The sermon for February 6th 2022 is now available on the new Life web site. In this sermon, which is based on Matthew 28:11-20, Margaret Baxter talks about The Great Commission.
Click here to listen in your browser, here to download the mp3
Month: February 2022
Something Worth Dying For – Saint Valentine’s Day
St Valentine witnessed to the importance of married love by his life and death. This Valentine’s Day, let us celebrate true love in our marriages, recommitting ourselves to loving and serving our spouses with joy.
On February 14 every year, couples around the world celebrate one of the heroes of Christian history.
As the story goes, Valentine was a Roman priest who married young couples in secret despite the decree of Emperor Claudius II forbidding all weddings. The emperor did this to more readily recruit young, unattached men into his armies. Valentine was discovered, arrested and eventually executed.
St Valentine didn’t officiate secret weddings simply out of compassion for local, love-struck couples. He did it because marriage is about a whole lot more than just two people committing to live together and maybe raise a few kids.
Marriage has a purpose beyond the fulfilment of the two spouses.
It is a call to honour God by living in service to each other, helping each other, and our children, to grow closer to God and to our destiny to be with Christ, our eternal bridegroom, for eternity.
It is also a Sacrament — a living witness of God’s presence in the world. As such, it has a number of characteristics that define it.
Encapsulated in the marriage rite, these characteristics include permanency, sexual intimacy, sexual exclusivity, unconditional sharing, openness to children and a willingness to raise any children in the Catholic faith.
That makes it something quite different to the secular understanding of marriage, which sees marriage as more about the personal happiness of each spouse.
Selfish & Short-Live vs Selfless & Eternal
In the secular model, marriage doesn’t need to be permanent. Nor does it need to involve children, let alone raising them Christian. The popularity of pre-nuptial agreements indicates a choice for limited and conditional sharing, rather than unconditional sharing.
And sexual infidelity is frequently indulged, often by mutual agreement in so-called ‘monogamish’ or ‘open’ marriages.
It’s hard to imagine anyone giving their life to defend such an impoverished concept of marriage as defined by our present secular culture.
But St Valentine didn’t die for this idea of marriage. He died defending a much grander idea; the idea that the freely-given, total, faithful and fruitful love of a man and woman in marriage could point us to God. The idea that this kind of relationship revealed the inner life of the Creator of the universe.
So, dear couples, this St Valentine’s Day, set your sights high! Do not be limited to the reductionist view of marriage that the culture puts forward, but lean into a bigger, grander vision. Tap into the aspirations of your youth and to which God invites us to pursue with diligence and persistence.
Questions for Couples on St Valentine’s Day
- When did I feel most loved by you over the past week? Explain.
- Am I willing to let God be part of our marriage? To base our marriage on God’s values and vision rather than the worlds’ values? Why or why not?
- What am I willing to sacrifice in order to prioritise our marriage becoming more attuned to God’s vision and values?
Praying for Your Spouse
One of the simplest, yet practical ways to strengthen our marriage and align it more closely with God’s desires is to pray daily for our spouse. Research has identified these benefits to couples: greater forgiveness, increase in selfless concern, trust, commitment, gratitude and fidelity and decrease in destructive behaviours like excess drinking and aggression. Read more here.
Daily prayer for your spouse:
Lord God,
I praise You for the gift of my spouse,
and I thank You for the blessings I have had through him/her.
Forgive me for the times I have failed to love my spouse the way I should,
and help me to do better in bringing Your love and acceptance to him/her.
From Canberra Declaration
Melanie Phillips: Whoops, Whoopi: the Holocaust was all about race
The celebrity’s ignorance reflects the twisted views of an alarming number of people
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Whoopi Goldberg has got herself into a terrible mess. She was suspended from her role as co-host of ABC’s The View talk show after saying that the Holocaust wasn’t about race. It was instead, she said, about “man’s inhumanity to man” involving “white people doing it to white people”.
She insisted: “It’s about how people treat each other. It’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, Jews … everybody eats each other”.
This was clearly idiotic. The signature characteristic of German Nazism was that it set out to exterminate Jews as a race, identifying them as targets for annihilation on the basis of even a tenuous ancestral connection with Judaism.
Attempting to apologise in the ensuing storm, Goldberg made things even worse. Saying she had now learned that “Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race,” she then told Stephen Colbert on his late-night comedy show that the Nazis had lied and actually had issues not with race but with ethnicity — which caused further outrage and prompted another apology.
