Reflection

God Made Man

Julian of Norwich, p 4 says,

” … our God wants us to value all his work very highly; the noble work of creation, especially the creation of man, which excels everything else…”*

It strikes me that this is really significant. God made man in his own image (Gen 1:26) and he declared that all he made was excellent in every way (Gen 1:31).
Satan has been attacking man ever since to get at God. He has been hard at work to demean man, to make him less than. It seems this demeaning is getting worse and worse. The most dreadful denigration of man is happening today – reducing the glory of man (made in God’s image) to an animal – sexual denigration, moral denigration (lying, cheating, killing, etc), cheap life (abortion, war, drugs), etc.
Satan had been robbing us of our glory out of his hatred for God. Are we going to let him continue? Time to take a stand, to resist him, and return to our true place in and with God.

*[ Julian of Norwich. 1987. Revelations of divine love. (This edition edited by Halcyon Backhouse with Rhona Piper) London: Hodder & Stoughton.]

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Reflection

Suffering of the Animals and the Land

I’ve been reading Hosea in the Old Testament. I’ve read it many times before but I’ve recently noticed a few verses in Hosea 4 (verses 1-3). Here’s what it says in the Living Translation:

“There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land. You curse and lie and kill and steal and commit adultery. There is violence everywhere, with one murder after another. That is why your land is not producing. It is filled with sadness, and all living things are becoming sick and dying. Even the animals, birds, and fish have begun to disappear.”

My goodness, this sounds like a description of what is happening today all around the world! Watching the news, reading the newspaper, reading the news online gets to be pretty distressing with such an increase in unnatural events like murder, war, embezzlement, greed, etc. These have the consequence of polluting the land, polluting the world, polluting the very air we breathe. How many species of animals, birds and fish are now extinct or close to extinction? It seems that what Hosea had to say so very long ago is so very true for our now. Sometimes it seems so hopeless and I feel a “what’s-the-point” feeling creeping up trying to overtake me.
The world is filled with sadness, the land itself is sad. What reason has the animal world to fight to survive?
It makes me sad too.
However, there is hope. Hosea has the answer. It might not be palatable to many but I believe it is the way we should go. In the last chapter (chapter 14 verses 1-7), he speaks of our returning to God and of turning from our sinful ways. There’s some good promises in there.
Hosea is a good book to read. With very good advice to put into practice.  I encourage you to do so.

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Reflection

Jesus, the Lamb Sacrificed for Us

Jesus is the pure and spotless lamb sacrificed for us. Our sins are covered by his blood, a full and perfect atonement. Jesus is also the only High Priest who could offer up the once-for-all-time perfect sacrifice. He has made the WAY for us, the only way, out of the jaws of death and damnation back to our Creator in whose arms we truly belong.

There is much to reflect on at Easter as we trace Jesus’ last days — the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the last supper, Gethsemane, betrayal and desertion, torture and the mockery of a trial, agonising death by crucifixion, burial in someone else’s tomb, and finally the resurrection. My prayer is that God will guide you as you reflect on this and that you will hear His heart for you. God bless you this Easter.

Throughout his life he resisted the persistent temptations of the evil one till now:

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in ever way, just as we are — yet was without sin.” Hebrews 4:15

Because Jesus was a person like us, he knows the temptations to which we are exposed. He will help us to resist them, and he paid the full price for all our failures.

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Reflection

Eternity, no beginning and no end!

I’ve started reading 1 John yet again. So good!! Jesus was from the beginning… but was there ever a beginning? Eternity has no beginning and no end. My mind cannot grasp that. God has ever been, and ever will be. No beginning, no end!
There are vast universes out there. They are endless. Are we the only place where there is intelligent life? Has God created beings in his own image elsewhere? Could be. Have they done better than us? Perhaps so.
How vastly different is our little world trapped in time and space when compared to God with his infinite timelessness and infinite universe, with no beginning and no end. We cannot begin to grasp it as much as we may try. There is no logical explanation. Yet God made us in his own image, and desired to have fellowship with us because he loved us, his own creation. By giving us free wills he introduced a tremendous wrinkle in it all. Jesus has and continues to deal with that wrinkle.
By choosing him our wrinkled will is lined up with God’s. We are then inheritors of eternity. Thank you, Jesus!

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Reflection

Jesus pleased God!

