Month: September 2021

Quote for the Day

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Tongues is a way to pray the perfect prayer. We do not have to understand everything we are praying. When praying in connection with the Holy Spirit, we can pray in faith knowing that we are speaking into the heavens, the most perfect and powerful words that we could ever speak. Steve Wallace

Ephesians 5:20

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Here is my commentary on Ephesians 5:20 I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au

Ephesians 5:20

“… always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.”

We are at all times to give thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The word for “ give thanks” is eucharisteo, from which we get the word Eucharist, which is used by many churches for Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper. Christian worship, in all of its diversity, is thankful. Our songs thank God for what he has done for us in Jesus. Preaching is to always proclaim what is ours in Christ through faith. Holy Communion is an enactment and a remembrance of Christ’s death on the cross.

Our whole lives, every situation, every minute, is meant to be a Eucharist, or Thanksgiving to God. Our lives are a thank offering back to our Creator for His work in redeeming us in Christ.

How can we give thanks “always and for everything”?

The phrase suggests a habit of thanksgiving that permeates all of our life. We wake up thanking God for His presence during the night and the promise of a new day. We eat thanking Him for His provision. We work thanking him for a life of purpose and meaning.

Thanking God at all times means that as we go about our daily lives, we focus on the Lord as well as on what we need to do.

Psychologists tell us that learning to direct our thoughts outwards rather than inwards is an effective antidote for depression. We were created to praise God, and we are prone to mental dis-ease if we try to live contrary to that design.

It is hard to program ourselves towards the habit of thanksgiving. Our busy lives makes that nearly impossible. One way is to set our watch or phone to alert us every hour, and use that as a reminder. Regular scheduled times in our day can be programmed in our thinking to remind us to take a minute to praise the Lord.

Praising God for everything can be a challenge. I can be thankful for my home, my family, my car, my job. Can I be thankful in a pandemic? Can I thank God when my spouse is diagnosed with cancer? Or when my child dies?

We are not expected to thank God for tragedy. These things are a sign of the disorder in creation caused by sin. I have made a practice, in the midst of personal tragedy, to ask the Holy Spirit to show me glimpses of his glory and glimmers of hope. When you do that, even in the dark valley of the shadow of death, there is always light and something to thank God for.

Christians facing persecution, and even death, for their obedience to the Lord, have commented that, in the midst of their suffering they were aware of Christ’s sustaining presence. Nobody willingly encourages opposition, but when it comes, even there there is something to be thankful for.

We are to give thanks in every situation to the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not intended as a formula to finish a prayer. It is a recognition that all of this is possible through Christ.

It is Jesus who gives us a different vision of the future. We can give thanks because our hope is rooted in eternity so that all of our affections are not limited to this life and this physical world alone.

We give thanks to God the Father because Jesus paid the price for our sin and reconciled us to the Father. We give thanks through Jesus Christ because He is the gateway to salvation and to the Father. Without Christ our future was bleak and the Lake of Fire was our ultimate destination, but now we thank God for the hope of Heaven.

So our life’s vocation is to learn to always and in all things give thanks to God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Key points in this verse:

  • The word for give thanks is Eucharist. All of our corporate worship is about Thanksgiving
  • We need to develop a habit of constant thanksgiving
  • Even in dark times, Christ is our hope and enables us to give thanks
  • Jesus has reconciled us to the Father

Reflection on 1 Corinthians 5: 1-8

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Scripture

Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.

Observation

Paul is shocked by the reports of sexual immorality that the church in Corinth is tolerating in their midst. In particular, there is a man in a sexual relationship with his own stepmother. Such behaviour is unheard of even among pagans.

The church should remove this man from the fellowship. They must call a meeting of the church and throw him out, handing him over to satan.

This sin is like a little yeast that spreads throughout the whole lump of dough. We are to be like the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Application

Paul was shocked that the Corinthian church boasted about their open-mindedness in tolerating a man sleeping with his stepmother. How much more would he be enraged by churches celebrating homosexual and transgender pastors and bishops?

The church in the West has really lost its way in terms of expecting certain lifestyle choices of its followers. We cannot expect the world to adopt our standards of morality, but we can certainly expect people who claim to be disciples of Jesus to conform to a level of holiness.

Paul says that people who engage in this kind of wilful sin and scandalous conduct should be thrown out of the church and handed over to satan. This is not a harsh judgement. The hope is that he will repent and escape the judgement that will certainly come on the day of the Lord.

Churches need to have methods of discipline which encourage people to walk in the ways of the Lord, but which avoid legalism.

Prayer

Lord, we fear being accused of unfairly judging people whose behaviour shows they are far from you. Help us, your followers, always walk in integrity and grace. Amen