This furore should not be dismissed as merely an ignorant celebrity making stupid and offensive remarks. For Goldberg didn’t arrive at these views in a vacuum. They reflect twisted attitudes held by an alarming number of people, but which are generally glossed over because these people are black.
Goldberg tied herself up in this unedifying knot because of her assumption that racism isn’t racism unless it is directed by white people against black people.
Read the rest of the article here
Today’s Bike Ride
Quite windy again this morning. It took me an hour to get here, 35 minutes to get home! 🚲
Quote for the Day
God never removes without reestablishing; the system of divine exchange is central to His kingdom—He never dethrones without enthroning Himself. Andrew White
Reflection on Colossians 1:15-20
Scripture
Christ is the head of the church, which is His body. He is the beginning, supreme overall who rise from the dead.
Observation
Christ the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before everything and reigns over everything. He made everything, whether visible or invisible, including the demonic principalities and rulers.
Christ is the head of the church, which is His body. He is supreme over those who will rise from the dead. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, making peace with everything.
Application
Christ is the head of the church, not the human hierarchy that dominate its earthly form.
In all things, Christ is in control.
There are times when the church, at least part of it, seems week, unspiritual, and even ungodly. People use and abuse the church for their own ends.
Regardless of all this, the Lord Jesus Christ is in control. He reigns over all of creation, but especially the church.
How can this be, when there is so much evil in both the world and the church? God is able to use even gross sins for His glory and for our good. This does not justify anybody’s evil deeds, but it does give us hope that our suffering will carry some redemptive value.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I acknowledge that you are the head of the church. You are the king over all things, blessed be your name. Amen.
Today’s Bike Ride
Beautiful morning. The rain has cleared and humidity and temperature are lower. Only downside is a strong SE wind. Good to be out after 2 days of rain.
Quote for the Day
Prophetic words and influences are to be cherished and honored. We must be quick to recognize and thank God for those whose presence in our personal lives has laid the foundations of our faith. Yet we must remember that Jesus Himself was and is the greatest prophet. He is Prophet, Priest, and King. Andrew White
What Is Truth?
This week’s news cycle was dominated by unsubstantiated claims that some unnamed people had sent some text messages saying nasty things about the Prime Minister. Worse still, some of these unnamed people were his friends.
That’s not news, that is Primary School level of gossip.
No facts have been offered, no justification for the story and no explanation of why it might even be important.
Many hours of air time, internet screens and column inches have been wasted on what is just a mischievous attempt to sir up trouble.
Unfortunately, we live in a post-truth culture. My truth might not be the same as your truth. My feelings may be more important than facts. My assertion about what happened is valid if I can get enough journalists to report it.
Regardless of what you feel about the truth, the reality is that if you step off a cliff you will accelerate towards the ground at the rate of 9.8 m/s2. As a former engineer, I can confidently assert that the strength of a bridge is far more important than whether I like its colour.
Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Nobody can to the Father except through me.” Jesus claims He alone is the Truth, and if you want to find happiness with God, then you have to go through Him.
People try to mix and match spirituality according to how they feel. They rarely ask the most important question of “Is this true?” or “Does this match reality?”
If Jesus really is the truth, then He is the truth for everybody. If He is the truth as He claims, then there is no other way to find God.
I don’t know if there is a text message somewhere about the Prime Minister, and I really really don’t care.
What I do care about is basing my life on truth rather than fairy tales. How about you?
Bill Muehlenberg: DISMANTLING THE COVID SHIBBOLETHS
Bill Muehlenberg writes:
DISMANTLING THE COVID SHIBBOLETHS
Busting the Rona myths:
There have been a number of mantras pushed over the past two years in regards to the Rona which the “experts” have assured us are completely true and fully based on the science. But just this week two of the biggest ones have taken further blows: that we all must be locked down, and that we all must get jabbed. Important new studies continue to appear showing these have been hugely questionable health mandates.
There has been plenty of research showing how wrong the statists have been in locking us all down and demanding that we are to be coerced into having substances injected into our bodies against our compliance. Two of the newest bits of research on these matters simply further confirm what we have known for quite some time now.
Take the issue of harsh, draconian lockdowns – something I and others have been speaking against for nearly two years now. Many have argued that the evidence points to the fact that they actually cause more harm than good. And even if not, they are doing little to stop the spread of Covid deaths.
Consider one new study, a Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis of studies. This 60-page report is found here: sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf
Read the rest of the article here
New Life Narrabri 