffle up in the tree, and the little man clambered down, and went ahead to his house. Jesus followed and the crowd waited outside for a couple of hours until both Jesus and Zaccheus came out again. Jesus held up His hand and said, ‘Today salvation has come to this house….you tell them Zaccheus…’

  ‘ I’ve told the Teacher that I’ve done wrong”, Zaccheus said, “and I’ve also told Him that I’m going to pay any of you back four times what I took from you wrongly’.

  “ He was a ‘Different’  man after that,” Uncle Jeff went on, “He was a happy chappy now, and he was honest with his money deals. It’s like that for us too when we tell Jesus about our grumpiness, and ask Him to help us….first of all we need to have the Desire to change and then be
Determined to DO something about it. It’s only then that we can become Different in the way we feel and act!”  

 “I guess that’s right, “ Sarah said slowly, “We have to DO something about what we need,  before God can change how we feel and act”.

“That’s right, my girl”,  said Uncle Jeff, “Now let’s get this drink and you’ll feel even better!”

Random Devotional Thoughts

Lead Us Not into Temptation….

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  We have been thinking about temptations of different sorts for a couple of weeks now, and these thoughts have come to me yet again….  A young man training for missionary service remembered hearing the following sentence, and he never forgot it…”.There’s no point in praying, ‘And lead us not into temptation’ if you go where temptation lurks “. This statement made a deep impression on him, and kept him from many a compromising situation.

    A lady I once knew wanted badly to give up smoking. She had been convicted about the habit for a long time, but had excused herself by saying, “I know God loves me just the same if I smoke or if I don’t!!”  Someone else asked “If you gave me your smokes today, how would you get on?” She promptly replied, “I’d just go and get another packet!” At least she was honest with that statement!!

   But now the conviction had come more strongly than ever, and besides that she couldn’t really afford the weekly cost of her habit, so she once more asked for prayer to overcome it. We didn’t hear for some time if she had overcome it or not.

     To go back to our original statement, God will only answer our prayer with a “yes” if we do our part by either keeping away from temptation or getting rid of the cause of it altogether. It’s a two-way thing, as are a lot of God’s promises. He will do His part if we will do ours.

     It’s the same with salvation…He has provided it, but we have to take it from Him. When we are given a present, we have to take it and open it before we can enjoy it or use it. Let’s think about these things and get the full benefit from God’s promises!

Morning Musings

That Temptation in Your Pocket (2)

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   If you idolize popularity, if it is being admired and having lots of followers that makes you feel good about yourself, then you will be tempted to use your smart-phone to pursue that idol. You may use the camera to take inappropriate photographs of yourself and put them on  Instagram, or you may use the Facebook app to say harsh words about other people. That phone that can be used to do so much good and to bring so much encouragement can  also be used to cause great harm.

There are not many people who buy a phone intending to use it to harm others or to look at pornography. But where your heart is, there your technology will be also. The way you use your technology reveals your heart.

   It shows whether your heart is oriented toward God and toward finding true joy and satisfaction in Him, or whether you are attempting to find counterfeit joy and satisfaction in the things He forbids. At any moment, your heart has a purpose for your phone. Yes, thank God for your smart-phone, but plead with Him for wisdom to use it well, and guard your heart.

 Use It to the Glory of God!

 And now it is time to take that phone out of the box and to turn it on for the first time. As you hold it in your hand, why don’t you take a moment to pray? Ask God to help you to use that phone well. Commit before Him right now that, to the best of your abilities, you will only ever use it to serve His purposes. Ask a believing friend or two to be your accountability and check in regularly. Then go and glorify Him with and through it.

Morning Musings

Beware of the Temptation in Your Pocket (1)

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This blog has been on this site before, but it doesn’t do us any harm to be reminded of the traps that surround us….

Do you have an idol? You might ask whatever I’m talking about! An idol? Of course not. The very idea is ridiculous!!!   

But do you know what God classes as an idol? An idol is anything that you can’t possibly do without. Anything that you raise up in the place that God  wants from you. Something that, at least for a moment, takes first place in your heart.

    How do you feel if you find you have left your phone behind when you go out? Does something seem to be missing? Is there a feeling of panic? What exactly do you use your smart phone for anyway? Do you use it merely for messages or talking on the phone? Or do you sneak looks at some of the things on line that you wouldn’t like anyone at home to see you doing?

    Whatever your idol is, will prove to be a special kind of temptation for you when you use your phone. If you idolize sexual pleasure, you will probably be tempted to use your phone to look at pornography. Did you know that more than half of all pornography is now viewed on mobile devices like yours? This means that many people like you bought a smart phone so they could text with their friends and take pictures of their vacation, but somehow they ended up using it to look at pornography. They used this great, God-given technology to do harm instead of good.

    If you find yourself being tempted in this way, ask God to give you the strength to resist looking at those sites. Right now. If that doesn’t work, go back to the ordinary small phone that only does talking and texting until the temptation is out of your system. Remember that verse that says And now, little children, abide in Him (Jesus); that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming  (1 John 2:28).

Life Lessons

Growing Older!

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    I went to visit an old friend of ours last week who is now in a rest home and not able to get out much. I remembered how we had known him for over forty years, from the time when he was a vigorous man in his middle age, involved in his job and in various things in the local church. It is sad to see him as he is now, not able to look after himself, or even able to read for himself.

   I couldn’t help thinking of how we all like to think that things won’t change on one hand, and yet on the other hand we don’t think of how life IS going to change if we live long enough! We all want to live a long time, but no-one wants to get old!  We see other people getting older and becoming infirm, and yet we never stop to think what it must be like to be like that ourselves!

   But this is part of life. The Bible says that our life is like the flowers that start off in bud, then come into full flower, and finally get faded and then die down,  We have a graphic picture of this shown to us in Isaiah chapter 40, verses 6b-8  “all flesh is grass and all the goodness of it is as the flower of the field, The grass withers, the flowers fade because the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it. Surely people are like the grass which withers, and the flowers that fade but the Word of our God shall stand for ever”.

    In that last verse we have the whole point of life….God’s Word stands for ever! We can totally depend on what He says. Another friend of ours used to say, “God says it; I believe it, and that settles it!”

   When people like to argue with what we believe, we can hang onto that saying….their argument is not with us, but with what God says!

   Another older lady said  to me one day, “No-one told us when we were younger what it’s like to be old!”

I had to agree, and even if they had, we wouldn’t have taken any notice! We all tend to live in the present without giving a thought to the future, but we would all do well to think about what lies ahead and prepare our hearts and minds to meet whatever comes our way.

See what God has to say to YOU.