Monday 25th October 2021

As we get older and enter our “anecdotage”, a trip down memory lane becomes increasingly appealing … and our recall less and less reliable. “Rose-coloured spectacles” lead to “Fake news”!

However, remembering is a good exercise, not least at a transition point. When about to change direction, at least a glance in the rear-view mirror is prudent! The Bible calls God’s people to look back and recall what God has done, especially at such points as Israel’s entry into the Promised Land. The story of that period is told with many a “look back”, and the story is repeated in the Psalms and by the Prophets, so that the people may remember.

Take Psalm 105, for example … “Remember the wonders he has done … He is the Lord our God … He remembers his covenant for ever … He remembered his holy promise to Abraham …”

Instruction … “Remember”, because we easily forget, and need a reminder, even of so basic an issue as the death of the Lord Jesus for our sins.

Information … “He remembers”, and, unlike us, needs no prompting!

Now, let’s not get carried away: a church moving to a new building isn’t quite as drastic a change as Israel entering Canaan! But we do face a transition point and, before we look forward, we do well to recall the goodness of God over these past months, his reversal of setbacks, his “surprises” when apparent impossibilities have given way before him, till we reach this point.

Remember! … in the first place so that we are grateful. One day, we will look back and be tempted to just take it all for granted: Israel came to regard even the most startling miracles of the Exodus as boringly familiar! We need to cultivate thankfulness, and with it a renewed encouragement. Look back on what God has done for us, so as to be assured that he will continue to be our helper in the face of all the challenges that will come in the future. Because there will be challenges, and even disappointments: that’s what serving God in this world is like ... always! Moses knew that, and his word to his successor, Joshua, was “Do not be discouraged…”

Remember, too, in order to be stimulated to grasp the new opportunities open to us. Moses’ final gift to Joshua was to pass on from God a “spirit of wisdom”, and we will need that too. We need it, so that we can discern which new possibilities are His priorities.

But note the other “punchline”: “He remembers …” We can rest on God, confident that, whatever lapses of memory we suffer from, we never slip from his mind!

“The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go…” (Joshua 1:9)

David Makepeace

Monday 18th October 2021

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139 v 8 - 12

Do you ever have one of those weeks / months where you have so much going on but you just keep pushing through? Maybe it’s just everyday things, but it’s just getting a lot and you can’t keep up. Perhaps it’s something to do with your faith, your physical or mental health, a relationship?

When someone asks how you are or how’s your week been and you reply, “I’m fine” and “I’ve had a good week thanks”, but it’s just an automatic response. Or you don’t feel like people need or even want to hear all that’s going on, sometimes it’s easier to pretend.

So often we can find ourselves having the same responses when it comes to talking to God. We have our go at prayer, the automatic prayers that we whip out when we’re not sure what to say, or are in a rush.

Cassidy says a set prayer at the end of all her prayers at the moment...

“Please bless the world, me, my family, my friends and everybody with a wonderful life and please bless the world, me, my family, my friends and everybody with wonderful dreams, Amen”

I love this prayer but we are teaching her and Oscar to think of individuals and specific situations as well, to help them understand that God hears the prayers of our hearts, true and meaningful prayers. They don’t have to be long or fancy; they just have to be real. God knows when we are just reading from a script and He knows when we don’t tell Him the whole story.

We have a God who knows our every thought, action and every word that comes out of our mouths. We have a God who loves us and He wants us to be honest with Him.

He knows, so why hide?

Why hide what we are really feeling from the One who can help and lighten the load?

He will equip us, He will walk with us through these things and the best thing is that He wants to!

We also can’t hide our sins; let's open up to the Lord about them. He sees them, He knows, He died to set us free from them so let Him set you free!

Our God is everywhere, we cannot hide from Him. And why would we want to? He is a loving, forgiving, gracious and powerful Maker, Healer, Helper, Father, Friend and King.

Come to Him today for a moment of real connection. Let’s open our hearts to Him.

“Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you” James 4 v 8

Jess Tromans

 Monday 11th October 2021

Carry Each Other’s Burdens

Let us start with the question, what is a burden? It is a heavy weight. The load on a ship can be called a burden. This is a physical burden. We think that an emotional, psychological or spiritual burden that a person feels is a situation or state that weighs heavily on our minds.

What we see as the biggest burden anyone feels is our sin and the only person who can remove that burden is God.

In Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, a man reads the Bible and is awakened to the realities of sin and judgment. As his distress and conviction grow it is like a great burden that he carries on his back. He looks for a way to get rid of the burden. As he walks along he sees at the top of the hill in front of him a wooden cross. He struggles up to the cross and as he reaches it the burden comes loose and rolls down the hill and falls into the mouth of a sepulchre and is never seen again. The man is no longer weary and distressed, but is glad and relieved and happy and says,” Jesus has given me rest by His sorrow and life by His death!’ We sing,

“Days are filled with sorrow and care,

Hearts are lonely and drear,

Burdens are lifted at Calvary

Jesus is very near.”

But once the burden of sin has been taken away by Jesus, we still live in a sinful world. Jesus Himself gives us other burdens. He says in Matthew 11:28 – 30, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” We think this means that the biggest burden we will ever have has been dealt with. We also know that we can take all these burdens to God and He will carry them with us. 1 Peter 5:7 says of God, “Casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you.”

So, now we come to carrying each other’s burdens. Galatians 6:2 says, “Carry each other’s burdens and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” Jesus told us to love our neighbours, even our enemies. This, of course, does not only mean the people we like, which is easy, but those we don’t naturally feel drawn to, whom God will help us to love and care about.

Being ready to bear the burdens of others involves asking God to show us who He wants us to help each day. Then we can look out for signs of worry or strain and give them the opportunity to “unburden” themselves. Listening is a vital part of this ministry. It doesn’t mean we have to solve their problems. We may be able to suggest ideas to be considered but must make sure they are realistic and not giving false hope. We can share scripture and pray with them and encourage them to commit it all to the Lord. There are many other things we can do, which we are sure you can come up with.

I, Gwen, can say that bearing burdens can be painful, especially if they are those of people close to us. The heaviest burden I have had to carry was when my middle sister shared her problem with me, but she did not want to discuss it further. She told me I was not to tell anyone. I was in a very difficult situation, especially as she wanted to carry on living life as normal. Living so far away, I couldn’t talk to her on a daily basis. Unfortunately, she collapsed whilst playing the last hymn at evensong. When the news reached me, I was devastated. A heavy burden to bear and I remember thinking, God is with us in the wilderness of this world (from Pilgrim’s Progress).

I, Jane, have a friend whose husband broke his hip and has now been in hospital for the last few months, needing 24-hour care and unable to come home as the house is no longer suitable for him. I try to carry my friend’s burden by phoning her on a regular basis, just letting her talk and praying for them both.

Finally, we feel we should also try to share our burdens with our fellow believers, which can be hard as we are admitting that we are weak and need help. This can relieve the tension and bring us closer together.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank you for bearing our burdens, most of all by Jesus bearing our sins on the cross so we can be reconciled to you. Help us to be burden bearers. Show us who we can be a blessing and encouragement to. Help us, when we have a burden, to find someone to share it with.

Amen

Gwen and Jane

Monday 4th October 2021

Harvest

As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for Harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.

Genesis 8 v 22

Autumn has always been my favourite season. I love the colours of the trees as they change, collecting seeds from my garden ready for next year, raking up the leaves and preparing to hunker down for winter.

Autumn also brings the Harvest, another of my favourite events. As a child, I remember my Nan making a Harvest loaf each year for the celebration at her chapel in Coseley. It was an amazing creation of a wheatsheaf and always looked too good to eat. I also remember the food sale at school after the Harvest service when everyone would race to buy raw jellies and eat them in the playground.

Over the years, Harvest celebrations have changed somewhat. Gone are the fruits, vegetables and other fresh foods. These have been replaced by tins and packets, jars and boxes. The need is still there but perishable goods are no longer in demand. As a church, we have supported both Birmingham City Mission and Black Country Food Bank with our donations over the years.

However, God’s goodness and mercy, His daily provision for us hasn’t changed. He is a faithful God and will never let us down, even on the most difficult and challenging of days. Covid-19 remains and still might feel too big for us to cope with, but He is bigger, greater, stronger!

The other thing for which hasn’t changed is the Harvest in the world. There are people who still need to know the Saviour for themselves. In Galatians it reminds us

“Let us not become weary of doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a Harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.”

We have more opportunities to meet up and chat share a cuppa or go for a walk, and just as He is faithful, we need to be faithful in sharing His love with others, by whatever means we can.

Kay

Monday 27th September 2021

Recently we enjoyed a lovely holiday in the Lake District, and I was awestruck again by its beauty and variety of scenery. As a “Lancashire Lass” , living not too far away from the Lakes at the time, it brought back memories of family holidays and school Geography field trips finding escarpments, arêtes , corries , ribbon lakes and hanging valleys! All geographical features linked to glaciation processes and various types of rock and their formations …. I think!!

Psalm 18 v 1 and 2

I love you, LORD, my strength.

The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,

my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

This Psalm / song was written by David after he had been delivered by God from some overwhelming situations. Verse 1 is so great as David expresses his emotion and feelings towards God which indicates a personal relationship with the living God. Is God far away and distant? No, because of His great love for us shown through Jesus on the cross which enables us to be forgiven and allows us to be right with God , we can know Him as our Heavenly Father.

The next thing David expresses is his utter dependence on God as a rock which is permanent and unmoving. A fortress which protects and is a means of defence. Deliverer, we cannot save ourselves, but God in His mercy has made a way for us to be saved through Jesus. We can take refuge in the Lord which can be defined as “shelter or protection from danger or distress”. A shield which guards us and covers us when we are feeling under attack and the horn of salvation, I think symbolises power and victory which was ultimately shown at the cross.

In Luke 1 v 68 - 69 this phrase is used again to describe Jesus :

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,

because he has come to his people and redeemed them.

He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David

Also, a stronghold which is defined as “a place that has been fortified to protect it from attack. ”

Just in two verses there is such a sense of protection, power and safety that we should be amazed and thankful. This is the nature of our God and I hope that our response is the same as David’s,

“I love you Lord, my strength”.

Ali Orton

Monday 20th September 2021

Luke 22 :39-44

It is probably fair to say that these last 12 – 18 months have been the most challenging for us all as Christians. Certainly, speaking as one of the leaders of this church, I can vouch for the challenges we have faced through this pandemic combined with the church rebuild and, despite that sense of overwhelming peace when we made the decision to knock the building down last September, despite the remarkable provision and repeated prayers that God won’t let us down or fail us, I have to confess to times of real anguish, particularly of late. When faced with these feelings I try to recall instances in Jesus’ life, the Apostles or from the characters in the Old Testament and see if I can learn from what they encountered, from their experiences.

It is a position that Jesus found himself in, in the Garden of Gethsemane which we find in Luke’s gospel (Luke 22:39-44). Equipped with this image of Jesus, His face twisted in pain and in agony, what do we do? How do we respond? You see, Jesus saw something in the future so fierce, so foreboding that he begged for a change of plans. Because Jesus felt such anguish, we can learn from His actions here in the garden. Do we gloss over our fears, cover them up, keep our sweaty palms in our pockets and bottle everything up?

Take note: the first person to hear of Jesus’ pain and anguish was his Father. He could have gone to His mother, His disciples. He could have convened a prayer meeting, but He didn’t; He chose to bring His fear and anguish to His Father.

A 1000 years earlier David was urging his fear-filled people to ‘fear no evil.’ David was making such a claim because as he had penned those very words in Psalm 23 he followed up with “You are with me. Your rod and staff, they comfort me.” I’ve been drawn back in my devotions to Psalm 23 a number of times recently, hoping to find still waters and green pastures, and yet here I am again in the garden of Gethsemane, fearful, apprehensive and worrying.

Until recently I hadn’t fully understood, why reference a rod and a staff? What was their purpose, other than for whacking a sheep on the backside to get it to go in the right direction? Apparently, it all goes back to Palestinian shepherds. The ground where the sheep were to graze had to be cleared of all danger and there were two particular hazards:

• Poisonous grasses which, if eaten by the sheep, would prove fatal

• Small venomous snakes which lurk in holes and dart out and bite the grazing animals.

Using his rod and staff the shepherd was able to dig out the deadly grasses and ferret out and kill the snakes. It is said that the shepherd would then put both the grass and the snakes on a rock to shrivel up in the hot sun. We take comfort for His rod and staff and that He is with us.

However, we are not always able to avoid life’s Garden of Gethsemane moments – remember though we enter, but not alone. Whilst there we are to be honest with our heavenly Father, pounding the ground is permitted, tears are permitted. Let’s remember that our Lord has been here in the Garden, in anguish before, He doesn’t think our fears are foolish or frivolous. He knows what we need.

Remember God didn’t take away the cross from Jesus, but He took the fear. God didn’t always still the storm but He did calm the sailor. Paul’s words in Phil 4:6 are equally appropriate ‘Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.’

It is said, don’t measure the size of the mountain, talk to the One who can move it. Instead of carrying the world on your shoulders, talk to the One who holds the universe on His – talk to your heavenly Father first, His rod and staff will comfort you.

Jon Cram

Monday 13th September 2021

God gives the increase

WHEFC has a number of members blessed with green fingers. I’m looking forward to the next time we are able to meet in our new home and celebrate harvest together. We are, of course, coming to that time of year where we can begin to enjoy the fruits of what God has provided for us and for me at least nothing tastes quite as good as home-grown vegetables.

Over the last couple of years Sharon and I have attempted to become part of the WHEFC farming community. Our results have been somewhat mixed, I think it is fair to say. This picture of a newly picked parsnip will give you a clue.

This type of result is not uncommon at Tromans farm. We seem to specialise in the wizened and undersized.

In Mark 4 we read of the parable of the Sower. As we read we see that seed landed in all sorts of places but a proportion landed on good soil. The result was that it produced a crop “multiplying 30, 60 or a hundred times” (verse 8).

What I feel is important here is that the size of the harvest may vary but it is still a harvest. When we pray, when we tell a friend or neighbour about our faith, when we help a friend in distress with kind words and prayerful concern, we plant seeds. The blessing is that God enables the seed to grow and we may never know what size the harvest is from that, but there will be a harvest.

We may feel at times that what we can contribute to the kingdom is only a small thing, yet in God’s hands we see it multiply many times over. Those of us close to the church build are constantly amazed at how God multiplies faithful giving and we have seen bills paid that we may have thought impossible.

My parsnip will never win any awards, it may not contribute to my Christmas soup, but it still represents God given increase and I have had great pleasure in growing it and sharing it with you. It may not provide much sustenance but I trust it gives you food for thought.

 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.

 1 Cor 3 v 6

Martin Tromans

 Monday 6th September 2021

God Knows

…Do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matt 6 v 31-34

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Matt 10 v 29-31

Recently, when our little granddaughter was saying her bedtime prayers, she mentioned that her mouth was sore and asked God to make it better. As she prayed, she opened one eye, looked up and said, “Can you see it God?”, and she proceeded to open her mouth to show Him!

