Following Instructions

I don’t know about you, but one of the most maddening things I find about people is that they don’t listen or follow instructions. We all know that happens so often in everyday life. We know that people are told things and don’t listen. It could be to do with our health or money, but we often ignore the advice we are given. Sometimes, people are given guidelines but ignore them and just do it their way.

I am writing to point people to what God says in the Bible. But God wants them to listen and to follow His instructions for life. For instance, Jesus said one day, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by Me” (John 14.6 – the Bible). If you follow that instruction, you will become a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ.

Does It Matter Who Jesus Is?

Is Jesus Christ the Son of God? 

Why are Christians are so convinced that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and why is it deemed to be so important? It’s an excellent question! Christian belief is laid on a very solid foundation. First of all we believe that God has revealed information, to the prophets who wrote the Bible, to point us in the right direction. Our beliefs are not just based on human research or discovery. 

In other areas of life when we want to learn about something outside of our sphere of experience we seek information from a trustworthy source. So if you are researching space travel for the first time you would go to NASA or some other space agency to ask them questions. It is wise practice to go a reliable source. 

The eye in the sky - is there too much surveillance?

In 2013, it was reported that the UK has some of the most surveillance cameras per head in the developed world. The surveillance commissioner, Tony Porter – a former senior counter-terrorism officer – said ‘the public was complacent about encroaching surveillance and urged public bodies, including the police, to be more transparent about how they are increasingly using smart cameras to monitor people’.

Wonderfully Made - Part 6 - The Cells

Our fifth and final subject for study in the series is the cells, the basic building blocks of our bodies. There are an awful lot of them, about 40 trillion (million million), with a mere 35 billion, thousand million, skin cells, and around two billion cells in our hearts. 

There are about 200 different kinds of cell, including blood, muscle, skin, nerve, glandular cells, etc. Half our cells are taken up by red blood cells.

20% of people in the UK admit to loneliness!

I discovered recently that ‘1 A national commission investigating loneliness in the UK in January 2017 showed that a fifth of the population privately admits they are "always or often lonely”’.

Herbert Van Zeller, 1905-1984, once wrote ‘the soul hardly ever realises it, but whether he is believer or not, his loneliness is really a homesickness for God’. That’s quite a statement. Loneliness is deeper than a lack of company and it affects people in all stages of life.

Facing decisions - Crossroads

Pictures used by permission of Unsplash 

The classic World War II movie ‘The Longest Day’ portrays one of the clever military strategies of the German army. After the Allies had taken the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, their orders were to assemble in the town of St. Mere-Eglise in France. When they saw the sign for St. Mere-Eglise, naturally they proceeded in that direction. There was only one problem: The Germans had turned the sign to point in the opposite direction.

Unknowingly, the Allied forces confidently followed the sign and started marching toward the German trap. The hero of the Allied forces, played by John Wayne, showed up just in time to rescue them from certain destruction. One glance at his compass told him they were heading for disaster. “Hey, where’s everybody going?” he shouted. “Am I the only one here with a compass? It’s east; it’s east. Somebody moved the sign!”

Farming Life in East Sussex

There is a Christian farmer in East Sussex who has spent years planting and pruning thousands of willow trees to create a Bible verse that can be read-only from the sky. The farmer started this incredible task in the 1990s on his farm near Whitesmith, East Sussex.   He chose John chapter 14 verse 6 to patiently cultivate. The willow trees spell out words spoken in answer to the question, ‘How can we know the way?” Jesus replied, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’. As well as a message, his carefully spaced “many thousands” of willow trees form a maze. 

 

The maze has been used by friends and members of his local church and although the farmer knew that his maze was well set out, it was only after a number of years he was shown a picture of it taken from above from a helicopter. Now every time he sees a plane going over, he offers up a little prayer that people will see the verse and it will help them to trust in and follow Jesus. So, close up it is a maze with people trying hard to find their way through, but from above it is an easily read message. 

Handling Grief

Tragedies happen? "Why?”  Why does God allow bad things to happen? 

