Month: December 2016

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The God Who Brings Peace

20th December

“I will remove the battle chariots from Israel and the warhorses from Jerusalem. I will destroy all the weapons used in battle, and your king will bring peace to the nations. His realm will stretch from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.”

Zechariah 9:10

Look around at the news and it will surely saddened you: Wars, conflicts, betrayals and cruelty. Yet even in this darkness, there is a light that shines brighter and brighter; a light that can never be put out and a light that is overcoming the darkness. This light is Jesus Christ. God, born as man more than 2000 years ago. He came as a helpless babe and left as the resurrected King. It is in Him and through Him that we find peace and joy. His light can never be extinguished and it is through Him that peace will one day reign again on this earth.

Zechariah’s prophecy about the coming Messiah, Jesus, was foretold long before Jesus was born but told us exactly about who Jesus was to be. He came to bring an end to war and suffering, He came to destroy anger, bitterness and sadness. Yet not just to only destroy it but to replace it; to replace it with peace and joy. Jesus’ Kingdom today does indeed stretch to the ends of the earth and is stronger today than it ever has been. People are being set free, delivered and liberated in Jesus’ Name.

One day, all war and fighting will stop forever. There will no more pain, tears and suffering. But until that day comes, let us continue to pray for the peace that Jesus brings. Let us pray that people will meet Jesus, the resurrected King now. Let us pray that this Christmas, the peace of God, that surpasses all understanding, will reign in people’s hearts, both now and forever.

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Christmas Notes: O Come Let Us Adore Him

19th December

“. . . wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.””
Matthew 2:1b-2

Christmas has come to mean many things: family, love, gift-giving, service, celebration, joy, and more—all worthy expressions of a multifaceted event. But one expression of the meaning of Christmas, central to the birth of Jesus, is often overlooked today: worship.

When the wise men from the East journeyed to verify the birth of Jesus, their stated reason was worship: “For we . . . have come to worship Him.” They had a sense that something world-changing had happened: A King worthy of worship had been born. And when Simeon, the godly saint in Jerusalem who was looking for the Messiah, first held the baby Jesus in his arms, he “blessed [praised] God” in a beautiful prayer of praise (Luke 2:28-32). At the first Christmas, worship seemed to be the first response of those who saw the newborn King.

Much has been added to Christmas since then, especially culturally. May we remember to include worship, personal and corporate, as we celebrate the coming into the world of the One who is worthy to be praised.1

1Taken from David Jeremiah’s Daily Devotional

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What’s In Your Hand

17th – 18th December

Weekend Edition

“Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with huge crowd?”

John 6:8-9

Did you know that Jesus fed more than 5000 people with just two fish and five loaves of barley bread? In fact John makes specific mention that it was just the ‘men alone’ that numbered 5000. That figure was not even including all the children and women!! Furthermore, not only did Jesus feed everyone until they were full, but they had so much food, that they could fill 12 baskets full of leftovers, (again another point specifically included by John to prove the enormity of this miracle).

Yet where did this amazing miracle start from? It started from a young boy offering what he had and giving his all for Jesus. This young boy hardly gets a mention in this story because of the wonderful and magnificent display of Jesus’ mighty provision. But the miracle started from the offering brought to Jesus by a young boy who gave what he had. Perhaps the boy was picked out of the crowd because he was the only one with food. Perhaps, even still, he was on a shopping errand for his family and was just curious to see what all the commotion was about. But a more probable reason is because the young boy purposefully brought what he had to Jesus and His disciples. After all, Andrew said, ‘there is a young boy here’, implying he had come to them.

If so, then the question we must ask ourselves is this: What are we holding in our hand that God can use to display His glory? What can we bring to Him, so that His Kingdom can be extended to the ends of the world? ‘When we willingly dedicate our own small resources – time, talents, or possessions – to God, He can work miracles for us and others. God can take our limited resources and multiply them beyond our wildest expectation’1, just like He did with the young boys offering. Let’s offer God what we have and see how He uses our offering.. Be expectant…!!!

1Quote taken From ‘Every man’s Bible commentary’

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The Crowds Follow Jesus

16th December

“A huge crowd kept following Him (Jesus) wherever He went, because they saw His miraculous signs as He healed the sick.”