It is so lovely to hear children pray – their prayers are so simple, to the point and honest. Olivia was just checking that God could see what she was talking about!

All too often, we doubt that God knows what is going on in our lives. When things go wrong, we wonder whether God is aware of the issue.

In the wonderful verses above from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells us not to worry and reassures us that our heavenly Father knows what we need. Our heavenly Father not only knows about everything that is going on in our lives, He knows us. He even knows every hair on our heads.

In French, there are two ways of translating the verb ‘to know’: savoir (to know about something) and connaître (to know a person). We see both uses in Psalm 139, demonstrating again just how much God knows us and how He knows all about all that is going on in our lives:

You have searched me, Lord,

and you KNOW me. (connaître)

You KNOW when I sit and when I rise; (savoir)

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

you, Lord, KNOW it completely.

You hem me in behind and before,

and you lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

Psalm 139 v 1-6

So, today, be assured that, whatever difficulties you’re facing, whatever your worries and concerns, God knows and He cares. Have confidence that God does know all that is happening and that He does care very much about you. He knows you – with all your weaknesses and failings – and He loves you very much.

Martyn Orton

Monday 30th August 2021

Have you ever heard anyone say, “I can’t believe it, it’s happened again!” ?

Now that may be a good thing, a bad thing, or somewhere in between.

It’s the type of thing I mutter with amazement every so often when my beloved football team win 2 matches on the trot.

Or when you look at one of the children’s smart phones that has had a recent screen replacement and the new one now has a great big crack down the centre. How did that happen again? you ask. The answer that comes back usually wanders off into the realm of fantasy. Somewhere between “I just don’t know!”, when you know it gets thrown around, left on chairs, sat on or dropped time and time again. I even had one child say that their friend ran over their phone in his car. And not to mention those that have ended up in washing bowls or down the toilet!

Much of our life is repetitive. We have a daily routine for all sorts of things, like the necessity to eat on a day-to-day basis. Now I appreciate that can be a good or bad thing. Grace and myself love a 15-minute dish we call a Thursday night special. It is a pasta, pesto sauce and salami sausage dish all mixed together and served with a salad. It’s called Thursday night special because that was my night to cook and we had it every week, week after week. Grace & myself love it still, but Helen hates it, and that’s because she would come home from work on a Thursday to the same meal week after week. She likes variety and ingenuity in the kitchen.

Lack of repetition can be bad. Our house group tucked into a lovely coconut and cherry cake the Wednesday before last, because of the revelation that after 31+ years of marriage, during which Helen thought I didn’t like coconut, the statement “Well, I’d bake a coconut cake for house group, but you don’t like it!” was shattered by my reply of “I do!” She responded “You don’t” and some-time later after a bit of pantomime “Oh yes I do” and “Oh no you don’t”, there was the sad realisation of the many, many coconut cakes I have missed over the years. What made it worse was that all of the coconut cake was eaten by house group members, whilst only a quarter of the chocolate cake disappeared.

Routine and repetition are integral to the way scripture portrays the Christian life. Somehow God knows our worshipping hearts need this ever so regular experience of communion with him, the continuing grasp of truth through His word and the fellowship of other believers, to name a few. Look at some of these verses that show routine and necessary repetition.

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Joshua 1:8

Daniel always prayed to God three times every day. Three times every day, he bowed down on his knees to pray and praise God.

Daniel 6:10a

Luke recorded the routine of the early church

‘Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

Acts 2:46a

That there are so many Psalms must surely be because worship was so vital to the Old Testament worshipping community to experience together as a holy routine. Many would have been sung in the temple, but many others are calls to each person to come and worship as the verses below express.

Psalm 34:3 ‘Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.’

Psalm 68 :4 ‘ Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before him his name is the LORD.

Psalm 95:6 ‘Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker’

Psalm 99:5 ‘Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.

Psalm 100:4 ‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

Psalm 107:32 ‘Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people and praise him in the council of the elders.’

Psalm 150:6 ‘Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.’

God knows your heart and mine. By nature, we are sinners, by nature we sin and by nature we do everything we can convince ourselves that our sin, if it exists at all, is not as bad as we think. We commit serial self-atonement all the time, comparing ourselves with others that we consider far worse than ourselves. The view we have of ourselves is not based on the reality of who we really are, but a fantasy of who we think we really are. It is all a function of the delusional self-righteousness of sin.

God knows your heart and mine. We convince ourselves that not being that bad, we really don’t need the radical grace of a faithful loving Saviour. We reason with ourselves that in the greater scheme of things God surely would simply look down on us, being as good as we are, and that would be enough. Surely, we say our sin does not deserve God’s anger or judgement or the horror of an eternal destiny separate from God. And in that we diminish the grace of God in the richness of His provision to those dead in sin, and how through Christ He alone makes them alive. In Christ alone is our hope and in Christ alone is the victory over sin. In Christ alone is the path to becoming children of God.

So, God has given us a remedy that confronts us again and again with the depth of our sin and the expansive glory of his provision in the person and saving work of His Son, Jesus. In the routine and repetition of coming together week after week to worship we are confronted with our true identity as desperately needy sinners and children of grace. When we truly understand the free gift of God’s provision of grace in Christ, then we aren’t afraid to confront the depth of our sin. And it is only when we admit to the disaster of our sin, that we can be truly excited about the amazing grace of Jesus Christ. We see more and more that in sin we are far worse than we ever thought and yet God’s grace is far more amazing than we ever imagined.

All this we experience in the incredible routine and repetition of corporate worship, when we join together as a church to praise the name of Jesus, week after week. Whatever anyone else may say, God has determined that attending church is a necessary and important part of our Christian life, and I think the Psalms testify to this. In this, routine and repetition are so good for us and we can truly say with excitement “It is happening again” as we anticipate joining our brothers and sisters in church.

We have been incredibly blessed to be able to use the hall at Church of the Ascension school, whilst we await the completion of our new home. We’re continuing to be mindful that coming out of the pandemic, we are all at different places in our confidence of being in groups and church is by nature a group of people. Whilst the 10.30am service feels almost like it used to be, the 9.00am service and the livestream we hope still enable us to be together as a church. I know many of you long to come back and be with your brothers and sisters in person, but aren’t quite ready yet. As time goes by, I hope you find the courage to make that first step back into church. If not the school hall, then in the new build, but I would ask you to pray about this as the longer you leave it, the harder it will become.

All I hope I have done is give you a greater reason why you should, as in the week by week gathering before God, in the routine and in the repetition, experience the ongoing saving and transforming power of God. We see Jesus more and the greatness of His graciousness as we see the depth of our sin in greater clarity. We need this ever so regular experience to understand the gift God has given to us in what we call the church.

May God bless you all in the very exciting days ahead and I pray that in time we will regather in person and be one again in fellowship.

Pastor Matt Jones

 Monday 23rd August 2021

Proverbs 2 v 1 - 9

My son, if you receive my words

and treasure up my commandments with you,

making your ear attentive to wisdom

and inclining your heart to understanding;

yes, if you call out for insight

and raise your voice for understanding,

if you seek it like silver

and search for it as for hidden treasures,

then you will understand the fear of the LORD

and find the knowledge of God.

For the LORD gives wisdom;

from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;

he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

guarding the paths of justice

and watching over the way of his saints.

Then you will understand righteousness and justice

and equity, every good path

Again in the last week we have seen in the news how dangerous and scary this world can be. It can be overwhelming, and we sometimes don’t know what to do. And more often we can’t directly do anything ourselves anyway. But what we can do is stand up for what we believe and stand up with pride in our faith because we have a God who is above all the world’s problems.

Verse 7 of Proverbs 2 describes our Lord as a shield to those who walk with integrity.

It may be hard to stand out. It can be difficult to say no to something that the world says is right or normal. And we may be mocked for going in a different way to those around us and trying to live our lives to a different standard. But we do nothing alone because if we are trying to live our lives for the glory of the living God then we are protected by Him. He is our shield. He will give us the words to say and can impart upon us a wisdom that is not of the world, but of Him.

We must be brave and be bold to stand for what is right. To stand for what is written in God’s word as truth and we do that with the Lord at our side. We are not alone. We are not lost or hopeless. We are strong and we are safe in the arms of a Father who loves us, saved us, protects us and walks with us day by day.

Matt Tromans

 Monday 16th August 2021

I sought the Lord and he answered me, he delivered me from all fears.

Psalm 34:4

The last year and half has been challenging for us all and we may often have felt lonely and afraid.

Such feelings abound in society, even more so because of the pandemic and it has affected all generations. In a student survey, 86% of students put loneliness as their number one problem and a number of well-respected psychologists are on record as saying that fear is the great threat to mental health in these times.

God wants to lift us out of fear and loneliness into faith. Read thoughtfully the story of Jesus and the official’s son (John 4:43-53) and note the three steps of faith taken by the man whose son was sick and on the verge of death.

Firstly, he believed in the power of Jesus, secondly, he believed in the promise of Jesus and thirdly he believed in the person of Jesus. This is the faith that brings us into a relationship which will, as it grows and deepens, cast out fear and loneliness.

Also reflect on the words from 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”

We have all struggled to come to terms with the pandemic in different measures, but I’m sure we can all echo the words of this prayer:

Prayer

Lord, I need a closer relationship with you. Help me to make this a priority. Cast out fear and loneliness by your presence.

Amen

Jon Cram

 Monday 9th August 2021

Recently we have had our 3-year-old granddaughter staying with us. It has been wonderful spending time with her, playing all kinds of games and having lots of fun.

It is interesting to see how little children copy other people’s mannerisms, expressions and even general outlook on life. Our granddaughter even enjoyed mimicking the baby noises made by her little cousin!

As parents (and grandparents) we carry the huge responsibility of being good role-models for our children and grandchildren. Our attitudes, speech and reactions to things are easily copied by younger ones who will follow our example.

At some point, we all imitate, or seek to emulate, those we hold in high regard. Many of us have imagined being our sporting hero scoring a wonder goal, putting down a fantastic try, hitting the ball for six or winning a gold medal.

The Bible encourages us to imitate others who demonstrate Christ-like qualities.

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13 v 7

If you know, or have read about, people of faith - people who have demonstrated the characteristics of being followers of Jesus - we should imitate their behaviour and attitudes. Reading biographies of men and women of faith can help us to do this. Seeing what God has done through others can help us to realise that He can also do it through us – Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Bible, of course, is full of examples of men and women of faith (see Hebrews chapter 11 for a list of some of them).

In 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 1 we read:

And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ

Paul urges us to imitate him, but only because he in turn imitates, or follows the example of, Jesus.

In his letter to the Ephesians chapter 5 verse 1, Paul also writes:

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.

This may seem daunting, if not impossible. But in the next verse, Paul explains how to do this:

Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.

The greatest person we can ever imitate is Jesus Himself. As we read the gospels and look at the way Jesus treated people and responded to all kinds of situations, we should seek to copy Him. This will enrich our lives and bring glory to God.

Prayer

Dear Lord Jesus. Help me to follow Your example today in the way I live and the way I treat others. Thank you for the men and women of faith I know of and help me to imitate their trust and confidence in You and to be a good role-model for others to follow.

Amen

Martyn Orton

 Monday 2nd August 2021

I have noticed more and more adverts using the phrase “ … get what you deserve! ”, suggesting that goods or compensation or holidays or treats are our right and we deserve to have them.

Don’t get me wrong; people work very hard and deserve a well-earned break or a treat as a reward. As the Olympics and other sporting events are happening, athletes train incredibly hard and deserve success for their efforts. This applies to students who have worked hard for their exams, and we hope they achieve success too.

As I prepared the children’s talk recently, I was once again reminded of the goodness and generosity of our God expressed in Psalm 103.

Psalm 103 v 10 - 12

he does not treat us as our sins deserve

or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

We are reminded that our salvation has been secured by our Saviour, Jesus Christ and because of His death and resurrection we are saved from the punishment of our sin and have a new life as a child of God. The word “grace” is often described as “ unmerited favour”. We do not deserve this; we cannot earn it and it is a gift from our loving and compassionate God. In the words of this lovely worship song:

King of kings, Majesty

God of Heaven living in me

Gentle Saviour, closest friend

Strong Deliverer, beginning and end

All within me falls at Your throne

Your Majesty, I can but bow

I lay my all before You now

In royal robes I don't deserve

I live to serve Your Majesty ( words and music by Jarrod Cooper)

We need to constantly remind ourselves how blessed we are and the words from the first 2 verses of Psalm 103 should be our response every day:

Praise the LORD, my soul;

all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the LORD, my soul,

and forget not all his benefits

Whatever we face, whether it is a time of great blessing or a time of struggle, we should remember God does not treat us as our sins deserve and He gives us hope and security in Him. May we give Him honour and praise as He alone is worthy .

Alison Orton

Monday 26th July 2021

Go Out with Joy – Invitation, Instruction and Inspiration from Isaiah 55

As our nation tries to be more confident about the future, perhaps you share this confidence or perhaps it increases your fear. The passage we will read today is full of reassurance that can build our courage and confidence in God and his eternal faithfulness to us.

First, we have an invitation... to come to God for sustenance and satisfaction (v1-2). As you read this perhaps pause to consciously come to God, tell him what you thirst and hunger for spiritually, emotionally, and in physical or practical terms.

Next, we receive some instruction... to give God our attention (v3-7). We are called to listen (v3), to see (v4-5) and to seek (v6-7). By giving our attention fully to God we take our eyes off our own fears and failures, off our own inadequacies and infirmities. Instead, God wants you to know that he has made a promise to you as a believer to provide for you, protect you and prosper you. This promise comes through David, and ultimately through Jesus, the son of David. Commit yourself, your soul, to listening for God’s voice speaking his words of promise to you in this amazing chapter. “Give ear... that your soul may live!”

Isaiah 55

“Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

2 Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labour on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and you will delight in the richest of fare.

3 Give ear and come to me;

listen, that your soul may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

my faithful love promised to David.

4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,

a ruler and commander of the peoples.

5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,

and nations you do not know will come running to you,

because of the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel,

for he has endowed you with splendour.”

6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;

call on him while he is near.

7 Let the wicked forsake their ways

and the unrighteous their thoughts.

Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,

and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

12 You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.

13 Instead of the thorn bush will grow the juniper,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the Lord’s renown,

for an everlasting sign,

that will endure forever.”

Did you notice that in the final verses of this chapter we are encouraged to find inspiration... in the greatness and grace of God (v8-13)? Our God’s thoughts and deeds are above and beyond ours. He is bigger and better than our circumstances. I feel called to particularly motivate you to “go out with joy” as verse 12 inspires us to. Perhaps, you’ve almost forgotten what it was like to go out with joy rather than fear. Can I encourage you to take the peace and promise of God from this incredible passage of scripture and to to go out with joy and be led forth in the peace of our God who has promised to protect, to provide and to prosper us eternally.

As I write these words, I’m praying for our loving God to bless you with courage and confidence in Him today.

Let’s pray

Precious Lord, we acknowledge your greatness. Your thoughts and ways are above and beyond ours. Help us to listen for your voice, see your hand at work in our lives, and seek to trust you more day by day. Thank you, Lord, for all your goodness and grace towards us. Give us courage and confidence in you to go out with joy, and to go about our lives with the assurance of your promise to provide, protect and prosper us eternally. In the precious name of Jesus... Amen.

