To take one aspect of these startling rediscoveries, consider Christianity’s deep association with poverty. Contrary to myth, the typical Christian is not a white fat cat in the United States or western Europe, but rather a poor person, often unimaginably poor by Western standards. Philip Jenkins
Scripture
When sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices
Observation
Christ cancelled the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. God’s will was for us to be made holy by the once for all sacrifice of Christ.
Under the old covenant the priests offered sacrifices again and again. but our High Priest offered himself as a sacrifice. Now he sits at the Father’s right hand, waiting for his enemies to be humbled.
Now there is no need for further sacrifices because our sins have been forgiven.
Application
In A.D. 70, God allowed the Roman army to enter Jerusalem and destroy to the ground the Temple. Not one brick remained on top of another as Jesus had prophesied.
God destroyed the Temple because it was obsolete. There was no need for sacrifices any more because the perfect sacrifice had been offered.
Jesus was described as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The sins are gone. All offences are forgiven and guilt removed.
Jesus has taken away my sins forever. There is no need for me to ever offer anything back to God to atone for my sins.
As Jesus said on the cross,”It is finished.” Amen
Prayer
Thank you Jesus for being my perfect sacrifice, the once and for all time offering. Amen.
Statistically, the Nigerian church should properly be counted as the heart of Anglican Christianity. In 1979 this church had sixteen dioceses, organized in a single province; today it has over 120 dioceses, organized in ten provinces. In 1979 Nigeria had a single archbishop; today it has ten, overseeing a whole national hierarchy. Philip Jenkins
By Michael Ashcraft –
Tom Payne’s roommate annoyed the Hell out of him.
Quite literally.
“Just shut up!” he said in his mind, frustrated that Jeff would argue with Louie, who had gotten saved, and that he had to listen to it in their one-bedroom apartment.
Tom, then 19, had come from New York to Prescott, Arizona, because it was famous as a college party town. “Getting saved wasn’t part of the plan. We were in a prolonged adolescence with the feigned attempt at getting an education,” Tom says on a Don’t Sell the Farm podcast.”
So when Louie got cornered by a Christian and acceded to go with him to church one day, Tom offered to provide the alibi when the Christian accompanied him to service.
“Just hide in the bathroom, and we’ll tell him you’re not in,” Tom told him.
But Louie was a nominal Catholic and used to showing up every so often to Mass, so he stayed true to his word.
That night, when Tom and Jeff stumbled out of the bar and walked home, Tom remarked sarcastically: “What if Louie got saved.”
They found him in his bed reading his Bible. Suddenly, their fears, however they were treated in jest, now became reality.
Louie told them he had gotten saved and invited them to church. Jeff started to argue with him. Tom rolled his eyes.
For the next days and weeks, the litany was unending. Louie invited them to church, Jeff argued, Tom fumed. “He was in our faces telling us about Jesus,” Tom told him. “Fine, we’ll go to Hell all by ourselves. But just shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”
Jeff was arguing with him nonstop. Louie was just devouring his Bible and was answering him. I couldn’t escape it.”
One evening as he lay on the bed trying to not hear the other two argue in the other room, Tom asked God if he was real. “I was laying on the bed with my hands behind my head, and I said, ‘God, I’m not going to do this just because Louie did this. But if you’re real, I’ll serve you.”
The “presence of the Holy God of the Universe came into that room,” he says. “I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t believe anybody had heard that prayer or would answer that prayer.”
Awestruck, he told God: “Ok, just don’t kill me.”
Tom attended a new convert’s class with Louie. He accepted Jesus. “I had already been confronted by the Holy Spirit,” he says. He was delivered from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. The next day, he started looking for a job.
Finding a job was no easy matter in Prescott, then a town of 20,000. There weren’t many jobs to be had. He wanted to stay with the Prescott Potter’s House, a booming church. His first job to support himself and continue learning about Jesus as a “disciple” was to water plants at the community college. His last job was working on a trash truck.
Tom and his buddies were used to staying up to 4:00 a.m. partying, so when church let out at 10:00 p.m., he didn’t know what to do with his time. Fortunately, some of the brethren went out for coffee and fellowshipped after service.
He came home buzzed on caffeine, and he and his buddies went home afterward and wrote letters to all their friends back in New York that they were going to Hell and needed to get saved. “We bombarded them with letters,” he recalls. Tom wrote his girlfriend back home with the same unpolished approach.
Janice eventually came out for Tom’s birthday and wound up getting saved. She stayed in Prescott and they got married.
Tom, who threw himself fully into church activities and Bible study, was ordained by the same church to launch at start-up church just three years later. His wife was eight months pregnant, and Tom reassured her that God would take care of them even though they had no health insurance.
