May 20th, 2011 12:18 by Dave
Have you heard the news? Jesus has returned!…or apparently so, and to nearby Kingaroy! I learned of this by reading not the Bible but the newspaper!
John Miller claims he is Jesus Christ…only, his coming was not on the clouds for all the world to see:
“as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matt 24:27; Luke 17:24)
And rather than return in glory with the glorified body he left with, he crept back onto the scene as a decrepit, decaying a 47-year-old. Moreover, he claims to have returned with Mary Magdalene…not sure what she is doing on the scene? Maybe reading one too many Dan Brown novels and not enough Scripture?
So here is a question for you: what would YOU say to John Miller? What would YOU ask him, to test him?
For starters, we might ask why the manner of his “return” contradicts what he previously promised (as above), that the whole world would see his coming? Do you no longer keep your promises, Jesus?
Or we might ask him some questions in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, since Jesus was fluent in all three languages.
We could simply watch his life and wait for him to sin in any way!
Finally, we might ask him to confirm his credentials with miracles of biblical standards, such as: healing completely and healing instantly not a stranger but a local person known by other locals to be blind…
May 7th, 2011 11:08 by Craig
A recent sermon I prepared on retirement brought many thoughts to mind.
We spend so much of our lives planning the financial side of our retirement – but so little on the spiritual side of our retirement.
First, let me remind us all that one day we will finally retire from this world to eternity. Let us ensure our eternal destiny is secure by examining ourselves to make sure we are in the faith (2 Cor 13:5).
But secondly, we need to plan for our retirement in this life. What will we do with those years of relative time and financial freedom.
Scripture describes age as a time of honour and respect. Proverbs 20:29:
The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.
But the honour and respect of old age is earned by a life lived in holiness and devotion. That begins well before retirement.
When Jonathan Edwards was a very young man he began writing out a list of resolutions to live by. Most were written while he was a teenager. The last of his seventy resolutions was completed soon after his twentieth birthday.
Here is resolution # 52 which he wrote while still in his teens:
I frequently hear persons in old age, say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.
Then when you have…
April 7th, 2011 14:22 by Dave
As we finish off memorising Psalm 23, these words from Phillip Keller’s book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 serve as a fitting conclusion:
My neighbour’s sickly sheep would stand huddled at the fence . . . facing the rich fields in which my flock flourished. Those poor, abused, neglected creatures under the ownership of a heartless rancher had known nothing but suffering most of the year. They were thin and sickly with disease, scab and parasite. There seemed to lurk in their eyes the slender, faint hope that perhaps they could break through the fence or crawl through some hole.
Once during king tides, three sheep went down on the tidal flats and slipped around the end of the fence and snuck onto my paddock . . . . As they were not my property, I loaded them into a wheelbarrow and wheeled them back to their heartless owner. He simply pulled out a sharp knife and slit the throats of his sickly sheep. He couldn’t care less.
What a picture of Satan who holds ownership of so many! Right there the graphic account Jesus portrayed of Himself as being the door and entrance by which he sheep were to end His fold flashed across my mind. Those poor sheep had not come through the proper gate. I had never let them in. They had never really become mine, under my ownership and care . . . . In short, they tried to get in on their own. The same fate…
March 25th, 2011 11:26 by Craig
Our flock was privileged to hear and meet William Mackenzie and his wife Carine. Together they founded Christian Focus Publications because of a love to put good solid material in the hands of Christians.
In our conversation, William noted that one of the great lacks today is Christians who read challenging, nourishing, edifying books. I listened to him talk and heard the passion in his voice.
How true it is that while we primarily need to read the Word – we should also supplement it with some of the great works of the faith that will nourish our souls and stretch our faith.
Many years ago I heard As Howard Hendricks give this advice to ministers – Your flock want to drink from a running stream not a stagnant pond.
While this applies particularly to ministers – it applies to our own hearts. We live in a tough world that draws our hearts away from the Lord. The challenging biography, the book looking at the glory of the cross, the wise advice for strengthening marriage – they give remind us of why we are here and how we should live.
If you don’t know where to start many have put together lists of books that will help you in your Christian walk. Here is one example.
http://www.tms.edu/LibraryBooklist.aspx
In no particular order – here are others from a variety of genres that will help you grow in godliness and Christlikeness.
1. Pilgrim’s Progress- John Bunyan
2. Christian Institutes- John Calvin
3. Knowing God- J.I. Packer
4. Knowledge of the Holy- A.W.…
March 1st, 2011 16:42 by Dave
As we memorise Psalm 23 this term, my family has been going through Phillip Keller’s little book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. He has this to say about verse 3,
“Sheep are notorious creatures of habit. If left to themselves they will follow the same trails until they become ruts; graze the same hills until they turn to desert wastes; pollute their own ground until it is corrupt with disease and parasites. Many of the world’s finest sheep ranges have been ruined by ignorant shepherds.
Casting my mind’s eye back over the years that I kept sheep, no other single aspect of shepherding commanded more of my careful attention than this moving of sheep….Whenever the shepherd opens a gate into a fresh pasture the sheep are filled with excitement, often kicking up their heels leaping with delight at the prospect of a fresh feed and being led onto new ground.