Martin Yates

 Monday 19th July 2021

Freedom Day?

As I write this message the government has just announced its intention to drop all restrictions imposed during the pandemic on July 19th. You will have your own feelings about that I’m sure and I know that if you were to take a poll across our fellowship you would get a wide variety of responses ranging from the relief of freedom through to the concern that the virus is out there still.

I’m not one for politics, I get frustrated at the bickering and blame culture it breeds. Indeed, if our leaders are verbally abusing each other is it any wonder that our society reflects that?

How can we guard against that as a body of believers?

Firstly, let’s not follow the world’s example by pillorying our government, let us pray for them as we are urged to in scripture.

1 Timothy 2 v 1

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

Secondly let’s pray for each other and consider each other as better than ourselves.

Ephesians 4 v 2-3

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

What scripture asks us to do here is difficult, asking us to pray positively for those we disagree with, asking us to consider the reasons behind why others may think differently to us. Asking us to be humble and caring so that even through disagreement perhaps on earthly matters we keep the unity of the Spirit and the church.

Let us each pray for the Holy Spirit within us as we move out of lockdown and towards freedom and as we move ever closer to being fully together in our new building. Let’s be positive in our prayer and support for each other, considering each other’s needs above our own. If we are all filled with the Spirit, we will all move together. Let us also pray for peace in our hearts as we do this.

Matt 5 v 9

Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God.

John 14 v 27

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.

Philippians 4 v 7

The peace of God which passes all understanding.

Martin Tromans

Monday 12th July 2021

One more for Jesus

One of the books I’ve been reading is called The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. In it is a story about the writer’s father. He was a minister for over 50 years and his favourite activity was taking teams of volunteers overseas to build church buildings for small congregations. In his lifetime he had built 150 churches around the world. In 1999 his father died of cancer. In the final week of his life his dad was semiconscious. One night near the end, his dad became very active and tried to get out of bed, although he was weak and could not do this. As he was encouraged to lay back down he continued trying to get out of bed, so he was asked “Jimmy, what are you trying to do?” He replied “Got to save one more for Jesus! Got to save one more for Jesus! Got to save one more for Jesus!”

This story really touched me. This man had spent his entire life evangelising, preaching, working for the community, and even on his deathbed his final thought was saving one more for Jesus. It can be quite overwhelming when we know our calling is to make disciples of men.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the son and the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. And behold I am with you always to the end of the age.

Matthew 28:19

Perhaps you’re like me and don’t feel particularly eloquent and worry you will put your foot in it; maybe you get shy, maybe you’re worried you do not have enough Bible knowledge or there are better people than you to teach people about Christ... The thing is, God didn’t ask just one person to do it, He commanded all of us to. 

We are all made different, unique. That is because each of us are used for God in all different types of situations and speak to all different types of people. 

This story made me see evangelism in a less overwhelming way, to just look at it as saving one more for Jesus. And then just one more, and then one more. Keep doing this and we be following the command to make disciples. Just take that next step, show that bit of Jesus, that bit of patience, forgiveness, love. If someone asks you about Him speak from the heart and don’t worry what will come out of your mouth, ask God to guide you. Then step-by-step you will be used for Jesus and part of saving one more for Jesus.

And when he said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their site. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, And said, “men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Acts 1:9-11

 Jesus will come again. It may be today, it may be tomorrow, we do not know. But one thing we do know for sure is that He will return so we are on a countdown, to use each day to tell one more person, to show one more person Jesus

Jess Tromans

Monday 5th July 2021

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness, and the gall.

I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.’

The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;

it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

Lamentations 3 19-26

Today might be another easing of Covid 19 restrictions but, on the other hand, it may not. In many respects our world has been “afflicted, has wandered and struggled with the gall”. Not one person could have imagined what a pandemic would do to our world and how people would be affected. I’m sure that we have all felt downcast, even deep in our souls. For me personally, it was the experience of last summer with our son and daughter in law’s wedding. “It’s on, it’s off, how many guests, no reception”. I cried many tears, not many of them were joyful until August 8, 2020! I know others have and are still experiencing this anxious situation.

The book of Lamentations reminds us that it is okay to lament. The people were experiencing great distress after the destruction of Jerusalem. According to the author they suffered oppression, affliction and starvation. However, he reminds them that there is still hope. “Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.”

Sometimes it feels impossible to believe that “The Lord is good to those who hope is in him” Perhaps, even now we can’t see an ending to the suffering caused by the pandemic, maybe we will have to live with some of the results of it forever. We can, however, cry out to God, knowing that He hears us, and he will be faithful to see us through.

Prayer

Father, I need you right now. Please help me to trust you in whatever situation I find myself in.

Amen.

Kay Cram

Monday 28th June 2021

FAITH

How can we say FAITH without linking the words TRUST, HOPE and BELIEF?

Faith is a Gift of God.

We all live every minute of every day by faith. We step out with faith in everything we see and do, we could not live without it. Do we have trust and faith during these difficult times? Yes, we live by faith and hope in God.

The Bible talks a lot about faith and trust:

Luke ch.17 v.5 “The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’"

Proverbs ch.3 v.5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

Jeremiah ch.17 v.7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.”

2 Corinthians ch.5 v.7 “We live by faith, not by sight.”

Luke ch.1 v. 37 “Nothing is impossible with God.”

Hebrews ch.11 v.1 “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Hebrews ch.11 v.6 “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Ephesians ch.6 v.16 “Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

In 2 Chronicles chapter 9 we read about the Queen of Sheba who came to visit King Solomon. She had heard about his achievements and wisdom, but she did not believe what had been said. She came to challenge him, so she could tell the world the true facts. King Solomon answered all her questions and showed her wonderful things. The Queen of Sheba was overwhelmed and offered him the gifts she had brought. King Solomon then gave to her more than she had brought to him. She realised that it was God who had given Solomon everything and made him the person he was. She was able to return home and share with everyone the good news of the love and power of the God of Israel.

This is a picture about our coming to God and finding faith in Him. We hear about Him and see how He has changed other people’s lives, but we do not believe it could be true. Then we meet God personally and we see that He is more wonderful than we could ever imagine. We offer Him our lives and He gives us so much more. The more we know Him and the closer we are to Him, the more our faith in Him grows.

We also read in the Bible, in Mark’s Gospel ch.5, about the woman who had been ill for 12 years. No doctor could heal her. When she heard about Jesus, she had the faith to touch His coat and she was healed. However Jesus had more for her. He asked who touched Him and the woman was brave enough to admit it was her. Jesus wanted her to not only be healed, but to have a more personal encounter with Him, so that her faith in Him would be grounded in a relationship with Him for ever.

God doesn’t want us to use Him just as a provider. He wants to develop a relationship with us so we can help Him in His work and to give us love, joy and peace in our lives in whatever circumstances He leads us through. God wants us to grow spiritually and He does this by putting us in situations where we have to increase our faith in Him.

A current example of this is the faith we are needing to complete our church building to God’s glory and as a base for His work. We may have thought that getting planning permission against the planning department’s advice had increased our faith and sealed our conviction that the Lord wanted the church built. But the Lord wants us to continually have faith in Him and for that faith to increase more and more. Every step has looked to human eyes to be impossible. Why does God keep on waiting till literally the last minute for Him to provide what is necessary? It is to prevent us from trusting in ourselves and going ahead without God’s leading and intervention. Praise the Lord that He knows our weaknesses and keeps us close to Himself.

I, Gwen, must tell you a part of my life in the 1940s which I feel illustrates faith and trust. When I was a young girl living in Kent, we had to survive the Germans firing V1s and V2s, called Doodlebugs, across the Channel. These were pilotless planes. They were very frightening times.

During an evening service in the village church, we could hear the drone of a doodlebug, which got louder and louder and louder, and we knew that if the droning stopped, it would explode. The sermon had just begun and the speaker said "Let us pray." He then said “Trust in the LORD with all your heart. For by grace we are saved by faith."

I remember these very powerful words and the power of prayer. That particular rocket travelled on for just 5 more miles before exploding.

Prayer

Lord, help us to taste and see that You are good and thank You that You are an amazingly faithful God. Please increase our faith, that we may bring glory to You, Amen

Gwen Herbert and Jane Caine

Monday 21st June 2021

My Bible reading system has just set out on Deuteronomy, and the initial notes have suggested we see the opening chapters of the book as “Motivation”, reminding them of God’s past goodness to the nation, and so urging them forward to obey God more fully. A passage at the close of Deut 1 struck me, and the comments in the accompanying notes even more so! So here I am, doing a bit of recycling!

Moses has recalled the day the spies reported back on their visit to the “Promised Land”. It had exceeded expectation … BUT … claiming God’s promise and taking possession of the land was going to be TOUGH. So, comments Moses, “You refused to go up, rebelling against the command of the Lord…” And, as a result, God shuts the door on that generation entering the land. Reaction of the people? SHOCK … HORROR! Faced with exclusion from the land, and frustrated wanderings in the desert, they change tack. “If God says we can’t go in with him, we’ll go without him”, is their new attitude. In they go, and thoroughly defeated, out again they’re chased! And the comment runs …

“Note that lack of faith can express itself in two ways. In verses 26-33 they are afraid and think they can’t enter, even with God’s help. In verses 41-46 they are arrogant and think they can enter, even without God’s help.”

This would become a bit of a recurrent theme in Israel’s history, but is it only they who respond that way? What about ourselves? It seems to me we can fall off the tightrope of faith in these two ways as well. Take the comment of Paul at Philippians 4.13. We probably recall it as “I can do all things through him who strengthens me”, and we (reasonably) treat it as a promise for us as well. Actually it’s a statement of something Paul has learned through experience of trials, and of God’s goodness, something he says he’s been “initiated into” (v12). And the context makes it clear it’s not about “achievement”, so much as “endurance”! So the Revised English Bible well translates it as “I am able to face anything through him who gives me strength”.

So, yes, “I am able”: but it’s only because “he gives me strength”: and Paul didn’t get here overnight, he had to learn it through some deeply disagreeable experiences. And on our “learning journey” through life, we’ll do our bit of oscillating between “I couldn’t cope with that” on the one hand, and the delusionary “I can cope. My inner strength/experience (or whatever) will see me through”, on the other.

May God’s grace keep us steady on the Tightrope of Faith this week. Oh, and remember that to stagger or sway a bit is “par for the course”!

David Makepeace

Monday 14th June 2021

How do you feel about the things you ‘don’t know.’ I imagine for most of us, what we don’t know can’t really bother us that much. But there are times when a lack of knowledge or being ‘in the dark’ can be worrying or frustrating. I’m not necessarily talking about how the universe works but more on the lines of how it affects me. I know a fair bit about wildfires in the UK and how the authorities deal with them, only because I read through my eldest daughter’s dissertation for her degree. But that knowledge would only really bother me should I get caught in one or something I owned be in danger of being destroyed by one.

We were out in Shropshire recently on the way back from a trip to the beautiful Stiperstones and in the distance we saw a plume of black smoke. We didn’t travel past it but it obviously looked like a serious fire. We commented but thought nothing more until we saw the fire engines passing in the other direction. Again, we said ‘Oh dear’ and made our way home. The next day, our son Jacob came home with his girlfriend Jess (who lives near the Stiperstones) and they were talking about her next-door neighbour’s garage fire, which was so hot it melted their guttering. They showed us photos of the destroyed garage and even more tragically the destroyed vintage cars. Then we twigged, the plume of smoke we saw was the same fire that threatened Jess’s house and family. We didn’t know and in that we were blissfully unaware, but now we do know and are sad at the loss of such beautiful items of heritage.

God has given us an inner motivation to know things and it’s part of what sets us apart from the rest of creation. You may see it very obviously in the questioning of a young child as he or she constantly asks ‘Why?’ But that drive to know things God gave us has one ultimate end, this is to draw us to him, to know him, love him and worship him. And in that understand ourselves in the light of his existence and will.

Psalm 62: 5-7 (ESV) says ‘For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.

On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.’

In the last instalment of the Indiana Jones film franchise, the far-fetched storyline draws Indy and his companions to place a crystal skull back on the head of an interdimensional being, at which point their ‘ship’ cranks up and they all have to make a speedy exit. The beings, who it is determined, have vast knowledge want to leave a gift of knowledge and the villain in the film volunteers to receive it. To their question ‘How much do you want to know?’, she answers ‘EVERYTHING!’. But on receiving this vast amount of knowledge it becomes obvious she is not physically capable of bearing it, and starts shouting ‘TOO MUCH, TOO MUCH!’ before coming to a swift and grisly end.

This is what sin does to the inner drive we have to know things. It consumes us as we seek to know the best way to get what we want; achieve the things we dream of or affect the lives of others to fit into the fantasies of our hearts. It drives us from God and forms a restlessness in the soul that even our most brilliant moments cannot overcome. We’re still left with the mystery that what we don’t know is vast compared to the little we do know and so much of what goes on around us and even in the small space and time we exist in, little makes sense.

The Psalmist knew the answer to this muddle very well. The longing to know that God has placed in every human heart, that in  God finds hope, peace, rest and security. God knows, and God in His power and wisdom always determines and does what is good and right. He gave us a Saviour in whose beauty we can rest. Paul, writing into a culture to which knowledge was valued highly, said in 2 Corinthians 4:5-6 ‘For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ We see and know Jesus our Saviour as the revealed beauty of God who has opened our minds to the glory of God.

The impact of the world around us is an unceasing noise saying ‘listen to me, listen to me and I will give you great knowledge’ and an energy which says ‘with what you know, do what feels right to you.’ Yet for all the knowledge in the world, there is an abiding restlessness and dissatisfaction in the mystery of what we don’t know, can’t determine and is out of our control. Being Christians doesn’t make us immune from this mystery and we do face the dilemmas and tragedies of life with the rest of the world’s population, but, and it is a massive but, we know, love and worship a God for whom there is no mystery. He is never surprised, perplexed or afraid, he is never caught off guard or confused at the next best course of action. The testimony of the faithful in scripture, church history and in the faithful we know is that God’s sovereignty is absolute and in that we find rest comfort and peace.

Daniel, as an Israelite captive in Babylon, faced the unknown mystery of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, let alone what it meant, and in knowing that failure would mean death, Daniel and his three friends turn to God in their lack of knowledge and weakness and in Daniel 2:20-23 pray saying

“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others.

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness,

and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors:

You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you,

you have made known to us the dream of the king.”

Daniel not only was able to confirm what King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was but also what it meant. To wait on the Lord is to place your all into his mighty knowing hands, accepting God knows best and God always does what is right. Daniel and his 3 friends did this in a time of extreme stress, but in faith, trusted in what he knew to direct their path.

You may be facing dark times, uncertain futures or the unwanted ongoing effects of the last 16 months. Many of us have experienced loss, the frustration of major life events delayed or cancelled, the removal of our confidence to enjoy the company of our Brother’s and Sisters in Christ. Even in the most enlightened moments of thought, we may feel utter failures to understand why we are where we are now and yet God is still God. He has given this world an opportunity to look at Him and acknowledge his absolute knowledge and rich mercy, yet has it listened? A friend of mine commented after a horrible day at work saying ‘The world and people has changed with the pandemic’ and he wasn’t being complimentary.