As foolhardy as that might have seemed, Tom and Janice have done well. He was one of the early pastors to be sent out of the small-town church that has turned into a worldwide movement. The Potter’s House capitalized on the Jesus Movement to turn former hippies into pastors.
“God went out of his way to touch my life,” Tom says. “I didn’t know all of what was going to happen, but I realized that this was big and I went all in and decided to become a disciple and got sent out.”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
Scripture
For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Observation
The old system with its law and sacrifices was a dim shadow of what was to come. The sacrifices had to be repeated year after year because they could not provide perfect cleansing.
If they did, the sacrifices would have stopped for the worshippers would have been purified once for all time.
Sacrifices did nothing to purify, they just reminded people of their sins. The blood of animals cannot take away sin .
Christ said to God,”You do not want animals or sacrifices for sin, but you have given me a body to offer.”
Application
The sacrificial system of the Old Testament was imperfect. It could remind people of their sins. It could cover their sins. But it could do little to purify them from the sinful nature.
We are condemned to sin unless God changes our hearts. The animal sacrifices could not do this. But the sacrifice of Christ does.
The death of Christ on the cross demonstrates to us how much God loves us. He has given Himself up for us.
I see my Saviour on the cross dying for my sin, it makes me realise that sin is a big issue for God.
But His love also convicts me that my sin hurts Him and distresses Him. In my love for God, I do not want to hurt Him, and so my heart is changed.
Not only that, but God has given me the Holy Spirit to help me in my times of trial and temptation.
Prayer
Thank you Lord for taking away my sin and my desire to sin. Amen.
The clouds are building up ahead of more rain over the next few days, may be more flooding. This morning there was no wind, so really nice on the bike.
If you love the Lord, then the world will hate you.
The Bible uses the word “world” in three different was, as we do in English:
It is that world as system which hates all Christians.
Andrew Thorburn was on Monday night announced as CEO of the Essendon AFL Club. By Tuesday he was fired.
His huge crime was that he is also Chairman of the Board of City On a Hill Church, a church which describes itself as being in the Anglican tradition.
Apparently back in 2013 somebody there preached a sermon that was against abortion and another person preached a sermon that said homosexuality is a sin. He was not the preacher of either message, but merely associating with such people is an unforgivable sin.
Dictator Dan Andrews, the Premier of Victoria, condemned him as “hateful” and a “bigot”, currently the worst judgement that can be bestowed on a person by the State of Woke.
So he resigned before he even started,
For the axe of Cancel Culture to have fallen so swiftly, it is clear that there was a “dirt file” already in existence. There are people who are so dedicated to destroying christians that they have already done the research on those whom they hate.
So the AFL, and organised sport more generally, justify their actions by wanting to make the sport inclusive and diverse. Their inclusion and diversity will come by excluding Christians.
The world really does hate you.
Any christian who works in an organisation big enough to have an HR Department now needs to have a Plan B.
Churches and other christian organisations, especially schools, also need to consider what might happen if the Government takes exception to their beliefs, which they will.
We live in a culture that has rejected God’s ways, and rather than seeing the church as a comfort and an ally, it sees the church as the enemy.
The simple decision to translate the scriptures into local languages was in itself a key concession to native cultures, and one made by even the most obtuse Northern missionaries. The mere act of translation proved that no single language was privileged as a vehicle of salvation. Philip Jenkins
Scripture
Just as each person is destined to die once, and after that comes judgement, so also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people.
Observation
Christ did not enter into a man-made holy place. He entered into the real one in Heaven.
He did not offer Himself over and over like the High Priest offers sacrifices year after year. No, once for all time, Christ appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by His own death.
Each person dies once, and then faces judgement, so also Christ died once as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He will come again, not to judge sin, but to save those waiting for Him.
Application
Some religions, including the pagan religions often called the New Age Movement, teach that when we die we are reincarnated on this Earth to atone for previous sins.
The Bible says that we live once and die once. We do not come back over and over to work our way up to Heaven.
Jesus paid for our sins. If we put our trust in His sacrifice, then it makes no sense to believe that we will be reincarnated after we die.
We have been born again to a living hope, and this hope is better than being born over and over.
When we believe in Jesus and receive His salvation, then we are promised eternal life. Our bodies, which deteriorate with age and ultimately die, will be replaced with perfect bodies that neither age nor become sick. We will live with God forever.
Prayer
Hallelujah! Lord what a salvation you give to us in Jesus Christ! Thank you. Amen.
Another perfect morning for riding.
New Life Narrabri 