It is no whim on God’s part to call us sheep! We are stiff-necked and left to ourselves, make ruin of our pasture. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each one turns to his own way….” (Isaiah 53:6) Just as sheep blindly, habitually, stupidly follow one another along the same little trails unto ruinous waste, so we humans cling to the same habits that we have seen ruin other lives. ”There is a way that seems right to a man, but the way leads to death” (Prov 14:12)
How we need Christ, the…
January 25th, 2011 18:24 by Craig
The floods of the past few weeks in Queensland have left an indelible imprint on us.
So, as believers, how are we to respond to these events?
First, we must never forget that though we live in a fallen world God has acted definitively and lovingly to overcome the effects of the fall. He sent Christ to this world to die for us. He gave the greatest sacrifice of all so that we might live. Our God is a God of love.
Our God cares. He mourns over sin. He feels our pain. He knows when we hurt. He is a High Priest who can empathise with us. Our pain is His pain. And for this reason – God acted by dying for us.
Second, as Christians, we should mourn for those who suffer. Weep with the living. Feel anger at living in a fallen world. We should pray for those affected, the relief workers and the leaders. Give to help them recover. Show the fruits of Christian love.
Third, never forget that the peaceful death of a man of ninety in bed surrounded by his children and grandchildren but without Christ is a tragedy. And a twenty-five year old woman who dies in a flood yet knows Christ – this is a triumph.
Fourth, as Jesus used the tragedies of Pilate’s massacre and the tower of Siloam to call for repentance – so too must we call for repentance. Men and women are open now to the truth in a way they won’t be…
November 23rd, 2010 11:19 by Dave
Preaching through each of the 10 Commandments has been convicting! And the 10th – you shall not covet – has been the most convicting, and is the most comprehensive “2nd Tablet” commandment about our horizontal duty to one another. While the others relate to actions (don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie), the 10th gets to the heart attitude: don’t covet. Hand over the reins to wrong desire (coveting what belongs to others), and it leads to all the rest!
Here is some food for thought, if you are prone (like most of us) this think that more is marvellous, and bigger is better. According to a recent housing affordability study by McCrindle Research, the cost of an average Australian home is currently almost 10-times the average annual salary. Compare this to 1970 – when the cost of an average Australian home was just over 5-times the average annual salary – and you might conclude that housing is now twice as expensive. An outrage! Don’t be outraged. Instead, counter-balance this statistic with another: the average home is now twice as large compared to 1970. Per square metre, housing cost is virtually identical now as then!
The confronting truth is that even with houses now twice as big, and average family size smaller than 1970, nearly 1 in 10 families use rental storage because they cannot fit all their “stuff” into their big houses!! Our problem is coveting.
Here is some surprisingly sound advice from a Generation-Y…
October 26th, 2010 16:20 by Craig
Matthew 25:31-40:
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. “All the nations will be gathered before Him; … Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
It was a privilege to participate as a church in the Barnabas Aid Flood Relief Program in Pakistan.
Barnabas Fund writes this:
As international news media later highlighted, Christians and other non-Muslims were being left out of much of the aid distribution through other agencies. So we are very thankful for the quick and generous response of Barnabas Fund supporters that enabled us to help our Christian brothers and sisters as soon as the crisis hit.
… one partner (of the five on the ground partners in Pakistan) has told how he fed 142 Christian families from the village of Rangpur, Punjab. … From 9-17 August our partner gave them three meals a day and after that provided each family with flour,…
October 15th, 2010 18:49 by Craig
It is so easy to get caught up in the mundane stuff of just living. Watching the Commonwealth Games, playing with the kids, going to work.
But a number of recent events reminded me that we need to be making sure that one of our priorities that we make sure is a part of our lives is telling others about the glories of the gospel.
A good friend told me about someone close to him, a young family man with terminal cancer.
A suicide of a young man known to some in my family.
Another friend who lost a husband and father-in-law in the space of two weeks.
This is a temporary world. We all die. Those we know and love will die. We know this – but often we push this truth to the back of our hearts and lives.
But the reality is that only those in Christ will live. We have the words of eternal life. We know the One who is the way, the truth and the life.
While much of life is filled with the routine and the mundane – it is not to be all that we do. Jesus left us here to tell others the way to glory. We are His means to pointing others to the way of life. It is why we are here. So while it is yet day – may be work the work of the Lord and declare the path to glory.
October 1st, 2010 12:23 by Dave
After last Sunday’s sermon on not misusing/taking the Lord’s name in vain (3rd Commandment), more than one person asked me, “What about substitute words?”….what we might call fudge words or weasel words. For instance, saying Gosh, instead of God. Many phrases also work in these fudgy replacements for God’s name: O-M-Gosh, etc. The question is, are fudge words & fudge phrases fine?
Adding complexity to the question, many popular expressions are (even if known by few), directly derived from God’s name. ”Golly” is a “euphemism for God” (Online Etymology Dictionary), and Steve Irwin’s most famous word of all is a “euphemism for Christ” (per Merriam Webster’s dictionary), an “expletive” from “using ‘Christ’ as an exclamation” (Urban Dictionary).
What of Christians – should we use fudge words for God’s name? And since most people are ignorant of word derivations originally tied in with God’s name, what does it matter? I think of the old story of a king who was hiring a driver for his family’s horse-and-carriage. He asked the 3 drivers who applied, “How close can you drive to the edge of a cliff?”. Thinking it a test of skill, the first applicant said “I can drive the carriage within a foot of the edge”; the second, “I can drive the carriage within 6 inches of the cliff?” But the third answered, “With all due respect, Sir, I stay as far away from the edges of cliffs as I possibly can!” He got the job, as this was not a test of skill…
