Month: April 2015

by

No Longer Slaves But Friends

18th -19th April

Weekend Edition

“I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are My friends, since I have told you everything the Father has told Me.”

John 15:15

Jesus’ words held so much power and authority yet He spoke with such intimacy and in such a personal way. In this weekend’s verse we learn what it means to have a renewed relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Jesus gives the analogy of a master and slave relationship. It was very rare to find any personal correspondence or relationship between a master and a servant. There was a level of respect and honouring of their position from the slave. Jesus uses this example to show the distance between God and man before He came. In order to be forgiven of sins, one had to present an offering in the temple once a year and rely on the High Priest to present their sacrifice to God. It all seemed so impersonal.

However, Jesus came, ‘being in the very form of God’, demonstrating the kind of personal relationship that God wanted to have with us. In sharing God’s heart with His disciples and followers, He broke down the barrier between God and man. “You are My friends, since I have told you everything the Father has told Me!”

The same stands for us today. God doesn’t want to hide Himself from us, like a far away, unapproachable supreme being. He wants to reveal intimate details of His character to us. He wants to have a personal and close relationship with us. In fact He wants to speak to us more than we think we want to hear His voice. Jesus, desires a personal audience with us because we are His friends. Yes He is a holy God, but that is why Jesus came. So He could be our righteousness for us. We can have a ‘friendship’ with God, because God doesn’t look at our sin that distances us from God, but looks at what Jesus did for us on the cross which brings us closer to God. That is grace, that is true friendship!!

by

You Are My Friends If….

17th April

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are My friends if you do what I command.”

John 15:13-14

Isn’t it just great that we can be friends with the creator of the universe. It is such a strange concept for some but the very words of Jesus, here in John 15 demonstrate to us the genuine love and affection Jesus has for us, in that He was willing to lay down His life for us. According to Jesus’ words there is no greater act of love. Jesus longed for a genuine and intimate relationship with His creation. After all that is why He came right?

However what can we do to ever live up to Jesus’ standards of love and affection. We cant physically lay our lives down for Him in the same way He did for us can we? Well, technically we can! Jesus’ requirements for our part of the deal was simply to accept what He did for us and to obey His commandments. A lifestyle choice to lay down our own way of living and submit to His way. So what were His commandments?

Jesus twice states what His commandments are for us. First in verse 12 and then again in verse 17. Simply “Love each other in the same way I have loved you!”. It is a big ask to love with the same love that Jesus showed us, however, with the help of the Holy Spirit and submitting all our relationships to Jesus, (that also includes people we have not met yet, because they need to know His love too!!), it is possible.

Yet we can only love if we remain in His love and obey His commandments! The challenge for us today is to know that we are loved and we are friends of Jesus. There is no greater love in this world that can replace or substitute the love that Christ has for us. We are His friends…by His own admission.

by

The Sharpening Of Friendship

16th April

“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend..”

Proverbs 27:10

Yesterday we heard about Jesus’ perseverance to endure the cross even though He was betrayed by one of His friends and let down by three other tired disciples. Yet friendships also have so many positives too. In fact, life was meant to be lived with companionship. Even the “Early church” knew of the importance of friendships, as the Apostles often encouraged the churches to meet together in communion and fellowship.

The writer of Proverbs wisely likens the sharpening of friendship with the analogy of iron sharpening another piece of iron. When a knife is blunt, it is pretty useless. In fact the most common cause of cuts in a kitchen is from blunt knives. It is only when a knife has been sharpened that you can use it to its full potential.

Much is the same with friendships. “Blunt” friendships can often be so draining and not genuine. When your time of need comes, they are no where to be found. Yet true friendship, is when you have a friend that can challenge you, correct you, encourage you and build you to be the person God intended you to be (and visa-versa). Sharpening may not always be easy to hear and to say, yet if we are not challenging each other, then our lives can easily slip away from God’s best for us. It is because a father/mother loves their children that they discipline them. So it is with friendship. True and genuine friendship can be a great tool in showing Holiness, Integrity and Godliness to our world that needs to be set an example of what true and genuine friendship is.

Friendship is an integral part to our growth in Christ, our growth as a person and helping others grow. May the Lord continue to bless our friendships and deepen our trust in Him.

by

Let Down By Close Friends

15th April

“Then He returned and found the disciples asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with Me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give into temptation. For the Spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

Mark 14:37-38

So often at times of desperation and at the point of our greatest need, we turn to our nearest and dearest for comfort, support and encouragement. So it was with Jesus here in today’s verses. It is not that Jesus needed protection because He knew what was about to happen. What He did need was support. Yet Jesus, who so clearly shared His anguish with His disciples, was let down by the very people he was so open and honest with a few moments earlier. In fact three times Jesus left the disciples awake and came back to find them asleep.

The disciples must have also been carrying a great burden on their shoulders knowing that something out of the ordinary would happen. Yet the weight of tiredness and their burdens sent them to sleep, albeit not intentionally. When Jesus came back a third time and found them sleeping, the disciples response was one of complete silence because of their shame.