When Jesus was baptized (as recorded in Mark 1), God spoke from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with you.” Jesus had not yet begun any sort of ministry. All he’d done was be born, grow up and get baptized by John. Yet God was pleased with him, and fully pleased at that!! That pleasure had nothing to do with what Jesus did or his ministry. That set me thinking. How many of us grew up with a father (and/or mother) who was fully pleased with us, and let us know it? I doubt there’s many. Yet we spend much of our lives unconsciously striving to please, or to be so relevant (important, indispensable, useful, whatever) and so ‘please’ the one whose love and pleasure we so long for. This might not make much sense to you but I’m thinking there’s a connection to relevance deprivation and the fact there’s nothing we can or need do to earn the Father’s love and delight. It is already ours. Jesus made sure of that.
Now we are coming close to Christmas. It’s just weeks away. It is a good time for us to reflect on the why’s of why he came. He left a pretty wonderful place to be born poor in rather questionable circumstances, and then to live a short life building the foundation for us to enter into a fresh new relationship with God the Father. A relationship where our sins are forgiven and where our Father God is pleased with us.
Take heart! You are greatly loved. You don’t have to strive to be loved… you just are.

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Reflection

Temptation

Some years ago I was strongly impressed with Jesus’ response to the evil one’s temptation of him after those 40 days in the wilderness.

We read in Matthew 4:1-11 that Jesus was tempted to take matters into his own hands to achieve his earthly goals:
– to satisfy hunger
– to get God to do what he wants
– to get world from Satan by any means

He was tempted to move from absolute trust in God to helping God our by his own efforts.

Really for me it comes down to realising that no matter how “hungry” I am to achieve a goal I am to trust Jesus and not help God out by self-effort, manipulation, or idolatrous submission to someone or something else. Phew! Help, I need your help, Lord Jesus.

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General

A fox in the hen house…

The dogs next door were going crazy this morning. A most unusual event so I went to check. A fox had somehow gotten into the hen house and killed ALL the chooks! The fox was still trapped inside. It still is as my neighbours await someone with a licence to come dispose of it.

It’s a sad event. Those chooks used to come into my yard and clean up around my garden. Then in the evening go back to their safe place. Unfortunately, their safe place was not so safe for them last night. The fox managed to climb up the door and squeeze in through a crack and then do its worst.

It reminded me that not all places we think are safe actually are. I’m reminded of something I wrote back in 2016 about safe places. Check it out. Do you have a safe place? A place that is safe from the “foxes” of this life?

Check out “Safe Places”

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General

The Queen has gone home…

Knowing it would happen one day is one thing… for it to actually happen reaches deep into the heart. I well remember when her father died and she became Queen. I was almost 12 years old and in first year high school. We were in the playground when the news came that the King had died and Elizabeth was now Queen. We all experienced a deep grief, with most of us never having had any kind of encounter with death. That day is deeply etched in my memories.

Now, her home-going is also etched in the memories. She was a faithful lover of God, and her trust in Jesus profound. She was such a blessing to me. I’m glad to have lived through her reign. And glad she can now rest with God.

I pray we all may know Jesus too. And, take heart in the hope he gives us… sins forgiven, new life, and a home awaiting us when our time on Earth is done.

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General

Waiting Quietly

I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him. (NLT: Psalm 62:1)

Only in God is there certain victory. Somehow waiting quietly before God is essential. Is this a faith thing in that my faith grows by waiting quietly? I think so. There’s nothing I can do to change my circumstances or the situation in which I find myself.

I wrote the above in 2012 and it is still true for me today. No matter how much I may fret or fume, scheme or plan, victory comes from God alone. So whatever the circumstance, look for God, and wait on him. And, when it’s time to move or do something he will make it clear.

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General

On gratefulness

I have a lovely little app (called Presently) on my phone which daily in the evening reminds me to consider the things for which I’m grateful in that day. I’m finding this a good way to end the day.
With so much happening in the world which has such a depressing effect on us it is good to look at those things for which we can be grateful. It does lift the spirits!
It may be things such as:
It’s spring and the garden is full of colour, or I had a lovely chat with a friend over Skype today, or my bed is so comfy, or I finally got some good weeding done in the garden.
There is much for which we can be grateful… really the possibilities are endless.
A grateful heart is a healthy heart.
Be blessed today and think of the things for which you are grateful.

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Renewing hope in hopeless times