Grief is a multifaceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed.  Grief is a natural response to loss. It is the emotional suffering one feels when something or someone the individual loves is taken away. Grief is also a reaction to any loss. The grief associated with death is familiar to most people, but we grieve in connection with a variety of losses throughout our lives, such as unemployment, ill health or the end of a relationship. 

Every step of the grieving process is natural and healthy. It is only when a person gets stuck in one step for a long period of time that the grieving can become unhealthy, destructive and even dangerous. Going through the grieving process is not the same for everyone, but everyone does have a common goal; acceptance of the loss and to keep moving forward. The process is different for every person and can involve a wide range of feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. The goal of grieving is not the elimination of all the pain or the memories of the loss. The goal is to reorganise one’s life, so the loss is an important part of life rather than its centre. There is not a right or a wrong way to grieve.  Everyone grieves differently.  

As a Christian, while I grieve I turn to God’s Word to find strength and comfort. The book of Proverbs says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding" The more you know God, the more you will trust God. What is there not to trust? He is completely loving, wise, powerful, and good, but it is one thing to express a belief in God, and another to actually trust in him with all your heart. Trusting the Lord with all your heart means walking out, by faith, on his Word, no matter what consequences or opposition you may face.

Trusting God wholeheartedly also means resolutely refusing to lean on your own understanding. This, of course, does not mean that we are to give up the sound mind and reasoning spirit that God has given us. But it does mean that we are not to rely on our limited knowledge, experience, and emotions to guide us safely through life.

The question to ask yourself is this: do you trust God in precisely those places where your natural inclination is strongest against his leadership or direction or commandments? When the Bible clearly spells out his counsel, will you take it regardless of your personal preferences or preconceptions?

It is precisely at those places where we are least inclined to listen to or follow God that we are most able to show our devotion to him and our trust of him. Is there an area of your life today in which you have the opportunity to trust in the Lord, rather than in your own understanding? If so, cast all your cares upon Him because He's the only One who really does care for you.

Written by a Guest Blogger

Resurrection Day

Mark 16:6 And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

 The resurrection of Jesus Christ is foundational for Christianity. If He had not risen from the dead then we could not be saved. What great hope we have knowing that Jesus Christ is alive today. A man in heaven who one day we will see!

Paul wrote in 1 Cor 15 that if Christ is not risen then our faith is in vain. He goes on to say that we would be of all men most miserable. The resurrection is at the root of all that we believe. Christianity is unique in this. Religion boasts in its dead leaders. They cannot take you to an empty tomb and say He is not here but is risen.

Belief in the resurrection is vital for salvation. Rom 10:9 tells us ‘that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Great efforts were made to ensure that the body of Jesus could not be taken away by his disciples. A large stone with a seal and Roman guard however could not keep the Lord in the tomb. The stone was rolled away and the guards became as dead men at the sight of the angel. Of course it was only rolled away to show that the tomb was empty. No doubt rumours of the resurrection spread and the soldiers were paid to lie. Those rumours could have easily been stopped. All the authorities needed to do was to show the His body. But they did not because they could not because He had risen.

 No one has ever been able to disprove the resurrection. The evidence to support it far outweighs the contrary. What hope and joy we have because HE IS ALIVE!

Life's most important question!

Life's most important questions - Is Jesus alive?

The Lord Jesus Christ is no ordinary person. I make this statement in the present tense because the Lord Jesus is not just a figure of history but he is, today, still alive in heaven. I don't mean alive in the way we might think about a relative who has died and hope is now in heaven. As a Christian I believe people who have turned from their sin and accepted Jesus as their Saviour will be in heaven when they die but this is not my point at the moment. I mean that Jesus is alive, physically in heaven. 

Your response might be - impossible and unbelievable! 

