“For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.”
Observation
Our Father is pleased to give us the kingdom. For this reason, we
must build our treasure in heaven, not on earth. Our hearts will
follow our treasure.
We must always be ready to serve Jesus. He may come to us at any
time. If He finds us ready, He will serve us.
Application
Christians are caught in between two times: the ”already” and the
“not yet.” Our focus must always be on Jesus and His kingdom,
while not neglecting our responsibilities in this life,
This applies to the issue of money and our possessions more generally. Because we serve a good God, we do not have to put all of our trust in our ability to provide for ourselves. If we dedicate ourselves to serving God’s kingdom, we can be sure that God will provide all that we need.
We often assume that people will give to something that they are
interested in. This is true to a point, but the reverse is more true.
Our hearts will follow what we invest money in.
Over time I have purchased shares in a number of companies. I don’t
obsess over the stock market at all, but mt interest is piqued when
“my” companies are mentioned in news reports.
Jesus tells us that the best way to build our love for His kingdom is to invest everything we have in it. We have a stake in the business of God, and so we will want to see it build up; we may even work harder, giving more of ourselves to the work of the Lord.
Followers of Jesus are not permitted to do what they wish. Our
efforts , our time and energy, our possessions are all His to be used
for His purposes.
Prayer
Lord, please help me to invest my time, my energy, and my money in
your kingdom. Amen.
Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who
comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those
who earnestly seek him.
Observation
Faith is being certain of what we hope for, sure of what we do not
see. Faith tells us that God created the universe. Faith gave Abel a
better sacrifice and lifted Enoch to heaven.
Noah built an ark by faith, and Abraham followed God to a foreign
country by faith. By faith Abraham fathered a nation.
Application
Faith is central to our relationship with God.
We must first of all believe that He exists. This is not an
intellectual exercise that says there must be a God. No, true faith
is a deep trust- I believe that the God of the Bible is real and that
He is the one true God.
Faith is an issue of trust or commitment. I commit my whole life into
the simple fact that God is here and He controls my living and my
dying.
Secondly, faith is built on the belief that He rewards those who seek
Him.
We are saved by faith in Christ. That faith tells me that God is good
and that He is passionately committed to me. I trust that when I
stand before Him, the blood of Christ will protect me from His holy
wrath. My sins have been washed away by the blood- they were scarlet
but now I am like the snow.
Because I know that He loves me, I can approach boldly the throne of
grace. I can come into His presence and ask for the things that I
need and the concerns of my heart.
God is good, and I know that He will never disappoint me.
Prayer
Thank you Lord for the gift of faith. It is by faith that I am saved
and by faith I am delivered, healed, renewed and redeemed. Thank you
Lord for your great grace. Amen.
“Though your sins are as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.
Though they are as red as crimson, I will make them like wool.”
Observation
Isaiah promises judgement on the people of Israel. He calls them
“Sodom” and “Gomorrah.” They revel in their sin and then
bring sacrifices, but the Lord will reject their offerings because
they are just religious ceremonies.
The Lord hates their prayers and offerings because of their sins. He
wants true repentance and will wash their sins clean.
Application
The Lord is always seeking reconciliation with us. He wants us to
turn away from our sins and receive His blessing.
This is not about outward religious acts but about the heart. Being
baptised, going to church, or saying the Sinner’s Prayer will not
make a person right with God.
Turning away from our sin and towards Jesus will activate God’s
cleansing flow of forgiveness into our spirit.
It has to be sincere, from the heart. Going through a ritual of any
sort will not impress God. He looks at the heart not the outward
appearance.
So what must I do to be saved?
1. Recognise sin. Confess not just wrong doing, but also the
orientation towards sin and self-centredness.
2. Repent. Repentance means more than saying “sorry” to God. It
means to recognise that something I thought was acceptable is
actually repellent.
3. Ask God for forgiveness.
4. Receive the power of the Holy Spirit to live God’s way not my
own way.
Having made the decision to follow Jesus I must obey Him and let Him
rule every part of my life.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I receive you as my Lord. I am sorry for all that I do
that displeases you. Please help me to live for you every day of my
life. Amen.
Climate “science” is a joke these days, long being hijacked by extremist activists and lavish Government funding.
You may have heard of the European heatwave recently smashing temperature records in Germany and other places.
As usual the truth is less scary. Last year is was an ice cream truck parked right next to a weather station in England. This year it is a poorly located weather station, admitted by the DWD, the German Weather Bureau, to be badly sited, but still used by the DWD to hype up the climate scare!
A nearby resident did some research and found that the temperatures there were typically nearly 3 degrees warmer than other stations.
Gillette, the world’s biggest purveyor of men’s shaving accessories, decided that it needed to jump on the “progressive” (i.e. crazy leftist) bandwagon.
First it thought it would be cool to insult its customer base (i.e. mainly men) by accusing them of being accessories to bullying and domestic violence by letting it go on right under their noses and being afraid to confront their mates.
Not content with insulting their customers, they turned up the dial to complete revulsion with an ad featuring a transgender person learning to shave his/her face.
I’m not sure whether these ads were confined to the USA or whether they made their way to Australia. Where I live the TV ads are mainly local companies, agricultural products and junk food, so I don’t know what city people endure.
I do know that people all over decided to dump Gillette and buy products by other companies, such as this one.
So the big reason to revisit this is Gillette recently revealed their financial results for the last year.
A LOSS of $8 billion.
They put it down to people shaving less frequently,but that has been a fashion trend for several years now, which a normal commercial entity would work around.
