Who am I?

There are many answers and very likely lots of them are true. You are the son or daughter of ‘so and so’. You are a man, woman, married, single, have children, no children, arty, musical, clever, practical - so the list goes on.

There are so many things that are different about each of us but we also have some common traits. We are all human. This covers a lot of ground. Our birth, our frailty, our fears, our flaws and mistakes, our hurt, our death.

Have you ever stopped to think why there are so many things we have in common? 

The Bible explains the reason. God created us in the first place ‘in his image’. This among other things gives us the capacity to be creative, think and make choices. The first man, Adam, made a choice to disobey one of the simple commands of God and as a result ‘sin came into the world’. This brings us to another common feature of humanity, we are mortal. We are naturally wayward, the Bible calls it sin. Let’s be honest, we all know that we disobey the law to varying degrees. That’s mans law, but we also disobey God’s law as well. The effect of sin on a day to day basis is the hurt, pain, aging and mistakes mentioned earlier. The ultimate common effect of sin in all of our lives is death. Death is an awful thing. It separates us from our loved ones, it causes pain and brings dark days into our lives. BUT, death also is the defining moment which seals our eternal fate. What we have believed in this life cannot be changed after death. Death is the gateway to the next world which the Bible describes as being one of two places, heaven or hell. Heaven being a place of conscious enjoyment and bliss, hell of conscious regret and suffering.

What do you do with your time

All photos courtesy of Unsplash
It is nice to take time to relax, have a coffee and chat. It is important at times to sit down, catch up and do a bit of planning. We all do it from time to time but probably not often enough.

Relevant questions we should sit down and ask are: 

1. What have I been doing with my time? 
2. Could I have used it more effectively? 
3. What are my plans for the future? 
4. Am I achieving what I want to achieve?
5. If not what plans and actions do I need to take to change things effectively? 

Planning is so important in every area of life! 

As someone once said - if you don't know where you are going, you'll definitely arrive. Planning, organising, implementing and reviewing are all good organisational skills.

You might be very successful in work-life but I want to ask you how your personal life is? Sometimes we need to clean and tidy up certain parts of our lives. What about reviewing your life so far and planning for the future? Are you prepared to be as careful about the personal issues of your life and your soul as you are in work life? Some of you will be perfectionists when it comes to your business, your personal hygiene, your financial affairs but how is it with you soul and your spiritual state before God?

Be careful as you start this process. 

Remember that the Bible speaks the truth and warns of the following:

Jeremiah 17. 9 - 'the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it'.

Proverbs 16. 25 - 'there is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death'. 

These verses mean that you cannot trust your instincts, you must learn to trust, believe and obey what God says in His revelation of truth, i.e. the Bible.

The Bible often states the obvious because as humans we often choose to ignore the obvious:

Ecclesiastes 3. 1 & 2 - 'to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die'.

Hebrews 9. 27 & 28 - 'and as it is appointed unto men (humans) once to die, but after this the judgement: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many'. 

John 8.24 - (the Lord Jesus is speaking) 'I said therefore unto you, that you shall die in your sins: for if you believe not that I am he (the promised one/Son of God), you shall die in your sins'. 

My final quotation is simple yet direct advice from the Bible. 

It is based on the assumption that the hearer accepts that they are guilty of sin, in danger of God's judgment and aware of their inability to save themselves.

Acts 16. 31 - 'Believe on The Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved'. 

Plan for life and enjoy God's salvation now and the guarantee of a home in heaven on the other side of death

OR

Ignore the truth and face the eternal judgement of God in Hell and the Lake of Fire.

Please plan wisely.

To access podcasts and videos explaining the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ visit www.seekthetruth.org.uk

This site will give you access to Bible Teaching Audio's and Video's as well.

All posts have the aim of pointing people to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour or to aid Christian growth and development.

The 400th Anniversary of the Death of William Shakespeare (2)

The 400th Anniversary of the Death of William Shakespeare (2) - Famous Quotes

As the most quoted English writer Shakespeare has more than his share of famous quotes. It’s tricky to say definitively which are his most popular quotes. I'd like to look at some of them to draw some lessons for life.

To be or not to be: that is the question (Hamlet)

You may ponder what exactly Shakespeare intended us to learn from this statement but I would like you to consider a deeper issue! You 'will be' for ever! That is the Bible teaches that you have a soul that will never cease to exist! 

In Exodus 3:14 God describes himself to Moses in a very strange way. When asked 'who shall I say sent me?' God says to Moses just tell them ''I am has sent me to you". God is the ever present, eternal God who has always existed. He made humanity in his image, Genesis 1:26,27. One of the dimensions of his image is that he is eternal. We have also been created with an eternal soul. This idea of our eternal existence is addressed in Genesis 3:22 in the context of man sinning and living for ever in a state of sin. Thankfully the Lord Jesus came, died for our sins and rose from the dead so that  we can be right with God. In John 6:51 Jesus taught that he came down from heaven and he described himself as the living bread. He said that if a person eats of the living bread he will live for ever. Jesus was not teaching that a person eats of his body but that when they trust him they share in his life eternally. 

