You, Lord, Make Me Safe
Quote for the Day
When God was merciful to us, we learned to be merciful with our brethren. When we received forgiveness instead of judgment, we, too, were made ready to forgive our brethren. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
What does the Lord require?
Reflection on Isaiah 66
Scripture
This is what the Lord says: “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.”
Observation
The Lord declares that heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool. Regardless of where the house is that they build for Him, He has made it all, and they came into being at His command.
The Lord has made all people, and yet they come to Him with offerings and incense even though they eat unclean food and worship idols.. People have chosen their own ways and delight in their sins, so therefore so therefore the Lord will punish them harshly.
Can a country be born in a day? This is what the Lord will do for his people. Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her.
The Lord promises to extend peace to Jerusalem and bring the wealth of nations to her.
The Lord will gather the nations together from all over the world. They will proclaim the Lord’s glory. All mankind will come and bow before the Lord.
Application
The Lord’s says that heaven is His throne and the earth is His footstool.
The Lord is the one who made it all and owns it all, including the people on it.
Because the Lord controls the heavens those who think the stars determine their destiny are foolish.
And because the Lord owns the Earth, those who think they can live independently of the Lord are also foolish. He owns it all, including us.
Therefore , theright response to God’s grace is to surrender our lives to Him. God will punish those who choose their own way, especially those who have a veneer of respectable faith.
Let us give ourselves entirely to worshipping and obeying our Lord.
Prayer
Thank you Lord for the privilege of being called your child. Please help me to live for you every day. Amen.
Quote for the Day
Only in Jesus Christ are we one, only through him are we bound together. To eternity he remains the one Mediator. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Imitate what is good
Success and Failure
In Him we have forgiveness
Apostolic Summit 2024 Session 8
The final session of the Apostolic Summit is Sunday morning, when the Summiteers combine with the standard Peace Apostolic Church congregation. During the service there was a celebration of 50 years of ministry by John & Hazel.
David Alley, John’s eldest son, brought the message, which was a sort of summing up of the weekend.
John 21
Third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection.
Vs. 1-7
“It is the Lord!”
The Lord directs everything
When Luther nailed the theses to the door, Zinzendorf took in the refugees, William Carey went to India, John Wesley heard the gospel, William Booth started preaching, it was the Lord!
In the early 1990s when John Alley sat down with Chuck Clayton for lunch in Sizzlers that was the Lord.
When the disciples first saw Jesus they didn’t recognise him. Sometimes things happen that don’t like the Lord, they are.
He is at work doing things among us.
If the Lord is not with us, nothing happens.
Vs. 8-14
Everything is about Jesus.
What’s the point of building the biggest church or visiting pastors in Africa, if it’s not about the Lord?
Vs. 15-24
Jesus is the focus
Jesus tells Peter three things
- Feed the sheep
- How he will die
- Don’t worry about what He does with others
Look to Jesus, not what other people are doing. He is the Lord! Don’t compare self to others. Don’t be grumpy because you aren’t getting what you want.
Apostolic Summit 2024: Session 7
The session started with an invitation for people to share a testimony about what God has been doing in them during the Summit.
Many years ago David Smethurst prophesied that God was doing something here at Peace but it would be a slow, gradual process. It would be strong, but pure.
God is relational. One God but three persons – a community so bound together that it is one God.
If God was anything other than 3 person He could not be love, nor holy nor perfect.
If God was only one person prior to creation, there would be no love. Likewise if there were only 2, it would be just a mutual admiration society.
Here is the perfection of Holy love. Our responsibility is to become a community like the Trinity.
This mature community is supposed to be attainable in God’s grace.
John 17. Prayer in 3 parts
- Jesus’s relationship with Father
- The 11 apostles
- Those who would come later – us
V.11 He asks that the people following Him then, be one as Jesus and Father are one.
This is meant to be on the earth, not for heaven only. This is why apostles are being released, so the community can be established.
V. 21 Jesus prayed that the ones to come will all be one… so that the world may know (v. 23).
Ephesians 4. A prophetic statement that Christ continues to give apostles etc until we all cone to the unity of the faith, measuring up to the fullness of Christ. What is this measure? That we are one with Him and with each other.
John 17:20-24. Christ has given us His glory,so that the world will see that God loves them.
A lot of people are happy with an ordinary salvation – happy life, no problems, no suffering. This is not salvation. We are to be raised above the angels with a kind of fellowship with God that is more profound than we can imagine.
He wants to transform us to lift us into this unity with God.
New Life Narrabri 