So, look to God, wait on him, in silence if need be, see in Jesus the beauty of God and trust in his unfailing love that gives and gives and gives more. Take time to shut out the noise and the energy of the world around to spend time waiting on the Lord, that your soul may be refreshed and your perspective enlightened. God spoke through Isaiah to a people captivated by idols, thinking they knew better by worshipping things made by human hands and demands a comparison with the living God. In Isaiah 40:25-26, he says “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

Of course, there is nothing that compares to God our creator. The vastness of the night sky and the detail that God placed and determined it all perfectly is a nightly reminder of who he is. It is good to admit that there is much we don’t know, much that surprises us and much that confuses us but we wait on one who knows everything, sees everything and is truly wise. Isn’t it also good to admit that the one thing we do know with absolute certainty is that Jesus is Lord and in him we find eternal peace with God. There is boundless comfort in knowing that our life is in his gracious and merciful hands and he frees us from the paralysing burdens of this idol driven world. We can truly know and testify in our experience, no matter how hard the current moments are, the closing words of Isaiah 40:28-31:

‘Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.’

Pastor Matt Jones

Monday 7th June 2021

The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

Jonah 1 v 1 - 3

Over the last week or so I’ve been reading through Jonah, (and yes I am a slow reader).

It’s a story I so often hear as we read it to the kids. They know songs about it but I so often forget to spend time thinking about the relevance of this book in my life and the wonderful things it teaches us of God’s patience.

In chapter 1 vs 1 we see the Lord give a direct instruction to Jonah, one that Jonah doesn’t like, and how true is that of us today. How often do we read scripture, hear a sermon or sing words from a song that speaks directly into our lives but we don’t like it so we carry on with what we want to do rather than what the Lord asks of us.

This is what Jonah did, he didn’t like His calling so he ran from Him. But, as I’m sure you know, we/Jonah cannot hide from God. Our deeds and our actions are seen by Him. And if He has something for us to do He will put things in our way to bring us back to a realisation that we need to follow what He asks us to do.

In Jonah’s case a big fish, in our case it could be the intervention of a trusted friend, a family member asking for help or realising a need in the church or the community that we know we have to help with.

What’s wonderful about the story of Jonah is it shows God’s patience with us even in our disobedience.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh

The Lord uses the fish to bring Jonah to the realisation of his mistake but He doesn’t continue to remind Jonah of his mistake or keep talking down to him but he lovingly gives Jonah a second chance to obey and make things right.

This is the God we serve. A God of second chances, a God who wants to use us in service for Him, who wants to show His love through us and who forgives us when we try to go our own way.

If there’s anything God is asking you to do, don’t hide from it, don’t back away and do not be afraid. If it is something the Lord has planned for you to do, it will succeed. He is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, the sea and the sky and He is in control of all things, even our fears of what we face. So trust Him to help you live life by His word and His plan today.

Matt Tromans

Monday 31st May 2021

ROMANS 8 V 31-32

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

We can trust God to mean what He says. Why? Well as it says in these verses, He loved us enough to send His own Son Jesus Christ so that we can be forgiven, have new life, hope, and have God on our side. I read these verses and say “ brilliant!” and “thank you” but I quickly forget these wonderful truths when circumstances seem to crowd in, and things are difficult.

This quote by Hudson Taylor ( Missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission now OMF International ) is short, to the point and powerful. We need to have faith and believe that God means what He says.

As we move forward let us hold on to v 31- 32 If we believe that God is for us then everything that has happened over the last year and everything in the future shows His gracious hand on us as individuals and as a church.

Romans chapter 8 concludes with these fantastic verses :

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God means it and I pray it will encourage us all and help our faith to grow.

Ali Orton

Monday 24th May 2021

MATTHEW 14 V 13 - 21

When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

“Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

One of our new weekly routines since the start of the pandemic has become watching virtual Sunday school with the kids on a Sunday morning. This week they told the story of Jesus feeding the 5000. The “final thought” (as they call it) this week was very thought provoking and one that I pray will encourage us all this week.

They talked about giving our offerings to God no matter how small and just see what Jesus will do with it.

Currently our lives in the UK are going somewhat back to normal but over the last year/18 months many of us have asked ourselves the same questions, “what can I do to help?” or “what can I do for that person?”. We so often put the pressure on ourselves to get things done and do things for people or even we rely on ourselves to do things at church. There is nothing wrong with this and it is a good thing, but do we forget to involve God in our actions?

Whatever we do this week for others or for Church, offer it to God as a work for Him. Pray to Him and ask Him to use us for His work and just see what He will do with us. Just as He took the bread and the fish and used it to feed thousands, He can take our offerings of time/service/money and use it for the building of His kingdom. The passage teaches us that no offering made to God is too small for him to use. He can turn the smallest gesture of a small lunch into a miracle of a feast. He can and will do the same when we offer our lives to Him in His service as well, our actions our gifts and our kindness are never insignificant; they are a witness of our knowledge of the love of God and He will use it in ways we can never imagine if we ask Him to work through us.

Matt Tromans

 Monday 17th May 2021

Staring

ACTS 1 V 11

“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Here at the start of Acts we see the apostles staring into the sky because Jesus was taken from them and up into Heaven. It must have been quite a thing to see and experience and I have sympathy with them as they look intently into the blue, marvelling at what they have just witnessed.

Then there is the follow up which makes me smile. Two angels appear alongside them and basically ask them what they are doing. To paraphrase it they are told stop glaring upwards and get on with life – Jesus will return again, but not yet.

In the last 6 months I’ve had a change of lifestyle. I’ve become semi-retired which gives me lots of time……to stare. My job was (and still is) demanding and tiring and to just be able to stop for a while and take stock has been a great blessing. However, my dear wife has started to take on the role of the two dressed in white from the passage. I don’t think she understands that I’m happy staring into space.

She is correct of course, as she always tends to be. More time shouldn’t mean an idleness but more time to spend serving God and doing the things He wants me to.

How much greater the blessing if Jesus returned and found us going about His business.

God Bless

Martin Tromans

Monday 10th May 2021

BLESSINGS

BLESS BLESSED BLESSING

Three words which I'm sure we all use in our thoughts and speech many times a day.

DO YOU? …

Count your blessings one by one

And see what God has done.

Count your blessings

Name them one by one

And it will surprise you what God has done.

Are you burdened with a load of care?

Does the Cross seem hard to bear?

Count your blessings and doubt will fly

And you will keep singing as the days go by.

Take time to reflect on your blessings and be grateful, don’t take them for granted.

There are every day blessings, they are all around us, nature, colour, etc, then there are life's blessings.

Time is needed to make a note of them. I have made a few:

Born and brought up in a loving Christian family in a rural village in Kent. The village was centred round the village Church and it brought us safely through six years of war.

I had good education, good vocation and lifelong friends.

Now I have a wonderful Church Fellowship with good friends.

Also, take the time to read the many passages in the Bible that refer to the many blessings, for example:

Ephesians 1 v 3

Matthew 5 v 6 - 9

Proverbs 10 v 22

James 1 v 12

Numbers 6 v 24-26

Psalms 20, 23, 34 and 119

and many, many more.

May the Lord bless us and keep us and make His face to shine upon us always, and the blessing of God Almighty be among us and remain with us always.

AMEN

Gwen Herbert

Monday 3rd May 2021

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labour in vain. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

Philippians 2 v 14 - 18

Sixteen times Paul uses the words ‘rejoice’ or ‘joy’ his letter to the Philippians. The letter is a deeply personal expression of love and joy for the church in Philippi.

You would not think, therefore, that Paul was writing this letter from in chains in a prison cell. You would think, this being the case, that he would have good reason to be miserable and to grumble. But, right from the outset, Paul’s tone is one of complete joy and gratitude:

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you I always pray with joy. (Chapter 1 v 3 - 4)

The letter ends in similar fashion:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice! (Chapter 4 v 4)

I have to confess that I do not always rejoice! I often grumble. I moan about being stuck in traffic, I complain when it’s too cold or too wet. I sometimes even grumble about church.

There are at least two good reasons not to grumble:

1. The context of Paul’s instruction not to grumble is about being Christ-like, having the same ‘mindset’ as Jesus (Ch 2 v 5). We are told not to grumble so that we “may become blameless and pure, children of God in a warped and crooked generation.” Then, Paul says, we will “shine like stars in the sky.” (v. 15)

2. When we consider others who are in a worse situation than ours, things are put in perspective. For example, I am deeply burdened for the people of India at this time with the second wave of the pandemic. People are suffering beyond our imagination, especially the poorest of the poor who have a tough enough life even without the ravages of Covid-19. Our brothers and sisters in India are doing their utmost to help bring help and comfort, but many of them are suffering too. Some pastors and other Christian workers have died.

I have recently been in contact with some of our dear brothers and sisters in India. They ask for our prayers, but there is not one word of complaint or grumbling.

On the contrary, they are shining like stars in the sky.

Prayer

Lord, help me not to grumble. Help me to be thankful instead and to focus my energy on praying for others who are worse off than me, rather than complaining about my own situation.

Amen

Martyn Orton

Monday 26th April 2021

The Lord loves what is righteous and just; his constant love fills the earth.

May your constant love be with us Lord, as we put our hope in you.

Psalm 33 verses 5 and 22

So, it’s a couple of weeks since lockdown measures were eased again. How do you feel? Glad to be able to go to Merry Hill and visit the shops! Happy to meet up with friends for a coffee, as long as you wrap up warm. Relieved to have finally had your hair cut!! Small things that we may have missed during the pandemic. Things that perhaps we have taken for granted.

However, if anything, the pandemic has taught us to be grateful for so much, yes, those things we take for granted and so much more. It’s helped us to appreciate what we have and those around us, especially when we couldn’t see them.

In Psalm 33, the writer praises God for all that He is, all that He has done, His constant love and blessings poured out on His people. He reminds his readers to put their hope in Him.

God gives us so many reasons to have hearts that are filled with gratitude. May we trust Him, put our hope in Him, give Him the praise that He deserves and shout for joy (verse 3)

Prayer

Heavenly Father, You are so good to me.

I thank you for…

Kay Cram

Monday 19th April 2021

Jesus, source of life eternal

Jesus, author of our breath

Victor o’er the hosts infernal

By defeat and shame and death …

I won’t admit how long ago I last sang those words, but they keep coming back to mind. It’s not the excellence of the poetry that brings them back, of course. The author’s devotion to securing a rhyme leads to him/her using (inventing?) the word “supernal” somewhere in the first verse! That’s the sort of word to furrow the brow of even a registered Scrabble addict! No, it’s that superb paradox “Victor … by defeat and shame and death”.

Now, this isn’t mere poetic licence: it has good Biblical authority. Hear the author of the letter to Hebrew Christians …

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

“By his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death” … there’s that paradox again! In the apparent depth of weakness, in the moment of apparent victory for Satan, He is victorious! Paul makes the paradox even more pointed, more extravagant, by using the picture of a Roman general’s Victory Parade through Rome ( his “triumph”), riding ahead of his train of captives and booty to advertise his valour and strength. Read Colossians 2: 15 …

Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

How do we know that’s not just an overheated imagination at work? Simply because on the third day, Jesus rose again! God demonstrated that the Cross was not defeat but victory, not tragedy but triumph, by raising Christ from death.

It may be you read this when Easter is long past: no matter. For the Christian, every “first day of the week” looks back to Easter … and Pentecost … and we can say (or sing) …

“This is the day that the Lord has made

We will rejoice and be glad in it!”

David Makepeace

Monday 12th April 2021

Look ahead

Isaiah 43:18-19

“Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

The journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt to Jordan began with great joy and worship, many miracles and the tangible presence of God. However, as you know, instead of reaching the promised land in about a year, as they should have done, the Israelites took 40 years, by which time many of the original group had died. What went wrong and what can we learn for ourselves?

1) Don’t cling to the past. Under trial, the Israelites began to think they would have been better off if they had stayed back in Egypt. The same can be true of some Christians, always looking back to the so called good old days. But God has something new for us and we must follow the Holy Spirit’s leading today.

2) Don’t grumble about the present. As God led the Israelites in the wilderness, they responded with grumbling and complaints against God & their leaders. Criticism, gossip, resentment, grumbling, bitterness – these characteristics quench the Holy Spirit and can keep us in the spiritual desert for years. When the pressure is on, often we look for someone on whom to offload our frustration and anger. The scapegoat may be someone we have never truly forgiven for some past hurt. But God forgives and forgets and even though our present circumstances are particularly testing we must also do the same (forgive and forget), if we want to experience his blessings.

3) Be full of faith for the future. God is able to do new things, unless our unbelief prevents him. He wants to change the moral and spiritual wilderness into a land filled with the fruit of his spirit. Do we believe it? If so then worship and praise the Lord for it.

Jon Cram

Monday 5th April 2021

Psalm 32 – Part 2

6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you

while you may be found;

surely the rising of the mighty waters

will not reach them.

7 You are my hiding-place;

you will protect me from trouble

and surround me with songs of deliverance.

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,

which have no understanding

but must be controlled by bit and bridle

or they will not come to you.

10 Many are the woes of the wicked,

but the Lord’s unfailing love

surrounds the one who trusts in him.

11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;

sing, all you who are upright in heart!

His loving eye is on us.

Forgiveness is not the end of the story – in fact, it’s just the beginning. By his forgiveness God has drawn us into a relationship of friendship and faithfulness. God has made us his friends and we are called to be faithful. This faithful friendship begins with prayer and protection (v6-7). Then there is counsel and compassion (v8-9) and unfailing love and upright hearts (v10-11).

This is the process of forgiveness becoming faithfulness – of salvation becoming sanctification. As I pray, I find more of God’s presence and protection over my life. It becomes a source of inner peace and outward praise. As I hear and heed God’s counsel and realise that his loving eye is watching over me, I am able to be instructed and guided by his grace rather than controlled by bit and bridle like a wild horse. As I trust in the surrounding of God’s unfailing love, I am freed to rejoice, to live righteously and to develop an uprightness of heart that is not based on my supposed goodness but on his sanctifying grace.

Prayer

Lord, I love to know that your loving eye is on me. Please counsel me to respond to your gracious gaze. Subdue my wilfulness and pride, so that I can listen to you and follow you. Make me more willing and pliable to your ways. Lord, show me where I am pulling away from you, give me wisdom to know my own faults. Then, give me the grace to change and be transformed into your likeness. Lord, teach me the connection between a surrendered life and a worshipping soul. Teach me to sing your praises with unfettered joy and an uprightness of heart that is all of your grace. Amen.

Martin Yates

Monday 29th March 2021

Psalm 32 – Part 1

Of David. A maskil.

1 Blessed is the one

whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

2 Blessed is the one

whose sin the Lord does not count against them

and in whose spirit is no deceit.

3 When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

4 For day and night

your hand was heavy on me;

my strength was sapped

as in the heat of summer.

