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Build For The Future - Pray And Witness.

"The Lord is your keeper" ( Psalm 121:5 ); "My help comes from the Lord" ( Psalm 121:2 ). Such words fill us with hope - and they call us to prayer. They do not fill us with a superficial optimism. They stir us to receive more of the Lord's help, and to know more of His keeping power. When we come to God in prayer, we come with questions: Will the Lord hear our prayer? Will He not dismiss us as guilty sinners who have no right to come to Him, no right to ask for His blessing? The Scriptures speak with unmistakable realism, about our sin: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way" ( Isaiah 53:6 ). They also speak, with tremendous encouragement, about God's salvation: "And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" ( Isaiah 53:6 ). In the great first chapter of John's Gospel, which speaks so majestically of Jesus Christ, the eternal Word (vs. 1-3) and declares that "the ...
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Lord, sometimes, we feel like we’re stuck in a rut.

Genesis 12:1-20 Lord, sometimes, we feel like we’re stuck in a rut. When we feel like this, help us to see that You’ve moved on ahead of us. You’re calling us on – into Your future! Do we need to see exactly where You’re leading us? – No! We don’t! We just need to keep on following You. The future may be unknown to us – but it’s never unknown to You! “Face the sun and the shadows will fall behind you. Look to the One who can put your past behind ou. Be the one you were born to be – Don’t you want to be free? … There'll be brighter days ahead” (Garry Brotherston). Lord, let there be no more fear of an unknown future. Help us to look to the Son. Help us to know that, with Him, we can never be stuck in a rut! Help us to move forward with Him and for Him.
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Standing!

“I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the House of the Lord.’ Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem” ( Psalm 122:2 ). * Standing – in the House of the Lord! In life’s many trying times, we are put to the test – Will we stand? Will we fall? * Standing – in the house of the Lord! Let’s never imagine that we can stand in our own strength – “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” ( 1 Corinthians 10:12 ). * Standing – in the House of the Lord: We stand when we put our trust in the Lord. We stand when we build our life on Him.
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Bread And Wine

Bread and wine - these were the elements chosen by Jesus to teach us about His dying love. The bread speaks to us of Jesus' body broken for us. The wine speaks to us of Jesus' blood shed for us. Jesus used bread and wine to proclaim His salvation. He did this at the Last Supper, but that wasn't the first time that Jesus had used bread and wine as visual aids to help us to understand the meaning of His salvation. Before the Last Supper, there were the miracles of turning water into wine and the feeding of the five thousand. (1) The miracle of turning water into wine, along with the cleansing of the Temple, proclaims the miracle of the new birth. It leads us into the words of Jesus - "You must be born again" (John 3;3). The contrast between the water and the wine speaks to us of the contrast between "that which is born of the flesh" and "that which is born of the Spirit." The transformation of the water into wine speaks of the new birth w...
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Everything Can Be Turned Around - By God!

"This chapter reads like a whirlwind! And the Lord is in the whirlwind. What has angered God at Moab? See verse 26 - “Make her drunk, for she has defied the Lord . Let Moab wallow in her vomit;  let her be an object of ridicule." - this is the sin of sins. Judgment inevitably falls upon it, in man or nation. Yet God's mercy can cure it and remove it - “Yet I will restore the fortunes of Moab in days to come,” declares the Lord ." (47). There is "nothing too hard for the Lord." (Rev James Philip, Notes on Jeremiah 48:1-17, Gardenstown Church, Sunday 2nd September 1956)
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The Beginning Of Conflict And The Promise Of Victory

“Created in the image of God” ( Genesis 1:26-27 ) - “God saw everything that He had created… it was very good” ( Genesis 1:31 ). At the end of Genesis 1, things couldn’t get any better. It looked so promising. The future looked bright with hope. It was bright with the light of God’s love. Everything looked so good. Could things get any better than this? Sometimes when we feel like this, there can be trouble just around the next corner! That’s what we have in Genesis 3. It begins with the question, “Did God say?” ( Genesis 3:1 ). This is asking for trouble – big trouble! Before long, questioning becomes contradiction – “the serpent said to the woman, ‘You shall not surely die” ( Genesis 3:4 ). God says one thing. The serpent (Satan – see Revelation 12:9 ) says something else. He says the exact opposite! From that moment, there was conflict – but there was also the promise of victory. In Genesis 3:15 , there’s a great prophecy. It points forward to the death of Jesus Christ...
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Worshipping The Lord With Joy

‘I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the House of the Lord”’ ( Psalm 122:2 ). Why do we go to the House of the Lord? * We go ‘to give thanks to the Name of the Lord’ ( Psalm 122:4 ). * We seek His mercy for our past sins: ‘Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us!’( Psalm 123:3 ). * We seek His help for our future temptations: ‘Our help is in the Name of the Lord…’ ( Psalm 124:8 ). As we receive mercy and help from the Lord, we worship Him: ‘Blessed be the Lord’ ( Psalm 124:6 ). In our worship, we ‘look to the Lord our God’, drawing encouragement from His Word: ‘The Lord is on our side’- In Him we have the victory ( Psalms 123:2 ; 124:1-5 ). Rejoicing in God’s blessing, we pray for others: ‘May they prosper who love You’ ( Psalm 122:6 ).
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