$8 billion (US Dollars, that is)
That is $1 for every person on the planet.
Yet another confirmation of the saying: “Go woke, go broke.”
Here is my commentary on Ephesians 1:6. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site.
Ephesians 1:6
“.. to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
God’s grace is praiseworthy.
We can praise God’s grace because it is part of His personality or nature. This grace has redeemed us and set us free from sin and death. This grace grants us eternal life, vanquishing the power of sin and raising a whole race of humanity to be sons and daughter of God.
We were once far off but God’s grace has overcome the chasm that separated us from Him. It is grace that adopts us into the divine family granting us an inheritance fay beyond our wildest dreams.
God’s grace is glorious.
Glory is one of those terms that is hard to pin down.
Sports teams and individuals are said to win glory when they achieve a great victory. The sporting prowess or athleticism causes spectators to stand in awe of their ability.
Glory can be won on a battle field when the extreme stresses of being under fire or in other imminent danger bring out super-human courage or gallantry. If the favoured side wins the victory then that helps, but it isn’t necessary to be the victor. We can be awed at the ability of people to sacrifice themselves to save others or to be seemingly oblivious of bombs and bullets.
The glory of a monarch may be seen in ceremonial occasions where wealth, grand institutions and traditions captivate the dreams and aspirations of a culture.
In all of these cases, glory is seen in the awe that human endeavours inspire in the hearts of other people.
God’s glory is of a different magnitude. The glorious grace of God is glorious regardless of our response. God’s grace is glorious even if nobody accepts it. His glory flows from His nature.
We are right to be awed by God’s grace. Our awe is not necessary for it to be considered to be glorious.
God’s grace is freely bestowed.
He pours it out on us freely. Grace would not be grace if it came at a price. God’s grace is free of cost, but He bestows it liberally, overwhelmingly, pressed down and running over.
God’s grace is like a mighty waterfall such as Niagara or Victoria Falls. Enormous quantities of water flow over these falls every second. You can’t see where the water comes from. You can’t imagine how much water is contained there.
God’s grace is like that. It is as liberal as the greatest waterfall. It is bestowed whether we receive it or not. God is not moved by our reaction; He will overflow us with grace regardless.
So the sun shines on the just and the unjust alike, and the rain waters the fields of the godly farmer as much as the ungodly farmer. To the atheist raging against Him or the artist who mocks Him, God gives air to breathe, food to eat and water to drink.
This unstoppable river of praiseworthy and glorious grace is poured out in us “in the Beloved.”
It is Christ who releases and bestows this grace into us. The sacrifice on the cross releases grace to the world. Because Christ is beloved by the Father, God is pleased to pour this liberal overflowing stream of grace to the planet.
Although the grace is bestowed to us “in the Beloved”, we don’t have to be in the Beloved to receive it. Jesus’ death is available to every person, but only some will receive the promise of eternity. He died for all so that some will receive life.
He doesn’t stop loving or bestowing grace on those who reject Him. He is determined to love even if we don’t recognise His love. His grace is greater than our rejection of it.
The grace that is bestowed on everyone will eventually stop for those who are not “in the Beloved.” Judgement awaits those who refuse His grace. The waterfall will turn off, the flow dry up, and those who reject Him will be asked “Why?”
Often we think of grace as pertaining to salvation. But it has a far wider application than that. It speaks of all blessings that God gives to people.
John Wimber used to speak of “gracelets,” the little blessings or signs of God’s presence and love which encourage us to keep on going, to persevere through trials, or just to give us joy in a surprising experience. It might be a dream or a vision, an unexpected gift, a rainbow, a rush of faith to trust Him.
Grace can also relate to supernatural ability to serve God’s purposes. This might be in the form of the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12. In fac the word of gift in Greek is derived from the word for grace. It might also be the ability to fulfil a spiritual commitment that would normally be impossible for us, yet we find though constant prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit that we find a grace for this task.
Key points from this verse:
God’s grace is worthy of our praise
God’s grace is glorious and inspires awe in our heart
Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all
kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of
his possessions.”
Observation
A man in the crowd asks Jesus to tell his brother to share his
inheritance with him. Jesus uses this opportunity to talk about
greed.
He tells the story of a man whose land produces a bumper crop. He
starts to plan how to store it all up and prepare for retirement. But
God says tonight he will die and all will be lost to him.
Application
People invest their time and energy into gathering more and more
possessions. There is often a tendency in many places to judge people
by their monetary wealth.
People are more than their possessions.
Sometimes we naively think that a better paying job or a lottery win
will fix out problems. But really this is generally not true.
In pursuing wealth it is easy to take risks that lead us into bondage
of ever increasing debt. A thriving business may fall apart suddenly
because its owner borrows too much to grow too quickly, and the
slightest down turn in the economy pulls it all down. Home owners
borrow too much and cannot make the repayments.
Possessions do not define us. Our relationships do.
Our relationship with God is the most important thing. We were
created for friendship with our creator. Anyone who tries to live
without God lives a broken life.
Our relationship with family is also important. Those closest to us
should build us up and encourage us, strengthening us for the daily
battles of life. In the same way, we need to give ourselves to our
families.
The relationships that many people miss in our self-centred lives are
those with community- our neighbours and our christian brothers and
sisters. Everyone is looking to belong in a community, but many do
not realise it.
Prayer
Thank you, Father, for showing me that possessions are far less
important than my relationship with you and with the people around
me. Help me to build closer ties with you and with my family and
friends. Amen.
New Life Narrabri 