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, ‘I will confess

my transgressions to the Lord.’

And you forgave

the guilt of my sin.

I’m Forgiven!

Oh how happy are those whose sins are forgiven! That’s the gist of these verses.

So, how do we get into this state of grace and happiness… and stay there?

Quite simply – if I want to God to “cover” my sins, I must uncover them before him. If I think I can cover my own sins, by not admitting them to myself and hiding them from God then I will not find forgiveness. If I want God not to “count my sins against me” then I must count out my sins before him – if I confess, he will forgive. If there is deceit in my spirit, I will miss out on the forgiveness and clarity of conscience that only God can give. Dishonesty with myself and before God comes with a price tag. The price is the weight of sin – the heavy hand of guilt and God’s displeasure upon me.

But Jesus has paid this price – he has born the weight of my sin, suffered under the heavy hand of the Father and taken my guilt upon himself. Because of this grace I can and must acknowledge my sin before God and confess my transgressions to the Lord – in Christ he has forgiven, and will continue to forgive the guilt of my sin.

Prayer

Lord, I fail you on a daily basis. I confess my guilt and shame to you now. I uncover my sin and count out my transgressions in your holy presence… Lord, I feel the weight of your displeasure and disappointment, because I have shown disregard for your grace and goodness towards me. Yet thank you, Lord, that despite my constant failure your grace and goodness are unfailing. Lord, thank you for your forgiveness and thank you for Jesus and all that he went through to buy my salvation. I know that I am greatly blessed and truly happy when I trust in your forgiveness and favour towards me. I count my blessings… Help me to be more holy, more set apart for you, more like Jesus. Help me never to take your grace for granted or be satisfied with my sin. Lord, transform me by the renewing of my mind and change me by the power of your Spirit.

Amen.

Here’s a link to a sermon that you can read and/or listen to on this psalm and the theme of forgiveness – Psalm 32: The Blessings of Forgiveness

Martin Yates

Monday 22nd March 2021

HOPE

I feel that HOPE is what keeps us positive… in these times especially!

How many times during the day do we think, say and write “hope”? If you text as many times as I do, you will use the word a lot, e.g. “hope you are well” and “hope we can see each other soon”.

We are also saying “I pray” – the two words go together.

We live in hope constantly.

We can read a lot about “hope” in the Bible.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me and I will listen to you.

Jeremiah 29:11 -12

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

Hebrews 6:19

Take a few moments and find out what else the Bible tells us about HOPE. E.g.

Psalm 39:7

Psalm 71:5

Proverbs 23:18

Romans 8:24, 25

1 Corinthians 13:13

We can also find hymns that talk about Hope. E.g.

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,

Whose trust, ever childlike, no cares can destroy,

Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,

Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

All my hope in God is founded,

He doth still my trust renew,

Me through change and chance He guideth,

Only good and only true.

God unknown, He alone,

Calls my heart to be His own.”

Gwen Herbert

 Monday 15th March 2021

This week I thought I'd share with you a few thoughts from one of my favourite and, for me personally, most encouraging books of the bible; one I often turn to when I'm having a bad day.

Now I don’t know if by saying this I'm revealing something of my personality, as it is not the Psalms I look to, but rather Ecclesiastes. I particularly found it helpful in my previous job, which I didn't enjoy at all, and to read this book gave me so much perspective on life when facing a challenging day.

Chapter 1 says,

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.

What do people gain from all their labours

at which they toil under the sun?

Generations come and generations go,

but the earth remains forever."

“Well, that's a terrible verse for the motivation section”, I hear you say. And maybe you have a point. But what Ecclesiastes does for me personally is to give a sense of perspective in the light of God’s sovereignty over this world and the meaning of our service to Him. Other versions use the word ‘vanity’ rather than ‘meaningless’. I find it a great reminder to look at my own heart and make sure the right motivations are in place for all I do. If we do all things for our own gain and vanity, they are ultimately meaningless, but what this book is all about is that if our work is for the Lord, it has meaning and purpose.

We're in a very strange time, but chapter 3 of this book also tells us that there is a time for everything. Here is the list that we have:

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Look through the list. No matter where we are today it is a time for something. God has it all planned. Ecclesiastes is telling us not to waste these days. They may all seem the same, they may be quiet or may be stressful, but we are in a season ordained by the Lord. Let’s use each time for His purposes and have our identity in Him.

Verse 11 continues to tell us that the Lord has made everything beautiful in its time. And this time is no exception. From our perspective, hear on earth, that is hard to see, but even this difficult time can be made beautiful. By looking to work for God’s purposes we can be part of that, part of something that doesn't end and fade but something that is eternity. We're told in this book that God has placed eternity in our hearts, giving us the chance to be part of something bigger than what the world has to offer.

Chapter 5 brings this further. Remember we are on earth and the Lord is in Heaven. He is seeing this all outside of our time and can see how this can shape and mould us to be servants and worshipers of Him in this world. It causes me to question how I respond to what's going on around me each time I feel like giving up, and to ask instead, what is God trying to teach me now or what is He asking me to do in this to serve Him?

Finally, the book ends with a reminder that the Lord will reveal all things, good and bad. In this difficult time, I hope this all encourages us to work hard for Him because He sees it all. It doesn't matter what people see of our work, but it matters what God sees. Let's all use our time here and now to work in His service. It is not meaningless, it is meaningful; it is not giving soulless joy but everlasting joy; it will not cause us to be restless, but will give us peace because we are working for a God who loves us and has a plan and a work for us ready to do.

Matt Tromans

Monday 8th March 2021

2 Corinthians 2:12-14

Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there.

So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia.

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.

How do you cope with disappointment?

I suppose we would say that it depends on what it is. That feeling when England (or Scotland, Wales or whoever you support) get knocked out of the world cup. The email notifying you that you got down to the final 2 in the selection process, but they chose the other one. The high hopes you had for someone you had spent time with who chooses a different path to the one you thought best for them. You realise that document you had worked on for ages is lost when the PC (yes, PC) crashes. The leak in the loft ruins a box full of precious memorabilia. The coffee machine breaks. That feeling when the Prime Minister announces weddings are back on and the date yours was booked for was 2 days too early. And so on and so on. Yours, I imagine, are similar and different.

One of the most distressing disappointments I remember was when we were expecting our fourth child and Rosie, having 2 brothers was desperate to have a sister. She felt outnumbered in the family by boys, and yes even the cat was a boy. It was distressing to her but, and I say this with a small sense of shame, we enjoyed months of winding her up by saying “It might be a boy!” and seeing the disappointment even before the event. Not even the thought of a bedroom to herself brought any consolation. There was no disappointment for Rosie at the birth of her sister but years of disappointment at having to share a bedroom. They will not be happy at me saying this, but they were so alike when they were children but are now oh so very different. Am I disappointed? No, not a bit.

Paul openly admits to the disappointment of not finding Titus when he got to Troas, saying “I still had no peace of mind”. Even though Paul sensed an open door to preach the gospel there, which surely was too good to miss for an evangelist of Paul’s calibre, his disappointment became a barrier. Sometimes I think we look at Paul as a strong, independent, outspoken, indestructible man on a mission, but I believe that is far from the truth. That he openly admits to the Church at Corinth in this letter a weakness and an inability to take the opportunity presented him for the gospel, shows a reassuring humanity and fragility.

Many biblical characters experienced disappointment:

- Naomi in Ruth chapter 1 at the circumstances she found herself in after losing her husband and both sons and being left with a childless Moabite daughter-in-law and a hopeless future.

- Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 at not being able to have children.

- Samuel in 1 Samuel 15 for making Saul king.

- David in 1 Samuel 30 when his wives were taken captive by the Amalekites.

- Elijah in 1 Kings 19 when Queen Jezebel undermines his great victory over the prophets of Baal and forces Elijah to retreat and confront the Lord.

- The rich young ruler in Matthew 19 when Jesus perceived that his god was his great wealth and told him to give it all away and then follow Jesus.

- Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 at the immorality in the church and the action he might have to take when he gets there.

- Paul again in Galatians 1 at how quickly the church deserted the truth when pressurised to conform to legalistic rituals.

Disappointment can be a warning to us, like it was to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, that the affections of our heart can be and may be placed on false gods and idols who have captured our love and whom we serve. They will always cause disappointment because they have no divine substance and are based on our fragile and mistaken desires, emotions and perceptions. The questions we should constantly ask ourselves to reveal this are, what do I worship? what do I love most? what do I serve? what brings me the greatest joy? But also, what causes the most bitter and unanswerable disappointment? This is the cause of our problem. Even money, as that young ruler found out, would be the cause of his great disappointment, whereas in contrast, Zacchaeus was to experience the liberation from the disappointment of the rejection he faced as a tax collector by his own people. By following Jesus and giving away the cause of his idolatry, he received the salvation Jesus gave him and the liberation that gives.

Paul knew this liberation and in the deepest disappointment and feeling of failure in his Christian calling, he turns his mind, thoughts and voice towards the victorious remembrance of the fact that in God, whatever the circumstances, a very real and overwhelming sense of triumph is always present when we are attempting great things for him.

The cultural scene Paul uses to illustrate his thoughts is the triumphal procession of a great Roman general down through the streets of Rome. He has won a mighty victory over the enemy and the crowds throng to see the captives he has brought back as trophies. By comparison ‘Christ’s triumphal procession’ was on a dusty road carrying a wooden beam towards a hill, where he was nailed to it and left to die. This procession wound its way to a tomb which could not hold this man because death had no right to him. Paul, in the most disappointing moments of his life knows that they themselves do not define him, they will not be the cause of despair, and this is the first answer when we face disappointment in our service to Christ. It will happen but it will not define us. More often than not God works more through our weaknesses and failures. The feeling we have must not be the cause of us giving up, even though like Paul it may change our path.

The second part of the answer to disappointment is that following Christ, not as vanquished captives but as willing followers, is to live sharing the victory of Christ, which in all ages and all times can never disappoint those who look to Christ and see that he uses weak, fragile and very human people like us to spread the beautiful aroma of a Saviour whose good news transcends disappointment.

We can always say as does Paul, “Thanks be to God..” and know that is a motif for all of life because he ‘always’ leads us in the victory procession of the gospel.

Never give up.

Never lose sight of the victory you have in Christ that can never disappoint.

Never think God makes mistakes but follow him faithfully wherever he leads.

Matt Jones

 Monday 1st March 2021

Romans 15 v 13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Hope” is the word that everyone feels is so important at this time and people are hoping that the next few months will be brighter and better for us all. This verse from Romans declares where hope actually comes from. The source of hope is not ourselves. It is not ‘OK, I’m going to be brave’ or having the British stiff upper lip approach or self-empowering. Positivity , self-discipline and strength of character are all good things but we need the source of hope which is God himself “May the God of hope...”

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him”

We should recognise that our hope, joy and peace is in Him and we have to trust Him through good times and testing times.

“so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”

The Cambridge dictionary defines “overflows” as follows; “If a container or a place overflows, whatever is inside it starts coming out because it is too full.”

Now I am sure some of us have had a stressful experience where a pipe has leaked or burst, or a gutter has been blocked and water has overflowed and it gets absolutely everywhere! The words in this verse, “overflow with hope” suggest that it can’t be contained and other people will see the hope we have and it should point them to the source of hope, our wonderful God.

Again, I find it very helpful and reassuring that it says, “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” We don’t have joy and peace because of our will power, the power comes from God himself and our hope should overflow. We have a God who is compassionate and loving and we need to trust Him at all times.

May God bless us all this week and whatever we face, may we draw close to Him, our source of hope.

Alison Orton

Monday 22nd February 2021

Look Up!

Psalm 121 verses 1-2

I look to the mountains; where will my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

From the Velux window in our loft roof, we have an amazing view, which extends all the way out to the Black Mountains on a really clear day. Then sometimes we can see nothing because we are enveloped in mist and fog. However, on venturing out we find that the rest of Kingswinford is clear! Looking up is important. One of the presenters on Winter Watch 2021 said that you never knew what you might see when you looked up! Sometimes we just need to lift our eyes a bit higher.

The psalmist asks where his help would come from. Perhaps he was concerned for the dangers that lay around in the hilltops, altars to pagan gods, possibly bandits. Then he looks beyond the hills and sees Mount Zion where the temple stood and is reminded of God, the maker of heaven and earth.

To help us cope with this still challenging world, we need to lift our eyes higher than our circumstances, troubles and trials. From personal experience, I know that it’s not always easy but hopefully then we will see more of our Creator God, the One who watches over our comings and goings today and forevermore. Try looking up today.

Father, thank you that you’re the Creator God who watches over me. Help me to lift my eyes higher to see you and put my trust in you. Amen.

Kay Cram

Monday 15th February 2021

Long ago, when Jean and I were students, a kind couple in "Brum" acted as hosts to us and other hungry students, as well as being mentors to many of them. The only downside to their hospitality was the presence in their home of two dachshunds who suffered from the delusion that students' ankles were likely to be tasty! Still, it taught you to be watchful.

Among our friend's favourite sayings was “In acceptance lieth peace”. He spoke of learning this from a traumatic experience, and told me the words came from a poem by Amy Carmichael. Now, I have a “tin ear” where most poetry is concerned, so I never pursued the source of the quote. Recently, however, I stumbled across the verses. The language is a bit quaint to 21st century ears, but discount that, and “listen in”!

He said, "I will forget the dying faces;

The empty places,

They shall be filled again.

O voices moaning deep within me, cease."

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, "I will crowd action upon action,

The strife of faction

Shall stir me and sustain;

O tears that drown the fire of manhood, cease."

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in endeavour lieth peace.

He said, "I will withdraw me and be quiet,

Why meddle in life's riot?

Shut be my door to pain.

Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease."

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, "I will submit; I am defeated,

God hath depleted

My life of its rich gain.

O futile murmurings, why will ye not cease?"

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, "I will accept the breaking sorrow

Which God tomorrow

Will to His son explain."

Then did the turmoil deep within him cease.

Not vain the word, not vain;

For in Acceptance lieth peace.

David Makepeace

Monday 8th February 2021

THE POWER OF PRAYER

The following three small words I love to hear are "Let us pray”. These are powerful words. During each day I am sure we all pray many times. At this time we are praying for the whole world in this Pandemic. We can say or sing our prayers, we can read or sing hymns and psalms.

As o’er each continent and island

The dawn leads on another day.

The voice of prayer is never silent,

Nor dies the strain of praise away.

Sing unto the Lord a new song.

Cast your cares on Him, because He cares for you.

He has done marvellous things. Praise the Lord.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Here is a picture of the evening prayer I was taught by my parents when I was very young. Every night we said it following The Lord’s Prayer:

“O Lord our Heavenly Father, teach me how to Pray. Make me sorry for my faults and forgive all that I have done amiss this day. Give me grace to be thankful for all Thy mercies; for my health, food and clothing. Keep me from sin and danger, and give me quiet rest and sleep. Bless my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and take them all into Thy Holy keeping this night, for the sake of JESUS CHRIST, Amen.