A man can die but once. (Henry IV, Part 2)

This is a statement that is often repeated in the Bible. For instance in Hebrews 9:27,28 the Bible states 'And just as it is appointed for man to die once , and after that comes judgement, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him'. Indeed you will die once but as we discovered in the previous quotation that is not the end. We need to be prepared to meet God.

These are two quotes that could direct your thinking to the important issues of life, death and eternity. May God bless you through his word today.

For more information visit www.seekthetruth.org.uk

One purchase you will never regret!

One purchase you will never regret!

While the religious authorities were seeking ways to trap, arrest and execute Jesus there was one person not so far from the city of Jerusalem who were doing the complete opposite. Standing up for what is right will often mean you are in the minority. Don't give up because the majority disagrees with you. Truth is not measured by statistics!

In the small town of Bethany there was a home were Jesus was always welcome. Is Jesus welcome in your home and life?

The people in Bethany that night were, as is always the case, split in their opinion and attitude to Jesus. Some believed him to be who he claimed to be, the Son of God. Others were convinced that he was a fraud, an imposter and not worth consideration. 

Where do you stand in your view of Jesus? Is it the one question that will determine your eternal destiny! Jesus said as recorded in John 8:24 'I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.'

On this occasion a lady comes into the house with expensive ointment and pours it on Jesus' head. The reaction: most said what a waste of good money; it could have been used for better purposes i.e. to feed the poor. 

Here's a point you may strongly disagree with! It's better to worship Jesus than to feed the poor! I think that's true! 

But listen, Jesus didn't say don't feed the poor! He said the poor would always exist! I think this a lesson in priorities. If we see Jesus for who he is, the Son of God. If we turn from our sin and unbelief, confess our sin and trust him as Lord and Saviour.....

THEN

We will go on to: feed the poor, love our neighbour and do all the things that are pleasing to God and his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

SO

Where do you stand when it comes to the cost of worshipping Jesus? It's one price you will never regret paying. 

Mark 14King James Version (KJV)

1 After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.

2 But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people.

3 And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.

4 And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?

5 For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.

6 And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.

7 For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

8 She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

9 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

For more information and further explanations of the message of the bible via videos, blogs and podcasts please visit www.seekthetruth.org.uk

Is your name Hugh Williams? - You are not welcome on my cruise!

The story has often been told that a ship sank in the Menai Straits off the coast of north Wales on December 5, 1664, and all 81 passengers were drowned, except one man and he was called Hugh Williams. Then on December 5th, 1785, another ship with 60 people aboard sank in the Menai Straits. Again the only survivor then was also a man named Hugh Williams. Lastly in 1820 – again on December 5^th - a third vessel sank in the Menai Straits. All 25 aboard were drowned except; yes you’ve guessed it, a man named Hugh Williams! This extraordinary coincidence could only be explained by the fact that the name Hugh Williams was very common in those parts, and that in December the tides in the Mania Straits can be quite treacherous.

This story has been called the 'strangest coincidence ever recorded', and seems a story worth telling. However, the story then gets complicated, because another version has the first wreck in the Mania Straits, but the second disaster as a pleasure schooner wrecked off the Isle of Man. Then the third was a picnicking party on a boat on the Thames run down by a coal barge, or was it a Leeds coal barge with nine men aboard floundered – all but two were drowned and both were named Hugh Williams! To make things even more interesting, there is also an account of a British trawler sunk by a German mine in the Mania Straits on 10th July 1940 and only two men survived, one man and his nephew - they were both called Hugh Williams! So apart from the coincidence of the name Hugh Williams, the story has a number of variations. Is it true or is it only an urban myth? Who knows? Someone was quite confused by the variation in these stories, and the only thing he could conclude that if he were ever to go sailing on the Mania Straits, he would make sure that there wasn’t someone called Hugh Williams on board!

Whichever way you take these stories, the gospel of the Lord Jesus is of course very believable. It has many descriptions in the New Testament. For instance when the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Colossae, he spoke about ‘the word of the truth of the gospel’, Colossians chapter 1 verse 5, by which they ‘knew the grace of God in truth’, v. 6.

At the trial of the Lord Jesus, Pontius Pilate cynically asked the question, ‘What is truth?’, John 18. 38. In fact it turns out that the truth is not ‘what’ but ‘who’, since Jesus had said ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me’, John 14. 6. Jesus is the one-and-only way to God, and His death on the cross made it possible that individuals could come to God though Him.

The apostle Paul looked back with the Christians at Ephesus to the time of their conversion and reminded them about ‘[Jesus] in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation’, Ephesians 1. 13.  The gospel – the good news – was about their salvation, when they were rescued from the penalty of their sins.   

God wants you to know the truth: in fact in the New Testament we read that He is the God who wants ‘all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth’, 1 Timothy 2. 4. Why not get saved and come to know this truth for yourself?

For more information about the Bible and Salvation visit www.seekthetruth.org.uk