Leicester Girls Camp

This is the second day of camp. We arrived yesterday about 1700, had tea and then after a game for the campers headed to the meeting hall. One of the main reasons for this week of camp is to introduce young people to the word of God (the Bible) and to give them a clear understanding of their need of salvation. So last night I started by speaking about image and appearance. We all look at ourselves in a certain way but as most of us admit, in our saner moments, we don't always tell ourselves the truth. We think about ourselves more highly than we ought to and we overlook our flaws and sins when it suits us. That's what the Bible means when it states in Jeremiah 17:9 that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" We are not capable of being honest with ourselves all of the time.

But the reality is that God is painfully honest. In the same passage we are told that "I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings," Jeremiah 17:10. God doesn't look at the outward appearance, as we do, he looks at the heart and his conclusion is that all have sinned and come short of His glory.

The good news is that God the 'Father sent the Son, Jesus, to be the Saviour of the world'. Our hearts might deceive us but God want to forgive us. His Son died to pay the price to provide salvation. Our part is to turn from our sin, repent, and trust His Son for salvation. 

Your response is....

Alone - Mark 14:50

Mar 14:50 And they all forsook him, and fled.

 Do you ever feel you’ve been deserted? The Lord can sympathise as He knows more than any other person what it is to be alone.

 In our passage today we see that Mark has recorded for us this fact that all forsook Him and fled. Another translation says ‘everyone deserted Him and fled’ (NIV). He was left alone with those who had come to arrest Him, this despite all that Peter had said earlier.

The Lord knew what it was to be left alone in the hour of His deepest need. He was to face the barrage of abuse with no man standing by to support and help. During those 3 hours of darkness on the cross he was forsaken by God as He was made sin for us. Psalms 102 tells us that He was like a pelican of the wilderness: like an owl of the desert and a sparrow alone upon the house top, pictures illustrating His loneliness. No one has been lonelier.

It was His obedience to His Father that led Him to this lonely place. Sometimes you will find the same happening to you. Friends and colleagues want to do things and go to places that as a Christian you feel are not for you. That decision may come with a cost: being alone.

I remember from my college days that there were many lunch times that I spent alone in the library because class colleagues had gone drinking. At times I found this hard and embarrassing as we don’t naturally like to be the odd one out and left alone.

We can take comfort that when these situations arise the Lord has been there first. He knows what it is to be alone and so can sympathise with how we feel at times like these.

He will reign - Mark 13:4

Mar 13:26 'And then will they see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory'

We are incredibly privileged to know what the future holds for us and this world as we find in the Bible. What other book do you know tells the future and then what it tells come to pass? This is a great book to get into. Don’t miss out on what the Bible has to say about our future. 

Signs of the times - Mark 13:4

Mar 13:4 Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?

 We are incredibly privileged to know what the future holds for us and this world as we find in the Bible. What other book do you know tells the future and then what it tells come to pass? This is a great book to get into. Don’t miss out on what the Bible has to say about our future. 

Take your c@%##! - Mark 8:34

Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Mark 8.34)

In polite Roman society, it was as bad as swearing to say the word ‘cross.’ No decent Roman ever mentioned it, let alone considered dying on a cross. Jews had a similar horror of crucifixion. It was hanging on a tree, which is cursed in Old Testament Law. However the cross was never far from the Lord Jesus’ mind. He thought about it in eternity, when He was marked out by God as the Lamb. He thought about the cross in history, when the Holy Spirit inspired the prophets to describe those sufferings in intimate detail. He thought about the cross during his earthly life, since He often told His followers that He was going to die.

Not Nasty but Nice - Mark 7:27

Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled (Mark 7.27)

At first, it seems like the Lord Jesus is being horrible to this woman. She has a serious problem, so she comes to the Lord Jesus for help. Yet He takes His time and carefully guides her. She understands her need. She expects that He can meet that need. But she must also realise how little she deserves His mercy. At last in desperation this lady begs for His help, knowing she can’t earn it. Then the Lord answers her cry and heals her daughter.

 It’s the same for me! To truly appreciate His greatness, I need to be aware of my own unworthiness. Only then can I understand how kind He is to help me.