Gwen Herbert

God instituted prayer. He walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8)

Enoch walked and talked with God (Genesis 5:24)

Abraham talked with God (Genesis 12:1)

Moses talked with God at the burning bush (Exodus 3:1)

Jesus encouraged His disciples to pray and gave them a pattern for prayer (Luke 11:2-4)

Prayer is both a miracle and a mystery. It is a miracle because God answers our prayers. It is a mystery because we can’t comprehend how prayer works. On one hand, God has a plan for each one of us, which has been made with His knowing what we will be going to pray for. On the other hand, we decide what to pray for and God answers because of the plan he has for us. Though this doesn’t make logical sense to us, we don’t have to understand, we just need to believe and pray. Praise God!

How powerful is prayer? Here are some suggestions that you will be able to add to.

Prayer can:

• Move mountains

• Bring people to salvation

• Comfort

• Challenge

• Build a closer relationship with our God

• Show non-believers how God works

• Help us to change our minds from what we want to what God wants

• Bring us out of despondency

• Make us brave

• Bring us forgiveness

• Help us to resist temptation

• Guide us

• Help us to love the unlovely

Jesus said, “I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.” John 14:13

An example of someone who relied on God to answer his prayers. George Muller prayed for hours every day and expected answers from the amazing God who he believed in. In 1835 George started praying that God would provide 1000 pounds to buy a house to use as an orphanage and for the right people to run it. Within 5 months the orphanage opened.

One day the orphans sat down for breakfast, grace was said, but there was no food on the table. There was a knock at the door and the baker handed in a cartload of bread. He said that God had woken him up in the night and told him to get up and bake some extra bread and deliver it to the orphanage. A few minutes later there was another knock at the door and the milkman handed in a cartload of milk. He had lost a wheel off his cart outside the orphanage. He didn’t want to leave the milk to be stolen whilst he found another wheel, so he gave it to the orphans.

A famous quote. John Carey, in 1792, set up a missionary society and spent many years in India reaching people for Christ. At the inauguration of the missionary society he said,

“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God!”

Jane Caine

Monday 1st February 2021

Look for the green!

Psalm 23 v 1 - 3

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,

he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.

Forgive me for being boring, but I’m not a great fan of the snow, beautiful as it may be. If you have ever visited our home, you’ll understand. The snow traps us and makes it difficult to leave the house. So, when it snowed at the end of December last year, I felt really down. Everywhere was white and I wanted it to be green. In fact, it took a while before we started to see any green at all. However, when the grass started to reappear, and I could see my garden properly again, I felt so much better.

David, the writer of this Psalm, understood the importance of “green”. His sheep needed green pastures on which to graze and be fed. As king of Israel, he needed to be led to such places himself where he could rest and be refreshed by God.

It’s the same for us, especially in these still uncertain times. We need to look for the green. It’s there, even on the busiest or most difficult of days. With God in our lives, we lack nothing. He makes us lie down in green pastures. He refreshes our souls. In our relationship with Him, we can discover His ongoing provision of rest. We just need to see it and be willing to enter in.

Prayer

Father God, thank you for being my shepherd. Help me to allow you to take me to green pastures and refresh my soul. Amen.

Kay Cram

Monday 25th January 2021

This week I pray that we can begin our week with joy together in our reason for being on this earth. Amongst a world of sorrow we can be full of joy because we can be assured of our identity and purpose.

Firstly, we are Gods children here on earth.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

John 1:12

No matter where you find yourself today, no matter the circumstances you are in, if you trust in Jesus as your Saviour you are a child of God!

Think about what that statement means for a moment. The Lord of all things is our Father. A Father who would sacrifice everything to secure our future in Him. A Father who wants good for us. A Father who listens to us. A Father who reaches down from heaven and into our lives here on earth, who walks beside us in our trials and in our joys, here in 2021. A Father who is not distant but is close.

Let that thought be our joy today, and this week, and for evermore.

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:14

Let's not keep this to ourselves though. We're in a time when the world needs a true and real hope that it can depend on. And the only place the world will find this is in Jesus. How wonderful it is that God has revealed this to us. How wonderful that we know this.

In how we live out this year, let God’s light shine through, so that in just the way we live people may see Him.

I read this quote today from Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a Scottish pastor from the 1800s, “The Christian is a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God.”

As a good check on ourselves and a challenge to each of us, let's ask ourselves if we can describe ourselves in this way as Christians. None of us is perfect and we all make mistakes, but let's strive to be that light of God on earth, so that our way of life of total reliance and trust in the Lord would be an encouragement to others around us to seek God for themselves. Then we can share in their joy of living a life full of joy with Christ Jesus.

Matt Tromans

 Monday 18th January 2021

I once got to know a gentleman from a Parish Church near where we lived in Somerset. He was very interested in church music, and had once written a version of a Psalm for choral singing... it just happened to be Psalm 119! I've often wondered if it was ever performed...

This memory comes back to me every time I leaf through the Book of Psalms because close to the longest is the shortest -- Psalm 117 -- and, to your great relief, it's that one I'd like to ponder with you.

Praise the Lord, all you nations,

extol him, all you peoples.

For great is his love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the Lord endures for ever.

Praise the Lord.

The most frustrating thing about our present situation is the feeling that you just have no idea what's coming next. Everything changes, from the virus upwards! To use the phrase the writer to the Hebrews coins, everything is being “shaken”. Mind you, he does add, “so that what cannot be shaken may remain”. But what (or who?) comes in that category? What is “unshakeable”? What can I be sure of? This tiny Psalm instructs us, the people of God, that what we have to tell the world is a twofold truth....

God's love is great:

God's faithfulness is forever.

For the psalmist the evidence of the first was in the facts of their history as the nation of Israel, facts they recited in the songs they sang to God in Temple worship. God took their father Abraham from a pagan background to receive his promises of a land and a people. He rescued that people when they were enslaved in Egypt, brought them to their land, met their every need, protected and guided them, and even in the face of their repeated failure to keep their pledge of obedience, continued to acknowledge them as his people. Love... and faithfulness. Great... and forever.

And what have we, God's people of a New Covenant, to sing about in our worship? We've reminded ourselves recently of a Deliverer who came to set us free. And free, not just from a ruthless Pharaoh, but from the Rule of Sin and Death. And the act of liberation cost God so much more than did the Exodus: Philippians 2 reminded us that He who shared God's very nature “emptied himself”, poured himself out for us. And, as man, he humbled himself, even to the shameful death of the Cross! “Great is his love toward us.”

And since then, has our track record really been so much better than that of Israel, given the advantages we enjoy under the New Covenant? Whether you look at the Church as a whole, or you and me as individuals, haven't we traded on the gracious forgiveness of God all too readily? Yet God remains faithful. That doesn't change. Whether it's in his people's sufferings or in their failures, he remains unchangingly faithful, “for he cannot deny himself.”

So, as we move further into 2021, and acknowledge more readily than ever that “we do not know what a day may bring forth”, we do know this...

“Great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures for ever.”

David Makepeace

Monday 11th January 2021 

Praise the Lord

For my birthday last year, my daughter gave me an empty notebook. On the cover is written, “Praise the Lord oh my Soul”. The accompanying paper suggested I find Bible verses about praising God and put one on each page with a picture. Thinking of an illustration for some verses was sometimes challenging. I am only halfway through the book, so I am always looking out for a verse or passage to include. I am finding that when I look through the pages they focus my mind on God and I am filled with awe and wonder and the problems of life fade into the background as I trust Him to see me through.

Here are 7 of those pages:-

1. Psalm 104 verse 1 “Praise the Lord oh my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great; you are clothed with splendour and majesty.”

My picture is of an orb and a sceptre. This verse is an exhortation to praise the Lord and to acknowledge that He is our God and our great and splendid King.

2. Psalm 100 verses 2 and 5 “Worship the Lord with gladness, for the Lord is good and His love endures for ever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”

My picture is of a flower, to remind us that God created good things for our pleasure and shows us His continuing love and faithfulness. We can muse on many things that show us these characteristics of God.

3. Psalm 68 verse 4 “Sing to God, sing praise to His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds – His name is the Lord- and rejoice before Him.”

My picture is of myself kneeling on the ground looking up at the clouds with musical notes coming out of my mouth. God is our champion, aware of all that happens and in control of all things and looking after us.

4. Daniel chapter 2 verses 20 and 21 “Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever, wisdom and power are His. He changes times and seasons.”

My picture is of a fruit tree with branches each representing a season of the year. Our God is wise and has the power to carry out what is right. We can think back on our lives and thank God for how he has lead us in the past and trust Him to use His wisdom and power in the future in this world and the next.

5. Luke chapter 1 verse 68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed His people.”

My picture is of an empty cross. This reminds us of the most important thing we can praise God for – our salvation. We can meditate on the great sacrifice God made to redeem us and to bridge the gulf between us and Himself.

6. Psalm 95 verses 1 and 6 “Come let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Come let us bow down and worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God.”

My picture is of a huge rock and myself kneeling before it and musical notes coming out of my mouth. It is wonderful that worshipping God brings us great joy when we come in humility and own Him as both our Maker and the strong, permanent means of our salvation.

7. Psalm 119 verse 117 “May my lips overflow with praise, for You teach me your decrees.”

My picture is of a cup that is overflowing with liquid and the word PRAISE written at its base. We praise God that He teaches how to grow spiritually, especially by the Holy Spirit speaking to us through His written Word, the Bible. May we continue to spend time reading it to learn more about our God and to grow closer in our relationship with Him.

Jane Caine

Monday 4th January 2021

Have you entered the new year either needing, or having a resolve, to go on a diet?

For many of us Christmas brings with it a banquet of beautiful foods. As a family, we love food and experimenting with different recipes, most of which are quite successful, but probably only because we choose recipes with ingredients that we know we love. But, for example, Helen would never select tofu for a menu, and she would say “if you have never tried it, I would suggest you don’t bother!!”

Our Christmas day turkey was the best it has ever been. Not the normal dry meat that gets left in favour of the pigs in blankets and relegated to the Boxing Day curry, but following Jamie Oliver’s TV programme in mid-December this year, we did it as he suggested: de-boning the turkey legs and filling them with a sausage meat stuffing : it was a pallet revelation.

All our children experiment with recipes. The addition of a Joe Wicks cook book to the house presented some beautiful new dishes to our family menu. Jacob has a style of his own. He follows no known recipes but just creates things from what is available in the cupboards, fridge and freezer. In theory, what he creates shouldn’t work but, we have to say, they always do work. He even adds something to make oven chips actually taste not just palatable, but really delightful.

Over this Christmas period, our stomachs may have been well satisfied with rich extravagant food. But it won’t be long before the fridge begins to empty and the turkey is no more and we will be forced to top up our larders again.

The Bible is no stranger to food, containing many references to it. In order for Jesus to satisfy the need for spiritual food, He had to prevent the crowds from growing physically hungry and, as we recall, He fed over 5000 people with just five loaves and two fish. It was a simple meal, but we know it satisfied the people as we are told there was plenty left over.

We said earlier that as a family we only select the food that we know we enjoy eating and that will satisfy our needs and desires, and we’re sure you are the same. In John 6 Jesus makes it quite plain that we should pay careful attention to our spiritual hunger and for our souls to be fed.

The day after Jesus had fed the 5000 the people sought Him once again, this is how Jesus addressed them in John 6 verses 30-35:

So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"

Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

How much of the riches of God’s food do we choose to digest? And what do we choose? Would we go to the supermarket and randomly place food in our trolley without any thought?

Is this how we read our Bibles? Do we open it, hoping for a quick snack that may satisfy our souls at that moment? Or do we consider the passages we select and sit down and chew them well and digest them slowly and thoughtfully, with the desire to be more fully satisfied?

This Christmas we found, more than ever before, time to consider Christ our Saviour and His coming to earth, probably due to less pressure on the big party event that Christmas has become with all its extravagant trimmings.

It has still been a busy time, but for more spiritual reasons, with more time to fill up on the bread of heaven.

It has certainly made us think, how could we do things better in the years to come?

We’re not sure we have totally found the answer, but we truly hope we do before next year.

May the coming year be one where we will all fill our trolley with the Bread of heaven.

In essence we are encouraging you to forget the diet and eat more than you have ever eaten before, to look to increase both in quality and quantity the intake of your food. But of course, the food we are encouraging you to devour in larger quantity is the living bread God has given us through His Son, Jesus Christ, and revealed in His word, the Bible, and applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

You may have a settled daily reading scheme and there are many good helps available but may we encourage you to read the Bible through in a year and/or to increase your intake of scripture through your daily reading.

We encourage you to look at the link below, which is a page on Ligonier Ministries website and they have well over ten different, free Bible reading plans for 2021. Or just type ‘Ligonier 2021 bible reading plans’ into a search engine to find them.

https://www.ligonier.org/blog/bible-reading-plans/

Matthew & Helen Jones

Monday 28th December 2020

Monday 21st December

Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Luke 2 v 19

Our daughter and her husband are very soon to have their first child – due just after New Year. There has been lots of excitement and planning going on for months. There was a baby shower party – online of course – and the young couple have prepared the nursery, bought the car seat, pram and all the other essentials. It is all very exciting, and daunting. At this time, Covid-19 has an impact on when we will be able to visit this new little family, but we must leave this in God’s hands.

Of course, as we approach Christmas, our minds go straight to another young couple who were expecting their first baby; Mary and Joseph. They too faced uncertain and difficult times. There was no pandemic, but they were compelled to travel a long distance for a census to be carried out just as the baby was due. There were no maternity hospitals and no midwives. There was not even a clean, sterile room available for the birth, and just a cattle trough to lay the new-born baby in. They were also under the rule of the brutal king Herod.

Mary and Joseph certainly experienced the most difficult induction to parenthood. Yet, as we read the story of the birth of Jesus – from Luke’s gospel chapters 1 and 2, and Matthew’s gospel chapters 1 and 2, we see how much they trusted God and how they experienced His presence with them and His promises to them.

When the angel appeared to Mary to tell her she was to give birth to Jesus, the Son of God, he reassured her and told her not to be afraid (Luke 1 v 30). Despite her initial and understandable unease, her response was quite amazing – 1 v 38 “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled”. Mary believed the angel’s words, that “no word from God will ever fail” (1 v.37).

As she shared the news with her cousin Elizabeth, she burst into a wonderful song of praise (1 v 46), which we know as the Magnificat.

All through this experience of pregnancy, giving birth to and bringing up Jesus, Mary and Joseph showed tremendous faith and trust that God would provide for them and look after them. They understood too that they were part of God’s amazing plan for the salvation of the world.

As the shepherds came to worship the baby Jesus, we read that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2 v 19).

As we face uncertain times and, without doubt, the most difficult Christmas this country has faced since the Second World War, let us follow the example of Mary. Let us hold on to God’s promises and believe that “no word from God will ever fail”.

We may not be able to celebrate Christmas with family and friends in the way we would want, but nothing can prevent us from treasuring the love, the promises, and the provision of God at this time. As we read the story of the birth of Jesus, let us do as Mary did; treasure and ponder these things in our hearts this Christmas time.