So what does this mean for us today? Firstly, in Jesus’ time of greatest need, He exhibited the kind of openness and honesty that we can all learn from. This is the same Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, asking for companionship and support at His greatest time of need. If Jesus could share His burdens and ask people to support Him in prayer, then we should also learn from this and be able to express our fears and anxieties without feeling shame or guilt. (Notice that Jesus only shared this with His three closest disciples).

Finally, when we are let down by our friends, let us not be discouraged but find our strength in the One that never lets us down, our Heavenly Father. Jesus although let down but His disciples, still showed nothing but love and grace and didn’t hold it against them. Although He showed His disappointment, He didn’t let it detract Him from His purpose and still showed humility even until His dying breath. Share your pains and struggles…Forgive even more quickly.

by

The Bearable Yet Un-Bearable Cup

14th April

“He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” …..”Abba, Father,” He cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from Me. Yet I want Your will to be done, not mine!””

Mark 14:34, 36

We often think that Jesus’ pain and suffering started and ended on the cross. Yet Mark tells us here that His suffering started a long time before His actual execution. The suffering He went through, is suffering that I don’t think anyone should or ever will have to go through again. Jesus, let us not forget, was fully God and fully man on Earth. Yet here, in verse 24, we see the first signs of the humanity and emotion of Jesus. He knew that His physical death was going to be a great and painful ordeal, yet what was more crushing to Him, was the burden He would have to carry upon His shoulders.

The language Jesus uses almost seems like desperation to get out of what He was going to do. “My soul is crushed with grief even to the point of death”, “Please take this cup of suffering away from Me.” These are strong and chilling statements from our Messiah.

Yet the last words of Jesus in verse 36, show who He really was and the inner strength He had by the power of the Holy Spirit. “YET I WANT YOUR WILL TO BE DONE, NOT MINE.” These words hold so much authority, and will forever stand as a proclamation of Jesus’ endurance throughout time. Even through the pain, the suffering and the almost unbearable weight of what He had to do, Jesus still exhibited such a sacrificial and loving attitude towards all of creation, even when He knew that there people who were going to reject Him, deny Him and even not believe in Him.

Jesus, our perfect example, showed us how to persevere through trials and tribulations. How? By completely relying on His Heavenly Father. Jesus knew that God the Father was walking with Him, even in His darkest time. So it stands as an encouragement for us, when we are facing situations where we see no light at the end of the tunnel, know that your Heavenly Father is a good God and is walking with you through your storm.

by

The Stingless Enemy

13th April

“For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 15:56-57

Sin and death have no power over us anymore because we have the victory in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What a wonderful verse to start the week with. We can know for sure that when Jesus laid down His life for us, He took the sting out of sin and death, and instead gives us life and life in its fullness.

When Moses gave the law to the people of Israel, it bound them to the consequences of their actions. They could no longer say “I didn’t know this or that was wrong” because the law clearly stated what was permissible and what was a sin. That in turn pronounced judgement on those living under the law. If you stole, you are guilty according to the law. If you lied then according to the law, you are guilty. And so on and so forth. The consequence of disobeying the law was ultimately Spiritual and sometimes physical death.

It all started when Adam disobeyed God in the garden of Eden, sin entered the world, resulting in death and eternal separation from God. Yes sin has consequences here on earth but the ultimate price of sin was death. However it doesn’t end there!!

Paul finishes in verse 57 with the good news of Jesus Christ. We now have the victory in Jesus’ death and resurrection and in His conquering of sin and death on the cross. Jesus had to die a sinners death (even though He was completely innocent), paying the debt and consequences of our sin, and by doing so, when He resurrected, rendered the power of death and sin defeated. He paid our price (the consequence of our sins) so we would no longer have to.

So now when we do make bad choices, we can come before the throne of God, confidently and without condemnation because there is no sting in our sin.

by

Jesus Heals The Man Born Blind

11th & 12th April

Weekend Edition

“The Pharisees asked the man all about it. So he told them, “He put mud on my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!”

John 10:15 

Blindness must be such as a hard thing to deal with. I can’t imagine what life must be like, without seeing the beauty that God has made. Yet here in today’s passage we see two blind people, one physical, the other Spiritual. The first was a man who had been blind from birth. The second people with blindness were the Pharisees.

In John 10, we see that Jesus had just healed the man who had been blind from birth miraculously. Yet instead of marvelling at the wonder of healing, the Pharisees were incensed because firstly Jesus did this miracle on a Sabbath and secondly because they believed Jesus to be a sinner, yet here He was attracting crowds because of the love and compassion He was showing.

If Jesus were physically here today, what would our reaction be to this miracle? What we find it strange that Jesus healed a man by spiting on mud and rubbing it on his eyes? Would we be aggrieved that Jesus performed miracles on a Sunday? Or would we rather join in with the healed man and proclaim that Jesus is more than just a human being? Even being born blind, the man still had enough knowledge to know that what Jesus did was nothing short of a miracle. He proclaimed that “ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, He couldn’t have done it!”