John 6:2

When Jesus walked the Earth, He attracted crowds of both people willing to hear His message, people attracted by His miracles, or those trying to trap Him into saying something worthy of death (i.e. Something blasphemous or against Rome). Yet wherever He went and for whatever reason, crowds would follow Him. Isn’t it interesting that nothing has changed, more than 2000 years after His ascension. He still attracts the crowds, and still the crowds are divided as to why they are talking about Him or following Him.

Yet the ones who followed Him, clinging onto the very words He spoke, are the ones who benefited most from Jesus’ life and words.

See we too can just be followers of Jesus, almost wandering around trying to catch a piece of the miraculous, as if Jesus was some circus show in town, entertaining the crowds with His wonders. Yet that is not what Jesus was about at all. He was and is so much more than just miracles, signs and wonders (that is not to say they are not important). It was and is Jesus’ life giving, world transforming words, His substitutionary sacrifice and His character transforming works that we hold on to so dearly. That is why we follow Him, and so many across the world do too.

Your challenge for today is to fully understand and answer the question ‘why am I following Jesus?’ May the Spirit help you to answer in the same way Peter did when challenged by Jesus…

“Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.”1

1John 6:68

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Love Like God Loves

15th December

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

Romans 8:16

If a baby cries in the middle of the night, or soils its diaper, or spits up its food, or knocks over a priceless vase, the parents love that child anyway. They love the child unconditionally. Why? Because they know the child didn’t know better. But somewhere along the line, parents’ unconditional love gets harder. At some point they hear themselves saying, “You know better!” Parents are tempted to love “because of” instead of “in spite of.”

Children who are raised with conditional love have a challenge ahead: understanding God’s unconditional love. God’s love is the same when we are immature and sin, as when we are mature and sin. Yes, God disciplines His children just as parents discipline their children (Hebrews 12:1-13). But God’s discipline is based on His love. His discipline is for training, not for punishment. His love is always unconditional. Parents have no greater job than to get their children ready to experience God’s unconditional love. How do they do that? By loving children the way God loves parents and children: unconditionally.

The best way to advertise God’s love is by loving the way He loves (John 13:34-35).1

1Today’s Devotional is taken from David Jeremiah, Daily Devotions

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The Son Of God… Or Just A Good Teacher?

14th December

“So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to kill Him. For He not only broke the sabbath, He called God His Father, thereby making Himself equal with God.”

John 5:16-18

Was Jesus just a good teacher? Was He just someone who went around healing people? Or was He who He said He was? World renowned author and writer of the Narnia series, C.S Lewis, gave his views on this subject in his book Mere Christianity. He said the following,

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”1

Jesus never intended to just be a good teacher. Of course He was a good teacher and His words continue to bring life to us. But He was so much more than that. He Himself claimed to be God’s Son (as we read in today’s passage), making Himself equal with God. It was these claims that cost Jesus His earthly life. We as readers of these facts must decide if, as C.S Lewis said, Jesus was a raving lunatic, a complete an utter liar, or if He was and is indeed Lord and God!! There is no middle ground to think Jesus was just a nice Man. The choice is yours to make, a choice we must make.

And Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.”But the Pharisees were angered because, “He called God His Father, thereby making Himself equal with God.”

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‘Don’t Do That . . . It’s The Sabbath!!’

13th December

“Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!””

John 5:8-9

Sometimes in our lives, we can miss out on what God is doing because we look for the things that fit into the box of our understanding about who God is, and don’t open our eyes to see the things that God is doing outside of the box. Today’s example of Jesus’ healing of the man sick for thirty eight years, is a prime example of this. Jesus, showing compassion on the sick man, healed him and told him to pick up his mat and walk. Jesus saw the desperation in the sick man’s words and saw he couldn’t help himself, so in an act of mercy, healed the sick man instantly.

Yet sadly, the joy of this miracle was quickly quashed by the religious Pharisees, who were more concerned that Jesus had performed a miracle on the Sabbath and that the man was ‘working’ on the Sabbath because he was carrying his sleeping mat. They completely ignored the wonderful miracle that had happened, of a man sick for thirty eight years being healed, and focused on the ‘breaking of the law’. We can only wonder what their reaction would have been if the sick man had been a relative of theirs…

It is our challenge to see what God is doing outside of the box we have created and rejoice that His ways are not our ways and that He truly is in control. We must learn not to be so caught up in the ‘rules’ that we quench what God is doing. As with the sick man, God was doing something so much greater than just healing him, He was bringing him salvation, “Now you are well; So stop sinning…”1

1John 5:14b

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If I Had Enough Faith

12th December

“Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.”

