We can either have a big state and a small god or we can have a big God and a small state. Jerry Bowyer
Quote for the Day
Month: March 2022
Quote for the Day
The difference between Galilee and Judea was not that the people of Galilee were inherently better people. They were of the same stock. The difference is the Galileans did not have much access to the levers of power. Most of them ate bread by the sweat of their brow, because they had no alternative. Jerry Bowyer
Reflection on John 12:1-8
Scripture
Then Mary took a 12 ounce (300 g) jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping His feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.
Observation
Six days before Passover, Jesus comes to Bethany where He had previously raised Lazarus from the dead. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, takes a bottle of expensive perfume. She pours it out over Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. The whole house is filled with the smell of the perfume.
Judas iscariot complains that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. It was worth a year’s wages.
But Jesus rebukes Judas. He says Mary has done a beautiful thing, a preparation for his burial.
Application
Reckless devotion to Jesus is never a bad thing.
True worship is demonstrative. Our emotions should show when our hearts are in tune with Jesus. We may not pour out perfume in His honour, but we will want to express our love for Him through song, words, raised hands, dance, or some other way.
True worship will cost us something. Worship is not about mere words, although words are important. It is not about turning up on Sunday.
When we worship from the heart,our attitudes and priorities will change. It is no longer about what we want to do, but about surrendering to God’s will. Our money and time become surrendered to God, and we find ourselves blessed with a generous spirit that wants to give to others and to God’s work.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I love you. Let my whole life be surrendered to worshipping you. Amen.
Today’s Bike Ride
A beautiful morning in Narrabri. The rain has moved on and the clouds are clearing.
Quote for the Day
This means that any follower of Jesus who wants to assert any ideology that requires concentrations of power in the state must first show us why those who operate the levers of power in our time will do it less selfishly than those who pulled those levers in Jesus’s time.
Reflection on Isaiah 43: 16-21
Scripture
“Forget all that – it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new.”
Observation
The Lord will send an army against Babylon, for the sake of his people. He is the Lord who brought his people through the water to escape from Egypt.
He is going to do something new. He will make a pathway through the desert. He will create rivers in the wasteland. The wild animals will thank the Lord for giving them water.
The Lord made Israel for himself, and they will honour him before the whole world.
Application
God is the God of the new thing.
He does not abandon the old thing, but he makes a new thing out of old things, and sometimes out of nothing.
It is good to celebrate what God has done in the past, but we should not cling to these when God shows us there is a new thing to be done.
Isaiah speaks of a road in the wilderness and a river in the desert. This was the way home for Israel from the exile.
Sometimes it can feel like we are stuck in a bad place – perhaps sins that we cannot shake or hurting situations that we cannot change.
In those places, we can always look to the Lord and trust him to provide the new things, the new road in the desert. We could never have worked it out by ourselves, it is all the work of God.
The key is to keep our eyes on the Lord and be open to His new thing.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, nobody would have expected the new thing you did by dying on the cross. Thank you that you are not bound by our limited ways of thinking. Amen.
Today’s Bike Ride
Another overcast morning. Heavy rain and flooding on the coast are threatening to spill over the mountains. No showers here… yet 😊
Quote for the Day
Not only was the city of Jerusalem destroyed, but the waves of violence, then reactions to the violence, and then further violent reactions to violent reactions continued into the next generation. What little data we have shows the region did not recover for at least half a millennium. In some sense, it did not really recover its economic preeminence until now, two millennia later. Jerry Bowyer
Today’s Bike Ride
First dry morning for a while,so I went out on the bike. It started to look threatening over the mountains, so I was glad to get home before the rain.
New Life Narrabri 