Martyn Orton

Monday 14th December 2020

I am sure many of you, like myself, are not the best at “waiting” for things to happen. Examples of this are: waiting in for a parcel, for an important phone call , in a queue or waiting for transport. We are also all very much waiting for this pandemic to be over and as a family we are waiting for our 2nd grandchild to arrive very soon!

Advent means “coming” in Latin and it is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for Christ coming into our world which we celebrate at Christmas. This was prophesied many years before the event, and this is just one example from Isaiah in the Old Testament.

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—

and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

Isaiah 11 v 1 - 3

Hindsight is a particularly useful thing, and the dictionary defines hindsight as “understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened or developed”.

We have the benefit of seeing the whole story of Jesus, God’s Son coming into our world as a baby, living a perfect life and dying and rising again to secure our salvation and eternal life. The events of the first Christmas must have been incredible, puzzling and at times dangerous for all those involved.

I love the verse:

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Luke 2 v 19

She was trying to comprehend and take in all that happened at Jesus’ birth and afterwards.

As we celebrate Christmas and the Incarnation, “That God became flesh, that God assumed a human nature and became a man in the form of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity. Christ was truly God and truly man”, we are filled with awe and praise and worship.

It also reminds us that we are still in “Advent”. Just as the birth of Jesus was prophesied about long before the event, so we are waiting for the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which Jesus himself told us would happen. This is from the last book of the Bible.

Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Revelation 22 v 12 and 13

2020 has been such a tough year for everyone and Christmas will be celebrated differently, but I pray that we will see afresh the wonder of God’s plan of forgiveness and salvation and wait patiently for Jesus to return as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Ali Orton

 Monday 7th December 2020

Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:11-13

A few Sundays ago, our brother Alan Jones shared with us and read from scripture in our online service. His words have really stuck with me over these weeks and have been a great encouragement and challenge to my approach and attitude to the world and its circumstances.

He said (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) “I am content with what the Lord has given me and do not worry about what he hasn't.”

Firstly, let's praise God for how blessed we are to have such a great variety of experience and wisdom in our church family. We can be so blessed by listening to each other and praying for and with one another. In some ways, saying this does make our current separation feel harder as we can't be together as we once were, or worship and pray together as we could before. But let's all make the effort to stay connected and to be encouraged by each other through phone calls, letters and even any visits that the restrictions we live with will allow. Pray with each other when we can and be a support for each other when we need it. What always helps me is when I hear of how God is working in the lives of those in the church.

This is what happened for me here when Alan spoke. He is giving God the glory for things; he is not getting worked up and angry about what he does not have; I am the first to stand up and say I am very guilty of this.

This week, let's all continue to praise the God, who has given us so much that we should be thankful for. We are safe, we are surrounded by a loving church family, we have a God who has given everything to enable us to have a right relationship with Him. As 2 Timothy says “Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant quarrels”, which currently it is so easy to fall into. Instead let us ask God to teach us the contentment that Paul shows in his letter to the Philippians.

Prayer

Father, thank you for the life we have. Help us to be content in what you have asked us to live with at this time and to use this time wisely to grow closer to you and work to grow your kingdom in any every circumstance.

Amen

Matt Tromans

Monday 30th November 2020

A ‘Conditional Offer’ are words that have entered our home a number of times recently. One in regard to a mortgage with certain conditions on deposits and the house being worth the loan value. The other was in regard to a place at a higher education college upon the condition that certain grades were reached to secure the place. One of my children has a lot of work to do, especially in her not so favourite subject, maths.

We all understand what love is, or do we? There was a sketch we used to do at the summer camp we served on for many years, where a number of the older campers would be taken from the marquee and everyone else would then know that on their return the only thing that would be said to them was “Say, who’d you love?”

One by one they would come in and be asked the question. For many there would be awkward silences, embarrassed giggles and maybe eventually a name of someone they liked would be mentioned, usually very, very quietly, but always to the cheers of the rest of the campers. The point of the sketch was that all they needed to do was say “who’d you love”, to be able to sit down without revealing their hearts. Call us cruel, but that was relatively tame compared to other things that went on. The point of why I’m telling you this is that we never ever had to explain to any young person what love was.

Linking the two thoughts together, and generalising very broadly, our human love can be conditional. The celebrities or sportspeople who do the heart symbol with their hands to their fans to say they love them, wouldn’t offer that to the social media trolls or the scathing journalists. The condition for their love is that they are adored, revered, liked, or to be a bit cynical, paid. Taking it a step further, there are the added problems that love becomes transactional, that is, ‘I will love you but want your love in return’ or ‘if you love me, I will love you in return’ and it can be lost, fickle and changeable. But it’s not just celebrities, the effect of sin on our human hearts has corrupted our ability and understanding of love. We do have to ask ourselves, does this conditional or transactional love exists in my relationship to the world, the community around me, the lost, my church family, my family, family and the Lord.

We crave love, seek it, long for it, idealise it and esteem it. Love is relational and even within the best and most loving of relationships exists the imperfection, sin and our limited minds cast on it. We all feel disappointment and pain when the things or people we love let us down, don’t meet our expectation or ultimately are lost to us.

1 John 4:8 ‘Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love’

The bible reveals God, not just as one who loves, but as one who ‘is love’. What is critically important and I have to stress this, is that we must never ever try and understand the love of God, through our own human understanding and experience of love.

Garry Williams in his book ‘His Love Endures Forever’ says, There is ‘...a marked difference between human and divine love. Divine love, God’s love, triune love, comes first. It, not human love, is the definition of love. It is not to be defined by other loves, such as marital love. It defines all other loves. This is important for understanding how the analogies in the Bible work. The Bible does not depict God’s relationship to His people as a marriage because God’s love is like human marital love. It is the other way round: the Bible depicts God’s love as a human marriage because human love is a reflection of God’s love. God’s love comes first and provides this definition.’

As 1 John 4:19 says ‘We love because he first loved us’

Jesus said of this divine love in his prayer in John 17:24 ‘Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.’

Garry Williams goes on to say of this perfect trinitarian love, ‘Here is an aspect of God’s perfection: that he is always loving in his own inner life. The Father eternally delights in his Son and His Spirit, the Son in his Father and Spirit, the Spirit in the Father and Son. This is who he always is. The trinitarian relations are untroubled, undisturbed, eternally constant and full, overflowing with love and delight.’

But this perfect unique divine eternal love, God does not keep to himself, but freely gives it to us as His children, to enable us to enter a loving relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit which is not defined by the limitation that sin has on our understanding and experience of love. It is defined by the unceasing generosity of God’s love given to us to enable to love as God loves, and perfection can never disappoint us. This is the meaning and message of the love of 1 Corinthians 13 as we consider the gifts God has given us to reveal his glory.

We access God’s love through the sacrificial love which drew Jesus to the cross.

Romans 5:6-8 ‘You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’

I hope our understanding of the ‘firstness’ of God’s love leads us more and more to approach God in awe and allow it to invade every part of our being and experience. Commenting on Psalm 144 Tim Keller says that we as human beings are ‘like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow. Life is nasty brutish and short. So why would God even notice us, let alone love us? That question can be asked in scepticism or awe. The sceptic asks why any force capable of generating this vast universe would have regard for tiny, short-lived beings on a speck of dust called earth?

Drawing us to Psalm 144:2 which says, ‘He is my loving God..’, Keller adds that we can approach God in awe and know, ‘There is no good reason for God to care about us. But amazingly He does. He doesn’t love us simply because we benefit Him in some way. How could we? He loves us simply because He loves us… .That’s why we praise Him.’

God’s love is wonderfully unconditional and non-transactional. He loves you because He loves you. It is who God is and His desire for each of us is to know the beauty and depth of His love for us.

There are some wonderful books on God’s love. Three I could mention that have blessed me and encourage you to invest in and read are:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

Loving the Way Jesus Loves by Philip Graham Ryken

His Love Endures Forever by Garry Williams

Pastor Matt Jones

Monday 23rd November 2020

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4 v 6 - 7

Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the United States and Canada every year at the end of November. It is a national holiday to celebrate the harvest and other blessings throughout the year. It is actually a more important day in the calendar than Christmas Day!

It might be easy to give thanks during a celebration when we are with friends and family, although not at the moment under our current restrictions, but not so easy when we are facing difficult times. And we are in those difficult times. As Christians, our celebration of the birth of our Saviour will be very different this year. Some of us may be dreading it, not knowing how the restrictions will change, whether we will be able to see family and friends. Not being able to join as a church family. All these uncertainties loom large.

Yet these verses in Philippians remind us that we can bring everything to God. He understands and is there to give us a peace like no other. Notice though, we need to “present our requests” with thanksgiving. Even on the most difficult of days, we have so much to say “Thank you” for. The smallest blessings can lift our spirits and make us grateful for all that we have. We have a good God, who is faithful and true. Let’s thank Him for all that He has done for us.

Prayer

Father God thank You for all You have given us and all that You do for us each day. Help us to be grateful from the bottom of our hearts. Amen.

Kay Cram

Monday 16th November 2020

The Reminder Bow

The Industry of Somerset is agriculture, and especially milk production. And that needs quite a bit of rain to spur the growth of grass! Sunshine, as well, of course, and why not both at once... like here! Spots of rain are still falling; the line of the Quantock hills is obscured by cloud and rainfall on the north of the valley, but the Bow is clear... a sight that never fails to lift our spirits.

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creature... between me and all life on the earth.

The rainbow... the “reminder-bow” comes many times in the Bible, both in the Genesis story (as above) and elsewhere as a symbol and a reminder. A reminder, first of all, of God's mercy, for it closes the solemn story of the Flood, and closes it with God's pledge -- “Never again!”

Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil

God's mercy is not because he sees signs of improvement in mankind... it is simply undeserved mercy. “Gospel-mercy” you might call it!

But it also looks to the future, a symbol of promise: read Genesis 8 v 22:

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease

This is a universe of order, an order underwritten by God's solemn vow, his “covenant” for ever... “as long as the earth endures”. That means that this world is not what Israel's neighbours thought it was, the prey of purely random forces, of competing gods and spirits who had somehow to be kept “on-side”. It is a world with a pattern to it, a world worthy of study and understanding, something, like its maker, reliable, “faithful”. And to believe that is to believe that this God will also be the same faithful God in his dealings with us, in his response to our needs, our prayers, our trust. So, in the Bible book that depicts the lowest point of Israel's experience, the writer of Lamentations 3: 19 --> says...

I remember my afflictions and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Amid the clouds, he has seen the rainbow!... “and therefore I have hope”. So when the Bible shows us a picture of God's glory, one element of the picture is often a rainbow. See the picture of God in Ezekiel chapter 1. When your head has stopped reeling from trying to envisage “wheels within wheels” etc, come to verse 28 and read...

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him

(Or try Revelation 4 v 2 for a less dizzying equivalent.)

Our God is “the God of the Rainbow”: he is merciful and he is faithful. And this rainbow will be seen even through the rain and cloud of adversity... if we will look for it.

David Makepeace

 Monday 9th November 2020

I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father.

John 15:15

John is the only one of the twelve who was at the cross.

He came to say goodbye.

By his own admission he hadn’t quite put the pieces together yet.

But that didn’t matter.

As far as he was concerned, his closest friend was in trouble and he came to help.

John’s actions teach us that the greatest webs of loyalty are spun, not with airtight theologies or fool proof philosophies, but with friendships: stubborn, selfless, joyful friendships.

In this prolonged climate of uncertainty, our neighbours need our friendship more than ever and in befriending our neighbours I pray that God would reveal himself in all his glory and that our friendships will develop, grow and last.

Monday 2nd November 2020

 Perspective!

Towards the end of a lovely walk recently we sat on a bench having a snack when I noticed the leaves of the tree nearest us. It was obviously a silver birch, but I was really confused by the black trunk. As we began to walk again I saw the tree from another perspective and realized that the trunk was a different tree, and the birch trunk was very close to it. It made me reflect on how often, more than we realise, we have our perspectives wrong. We don’t see all the evidence, we don’t get the whole picture.

If I can’t comprehend the intermingling of trees from less than half a metre, how can I begin to understand the mind of God in any given situation?

This is particularly so when we are going through difficult times, or we read about the Suffering Church, or those who are starving, or abused.

Some time ago I discovered The Methodist Prayer of Submission. It challenges me in two ways:

Firstly, why does God allow godly people to suffer so much while others who don’t give God a second thought seem to enjoy a relatively untroubled life? Certainly, the many Christians who suffer because of oppression, climate change and poverty are not experiencing the Prosperity Gospel!

The prayer challenges me in a second way. I attempt to pray it each Sunday (in some Methodist and Anglican churches it’s an annual prayer of recommitment). Before praying it, I have to ask God to help me mean every word; it’s a very hard prayer to pray and to live out.

I have to remember that just as I couldn’t identify a tree from close up because I hadn’t got the right perspective, I have to trust God as I pray. My perspective on life is wrong if I assume that because I’m following the Almighty Sovereign Omnipotent God, life will be a bed of roses! He is all loving and knows what is best for me.

The Methodist Covenant Prayer

I am no longer my own but yours.

Put me to what you will,

rank me with whom you will;

put me to doing,

put me to suffering;

let me be employed for you,

or laid aside for you,

exalted for you,

or brought low for you;

let me be full,

let me be empty,

let me have all things,

let me have nothing:

I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things

to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

you are mine and I am yours. So be it.

And the covenant now made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.'

Sheila Calder

Monday 26th October 2020

Endurance

So many words can be used for endurance, such as patience, strength, perseverance, tolerance and suffering.

Recently Gwen and I have been thinking about someone who chose to take the path of endurance. His name was Ernest Shackleton.

Just as the First War started in August 1914, Ernest Shackleton, with 27 companions, set sail in a ship which he had named “Endurance” from his family motto “By Endurance We Conquer”. He was aiming to cross Antarctica from sea to sea, via the South Pole. He knew it would be a feat of endurance. After some months the ship was a day away from reaching Antarctica, when it sailed into a dense ice pack and was trapped for the next 9 months. As the ice pack floated out to sea, it gradually crushed the ship to pieces. Shackleton and his men, towing 3 lifeboats, then walked on the ice for 6 months till they got to the edge. They sailed in their 3 lifeboats for 16 months until they reached uninhabited Elephant Island. 22 of the men stayed there whilst Shackleton and 5 others sailed for another 20 days and landed in South Georgia. They then hiked 20 miles over mountains and glaciers till they found a whaling community and received provisions and medical care. 4 times Shackleton attempted to return to Elephant Island to rescue the rest of his men and finally arrived in August 1916. Every single one of the 28 men landed back in Britain in October 1916.

We feel worn out just reading this! This was a case of people choosing to take the path of endurance. The reason was to achieve a planned goal. At other times, a situation calling for endurance is forced upon us. Gwen and I have been thinking of things we have endured.

I chose to follow God’s leading to go abroad to share my educational skills in places with more basic standards of living, with hotter climates and unfamiliar cultures. Each visit was only for a few weeks, but was nevertheless not easy. The goal was to serve God by encouraging and equipping those who taught children, both teachers and parents.

Gwen thought of things she did not choose. “Thinking back to childhood I endured things like food rationing and couldn’t have chocolate and sweets! Also living with the knowledge we might have to be evacuated at a moment’s notice, having to spend nights in a shelter in the garden. All these things required endurance and strength.”