Hebrews 11:1

When Jesus returned back to Cana, in Galilee, the place where He had turned water into wine, He was approached by a leading government official whose son was terribly ill. The official begged Jesus to heal his son. Jesus replied with these words, “Will you never believe in Me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?”1 Yet the government official persisted and again begged Jesus to go to Capernaum where his son was, to heal him. Jesus then said, “Go back home. Your son will live!”2 The man believed Jesus’ words and sure enough, the son was healed at exactly the time Jesus spoke those words. This wonderful miracle led the man and his whole household to believe in Jesus.

Do we too need evidence of Jesus’ miraculous signs and wonders before we believe or trust in Him? Of course the miraculous proves beyond any doubt that something greater than ourselves exists. But what if we were to believe just because…; just because we know God is real, or just because we have read about Him, or just because we experienced His love and works in our lives.

The government official of course needed faith to trust Jesus that his son would be healed, by just accepting Jesus’ words. He couldn’t see the miracle, yet he had the confidence in Jesus’ words that what He said, would actually happen. He had assurance about what he could not see because of what Jesus said. We too are challenged to exercise our faith for the humanly impossible, not because of something we can see, but because of faith: because of our confidence in who God is and what He has said through His word. Let us believe and have full assurance about the things we can’t see and confidence, that what we pray for will actually happen.

1John 4:48

2John 4:50

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If I Had 10,000 Tongues

9, 10th December

Weekend Edition

“O Lord my God, You have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all Your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them.”

Psalm 40:5

When you are in a dark place the only way to get out is through praise. Look at how many Psalms were birthed whilst David was going through tough times. Take Daniel when he was thrown into the lions den. It was praising God that freed him. The same with Peter, John, Silas and Paul; all thrown into jail, but praise set free from their persecution. Moses regularly cried out to God in praise to help him lead the people of Israel. And in times of great responsibility and decision making, praising God was the first thing on his lips. Jesus Himself taught us how to turn our cries of help into shouts of praise. Of course it is not easy to look at the positives when you are in a negative situation. But that is the point! If we fix on the negative things, we will never be able to look up to the positive, which always was and is our Lord and Saviour.

This weekend lets join the Psalmist in declaring God’s wonderful endless deeds. Lets fix our eyes on Jesus instead of our problems and watch God liberate us from our negative situations, and lead us on the path of victory. He has performed great wonders and will continue to do! Trust in HIM!

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The Whole Village Believed

9th December

“Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” When they came out to see Him, they begged Him to stay in their village. So He did for two more days. . . . . They they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard Him ourselves.””

John 4:39-42

Yesterday we learnt of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and how Jesus loves reaches us too, even in the deepest darkest places in our lives. We learnt how Jesus the Samaritan woman where she was at in her life and ministered His love and grace to her. We learned how He spoke a prophetic word to the woman revealing her sinful lifestyle, yet He did so in a loving and kind way, not in a condemning and judgemental way. So great was this word from Jesus, that the woman ran back to the village with great joy, telling her fellow villagers about Jesus.

We then pick up the story again in verse 39. Amazingly, because of the prophetic words of Jesus to the woman, many believed. Even more amazing, was that Samaritan people where begging Jesus to stay in Samaria to continue to teach and share His message with them. So great were Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman, that not only did it radically change her life but the lives of so many others.

One of the key passages in this whole story is found in verse 42, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard Him ourselves. Now we know He is indeed the Saviour of the world.” How incredible; that Jesus’ few words to the Samaritan woman had such a big impact. Furthermore, Jesus’ own words to them, revealed His true identity as the Saviour of the world.

The power of a testimony and the power of a prophetic word can only lead people to Jesus. It is when they meet Him and hear Him for themselves, that their lives are completely changed. The Samaritan’s woman’s words only led the people to Jesus. It was Jesus’ own words, that radically changed their lives, ‘because we have heard Him ourselves‘. When we too encounter Jesus’ love for ourselves, we become a beacon of His grace and His love. It is then our privilege is to lead other people to Christ and let the Holy Spirit fully reveal the character and person of Jesus to them personally.