The simple truth is that Jesus did perform a miracle. He opened the eyes of the blind exhibiting His Godliness for all to see. Yet some choose to be caught up in religious piety than accept who Jesus was. Today, let us not be caught up in the ways of this world, but fixing our eyes on Jesus, know that He is the one who can open our eyes to a life of light and not darkness, a life of peace instead of hurt.

by

Faith To Believe Without Seeing

10th April

 “Then they told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But He replied, “I wont believe it unless I see the nail wounds in His hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hands into the wound in His side.””

Luke 24:30-31

 For eight days Thomas, after hearing the disciples (his friends) tell him that they had seen the risen Jesus, doubted that Jesus was truly alive. Yesterday we heard that two of the disciples (maybe not part of the 12), were walking with Jesus and their eyes could not open to the true identity of Jesus. But they had not heard that Jesus had risen. Yet Thomas, whose own friends had told him that they had seen Jesus alive doubted.

In verse 27 Jesus again approaches the disciples with peace and then calms every doubt Thomas had about Him. In fact, Jesus responds with the very same words Thomas used by confirming that it was really Him, “Put your fingers here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side.” At once Thomas cried out in belief that Jesus in his Lord and God.

It can be said that we are all on a Thomas journey. We have heard of Jesus, we know who He is through the Bible, yet we have had no personal revelation of Jesus in our lives. Needless to say, it so often has to take a personal encounter with Christ to fully recognise who He is for ourselves and to understand His kind, gracious and loving character towards us.

We are even more blessed that we believe without seeing Jesus face to face. However, His character and attributes can so easily be seen not only in creation but also through the kind outworking of Jesus in and through others. If we say we have met the risen King, then we should be doing our best to show Him to others through the way we are living our lives!

by

I Was Blind But Now I See

9th April

“Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; And He vanished from their sight.”

Luke 24:30-31 

Yesterday as the bright light shone in my eyes, I decided it was time for the sunglasses to be worn. As I put them on my whole perspective of what I could see completely changed. Everything had a slight amber glare. As I pondered this I realised that much is the same with our eyes. When we are blind and dead in our sin, life looks so bleak and dull. There is no hope, no reason to live and everything looks a monotone. When Christ comes alive in us, when we receive Him into our lives, everything almost seems like in has come alive. To steal Ben Cantelon lyric, ‘everything I see is in colour’.

In the story of the ‘road to Emmaus’, exclusive to Luke’s gospel, we are told of a similar situation whereby two of the disciples en-route to Jerusalem met the risen Jesus. As they are walking, Jesus, whose true identity was hidden, starts to explain to the two disciples who He really was using Moses’ and the Prophet’s writings. Yet still them could not discern whom this man was that they were walking with. It is only until Jesus broke the bread and blessed it that their eyes were opened. It is almost like they finally understood what it meant that Jesus’ own body had to be sacrificed through the breaking off the bread.

Until they fully realised who Jesus was, the image and perception of Him was just an ordinary man, who in their eyes had failed at restoring the Kingdom of Israel from the Romans. It is this reason that they were walking so sadly when Jesus met them. However, when they knew Jesus’ real identity, they were filled with joy and couldn’t contain their excitement. They had just walked a long 7 miles to Jerusalem and now travelled back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples the good news.

The question we must ask ourselves is this, have our eyes truly been opened to see who Jesus really is for personally, and if so what is our reaction to it? Are you looking at Jesus through someone’s glasses or your own?

by

Jesus’ Resurrection – FREEDOM!!!

8th April

“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.”

Romans 8:1-2 

We are free. Free to live without condemnation. Free to fall down (although we strive to live holy lives before our holy God), but free to approach the mercy seat of God with no shame, fear or guilt!

Jesus again in His encounter with Nicodemus in John chapter 3, tells him in verse 17 that He didn’t come to condemn the world but that through His sacrificial love, we will be saved. The writer of Romans echoes these words in today’s verse. There is no condemnation at all. If we can say with surety that we belong to Christ Jesus, if we have accepted His love, repented of our sins, acknowledge Him at King of our lives… then there is good news…YOU ARE NOT CONDEMNED.

Yes we will sin, yes we fall short of God’s holy standards but we are freed from the power of sin by Jesus’ resurrection power. We no longer live a life that leads to death but live a free life that leads to a fully alive LIFE.

This doesn’t give us a free licence to do whatever we want and never face the consequence of our bad choices, but rather when we feel like we cant pray, go to church, fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ because of sin, we can identify that as a lie from the devil and know that Jesus welcomes us into His loving arms no matter what we have done. It was while we were still sinners that He died for us. The only thing that changed is that God doesn’t look at our sin but looks at what Jesus did on the cross. He paid our price so we wouldn’t have to. THAT IS LOVE AND GRACE!!