God has a purpose in everything we have to endure. Let us look back on our lives to see what God purposed through our trials – maybe to help us strengthen our faith and grow spiritually, maybe to discipline us, maybe to change the direction of our lives, maybe to help and support others, maybe to prompt others to help us, maybe for His own purposes that we will never know.

We know that Jesus Christ chose to experience endurance all through His earthly life and especially in allowing Himself to be put to death on the Cross so that we could be reconciled to God and have life everlasting. We are so grateful for Christ’s love and sacrifice for us undeserving sinners.

At this present time we are all suffering from the Pandemic which has been forced upon us. We all need endurance and great strength. Like us, we are sure you turn to Bible verses and hymns at this difficult time.

Here are a few that we have thought of.

“I can do everything through Him (Christ) who gives me strength.”

Philippians 4. 13

“Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”

James 5. 10 and 11

“ Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Hebrews 12. 2 and 3

“Guide me oh Thou Great Redeemer

Pilgrim through this barren land.

I am weak but Thou art mighty,

Hold me by Thy powerful hand.”

“Thine for ever, Lord of life,

Shield us through our earthly strife,

Thou the Life, the Truth, the Way,

Guide us to the realms of day.”

“Be though my Guardian and my Guide,

And hear me when I call.

Let not my slippery footsteps slide

And hold me lest I fall.”

Maybe you would like to recall or find more verses from the Bible and hymns this week.

Prayer:

Dear Lord God, thank You for Your constant presence and for strength and for the power of Endurance. Help us to keep going and give us opportunities to encourage others.

Amen

Jane Caine and Gwen Herbert

Monday 19th October 2020

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

Ecclesiastes 1:2

This is a verse Matt likes to whip out when he’s being dramatic, said in jest. But at the time this was written, I imagine the writer of Ecclesiastes did feel like everything was meaningless as he suffered and faced trials.

I imagine we can all feel like this sometimes, like the world just keeps turning but nothing is happening; we’re not moving forward, we can feel dragged down by our own anxieties, worries and trials. Before we know it our burdens become too heavy and we are struggling to stand.

When it becomes too hard to stand... kneel.

God says...

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11: 28 - 30

We can become angry at the world, the people around us, our situations. Why this, why that? Things we cannot change, things that are out of our control. Feeling frustrated and wondering, what is the point?!

The bible says...

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

James 1:19-20

Maybe we are overwhelmed with sadness at this world, at the situations around us...

God says...

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isiah 41:10

The truth is everything is meaningless... without God.

Without God there is no hope, no eternal peace or joy.

But the great news is that God is here, waiting with open arms. Ready to bring you close to Him to say, “I have you my child”. He sees the bigger picture; He is in control.

Our role on this earth, our purpose, is not to try and control things, fix things, judge... those are God’s jobs. We are here to bring glory to Him.

Everything comes from God alone, everything lives by His power, and everything is for His glory.

Romans 11:36

What a purpose to have! What a joy that we can live our lives bringing glory to the Creator and perfecter of our faith.

He delights in us, He loves us. All the glory belongs to him.

God made You because He wanted to. He wanted you to exist. You have a meaning and a purpose.

There will be days where it is hard to see this. It will be hard when you feel worried, angry, sad and you can’t seem to do anything to fix it. But God hears you. He will never leave you or forsake you. Bring it to God and rest in His presence.

Jess Tromans

Monday 12th October 2020

HANDS, FACE, SPACE

I’m sure you can’t have missed this slogan on billboards and all over the media. It is the government’s message to help us all stay safe from coronavirus, advising us to wash our hands regularly, to cover our faces and to keep a safe distance from others.

Whilst this is all good advice, it reinforces the message that we are surrounded by a deadly virus and under threat. It’s not the warmest and most encouraging message is it?

In ‘normal’ times, we would be shaking hands and hugging others. Our faces would not be covered and unable to show a smile. Currently, we dare not get close to others. All of this goes against our nature for social interaction.

Having thought about this I have decided to use the slogan in a more positive way this week.

Hands

Think about Jesus’ hands.

As a carpenter, Joseph no doubt taught Jesus how to make things out of wood. Jesus’ hands became skilled in the workshop and He would inevitably have encountered knocks and splinters. Jesus knew the reality of hard work.

Jesus’ hands reached out to heal the blind, the leper, the lame and the demon possessed. He healed and blessed people with His hands. Jesus showed how much He cared with His hands.

On the cross, Jesus’ hands were pierced with nails and stretched out wide: the ultimate demonstration of His love for us.

His hands were pierced,

The hands that made

The mountain range and everglade;

That washed the stains of sin away

And changed earth's darkness into day.

(Douglas Wood)

And still today, the hands of Jesus are outstretched to reach out to all who would receive Him.

As we are urged to wash our hands regularly, I am reminded of these verses from Psalm 24:

Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD?

Who may stand in his holy place?

The one who has clean hands and a pure heart,

who does not trust in an idol

or swear by a false god.

Hands represent actions. As we are reminded to wash our hands, let us remember that our actions are so important in glorifying God.

Face

Think about Jesus’ face.

We do not know what Jesus’ face looked like, but I imagine Him having a kind and loving face. People were drawn to Him – crowds, individuals, children. S D Gordon writes, “The glory of God was in the face of Jesus as He walked quietly among men. Looking into that face men saw God. That simple, gentle, patient, pure face, with its deep peace and victory and yet its yearning -- that was God looking out into men's faces.”

Jesus looked over Jerusalem and wept. He looked at the crowds and had compassion on them. He loved His disciples – His love shone through in His face.

When I think of the face of Jesus, these prophetic verses from Isaiah 50 come to mind:

I offered my back to those who beat me,

my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;

I did not hide my face

from mocking and spitting.

Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,

I will not be disgraced.

Therefore have I set my face like flint,

and I know I will not be put to shame.

It was not just the hands of Jesus that suffered on the cross. It was His face too. Yet, He “set His face like flint” - with total determination - towards the cross. Why? Because He loved us so much, He came to die in our place.

For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12 v 2.

Space

One of the hardest aspects about this time of pandemic is the lack of physical contact: a hug, a hand on the shoulder, a kiss. The wonderful thing for us is that we can be just as close to Jesus now as we ever have been; perhaps even closer.

Come near to God and He will come near to you.

James 4 v 8

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings.

Hebrews 10 v 22

What a joy and privilege we have in being able to draw near to God. No need to be socially distanced from Him! No two-metre rule! And as we do, He promises to draw near to us. If we’re feeling the pain of isolation from others, let us practise the reality of these verses and know the nearness and touch of the Lord Jesus on our lives; even - especially - in the midst of a pandemic.

Next time we see the ‘HANDS, FACE, SPACE’ poster, let us use it as an encouragement as we think of the hands and face of Jesus, and His nearness to us at all times.

Martyn Orton

Monday 5th October 2020

Harvest

As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for Harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.

Genesis 8 v 22

Autumn has always been my favourite season. I love the colours of the trees as they change, collecting seeds from my garden ready for next year, raking up the leaves and preparing to hunker down for winter.

Autumn also brings the harvest, another of my favourite events. As a child, I remember my Nan making a harvest loaf each year for the celebration at her chapel in Coseley. It was an amazing creation of a wheatsheaf and always looked too good to eat. People brought fresh produce that they had grown themselves, which was then either sold or distributed to those who needed it most.

Over the years, harvest celebrations have changed somewhat. Gone are the fruits, vegetables and other fresh foods. These have been replaced by tins and packets, jars and boxes. The need is still there but perishable goods are no longer in demand. As a church, we have supported both Birmingham City Mission and Black Country Food Bank with our donations.

However, God’s goodness and mercy, His daily provision for us hasn’t changed. He is a faithful God and will never let us down, even on the most difficult and challenging of days. Even when this pandemic feels too big for us to cope with, He is bigger, greater, stronger!

The other thing which hasn’t changed is the harvest in the world. There are people who still need to know the Saviour for themselves.

In Galatians it reminds us, “Let us not become weary of doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.”

It’s not so easy to have conversations anymore, but just as He is faithful, we need to be faithful in sharing His love with others, by whatever means we can.

Kay Cram

Monday 28th September 2020

Peace

Peace can be a feeling of quietness, tranquillity, calmness and stillness.

It means different things to each one of us. Sometimes when we haven't got peace we want it and vice versa. We can find peace in many and sometimes unusual ways. I get peace from looking at cloud formation and seeing the clouds drifting by. I get peace from sitting and listening to music. I also get peace and tranquillity when I walk into churches and cathedrals in villages, towns and cities around the country.

God is peace.

As we all know God is love. God is also peace.

“For God is not a God of disorder but of peace” 1 Corinthians 14 v 33

“The Lord of peace Himself” 2 Thessalonians 3 v 16a

It is God’s nature. To know more about what God’s peace is like, we can spend time thinking of how He reacted to the situations we read about in the Bible.

Peace is a gift from God.

When we give up our selfish lives and surrender to God, we receive His peace.

“Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Romans 5 v 1

We need to continue to desire God’s peace in our daily lives. An Anglican Church blessing says,

“May the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge of the love of God and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Many hymns have been written about receiving God’s peace, e.g.

“Lord give us we pray, your peace in our hearts Lord

At the end of the day.”

“Peace perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?

The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.”

We need to work at having God’s peace

In one hymn we are reminded that we may miss out on God’s gift of peace for ourselves.

“Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer.”

I am sure we all want world peace. And we need to pray for it. But we must remember that the world is not only other countries. It is the UK, it is England, it is the West Midlands, It is our town, it is our road, and it is the people we come into contact with. The Bible says,

“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy” Hebrews 12 v 14.

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God” Matthew 5 v 5.

In our house groups we are studying the Letter of James. Chapter 3 v 18 says “Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” To achieve this, James says that God wants us to ask for his wisdom (1:5) and he tells us that God’s wisdom is “pure, then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (3:17) To really think and pray through what this involves for each of us personally needs a lot of time.

In the study guide by Max Lucado, he gives the example of Henry Kissinger who is a Jew and grew up in Bavaria in the 1930s under Nazi rule. Many Hitler youth roamed the streets looking for trouble. Henry usually tried to keep out of their way. One day, aged 11, Henry found himself face to face with a bully and he knew he would get a beating. Instead of running away, he stood his ground and spoke to the lad and convinced him that he should leave him alone. He was a peacemaker. Soon after that Henry moved with his family to America. Eventually he became Secretary of State and successfully negotiated many peace deals with foreign powers. He was given the Nobel Peace prize.

We too are called to be peacemakers, even in small ways as Henry was as a child, by quietly acting to stop situations escalating into hostility. Then we will be better prepared when more serious situations arise.

Prayer

God of peace, we ask that You will teach us to be at peace with ourselves and in our circumstances. Give us Your wisdom so that we may always be ready to be peacemakers for You.

Amen

Gwen Herbert and Jane Caine

Monday 21st September 2020

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked...

But his delight is in the law of the Lord...

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season...

Psalm 1 excerpts.

Say the word "Beatitude" and our mind goes automatically to the words of Jesus recorded by Matthew and Luke. But there is a history that goes back further still, for you'll find a good number of beatitudes in the Psalms. In olden days, when I was young, one or two youth groups around "Brum" used "Psalm Praise", which set this Psalm to a melody which I recall as being distinctly doleful! Rather a pity, since the first word can best be translated "Happy!". And one should add, not just happy in the sense of feeling happy, but in the sense of really having something to be happy about! It's the exclamation the Queen of Sheba uses when she meets King Solomon. She's said to be "overwhelmed" (1 Kings 10:5): she cries out, "How happy your men must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!" (verse 8 in the same chapter)

Now, who's this person with real reason to be joyful? The one who's made a choice, who's chosen his/her Shepherd (to use the picture of Psalm 23). This means a rejection of just "going with the crowd" as verse 1 describes: instead the choice is made of going by God's guidance, His instruction. You might say this is the Old Testament equivalent of Romans 12:2... "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Like all good beatitudes, the Psalm then answers a second question: "Why is this person "blessed, fortunate, happy"? Why are they to be congratulated? Because what they are has consequences... good ones!

1) God's guidance is something to be enjoyed, appreciated... "his delight is in the law of the Lord". The writer of Psalm 119 ( a nice brief read!) says things like this: verse 29, "be gracious to me through your law"; verse 45, "I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts"; verse 68,"You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees". Not the mental image we have of the Law of Moses, but maybe we need a spot of revision!

2) God's instruction brings lasting stability, because it links us to a constant source of life: see the picture of verse 3 and the contrasting picture of verse 4 -- tumbleweed! By the way, the Psalmist doesn't mean by the last word of verse 3 that everything goes just as the godly man wants it to... he's not into the "prosperity gospel". Rather, he sees prosperity in the longer view... God's view.

3) And he has two pictures of that... the man who lives life by God's ways is "right with God" so "he stands in the judgment". More reassuring still..."the Lord watches over the way of the righteous"... the constant care of a gracious Heavenly Father!

Happy indeed is that man! Thank you, Lord!

David Makepeace

14th September 2020

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

1 Corinthians 10 v 11 - 13

Each day at the moment, we wonder what the next day will bring us. Will we have new restrictions to follow? Where can and can’t I go to see those who I love?

We all experience our good days that are easy to take and the bad ones that test us and leave us at the end of the day feeling drained and wondering how much more of this we can take.

Well let’s take encouragement this week that we do not face our trials and our joys alone, but we face them alongside a God who loves us dearly.

There's been a phrase on my I mind over the last month or so that is, “God will not give us more than we can handle”. Have you ever heard that before? Over the years I've heard many people say it and it has given me great comfort. However, it’s not a verse lifted directly out of scripture and that's where the verses from 1 Corinthians 10 come in.

The phrase that ‘He will not give us more than we can handle’ is only half true in the light of Paul’s letter.

Let me put it this way.

God will not give us more than we can handle if we trust Him to guide us and lead us through it.

Friends, this week, whatever you face, good or bad, remember that if we allow the word of God to guard our hearts and minds (Philippians 4), if we talk to Him in prayer and then listen to His Spirit for our guidance, there is nothing too big or too small that, by His goodness and grace, He will not bring us through it and enable us to have a closer relationship with Him!

Trust in our Saviour this week to be our guide and see how He will work within our lives.

Matt Tromans

Monday 7th September 2020

Think!

In recent years there has been a lot of talk about Fake News. Rarely is it harmless, and mostly it is dangerous, destructive, unkind and of course, untrue.

The extent of it is world-wide, a negative side of the benefits of technology.

Although it is now so insidious, penetrating every community and often leading to character defamation, fraud, and even likely to have influenced change of democratically elected governments, it is not new.

Some less known, because of the limits of communication, are untrue reports dating back centuries when truth has been sacrificed to one person’s advantage at the crushing expense of another, from Pilate’s Praetorium to Palaeontology. (1)

Hopefully we are not in the habit of deliberately putting someone down in order to advance our own status, yet I certainly have to be careful in what I say: an unkind, unhelpful, thoughtless comment may slip out, to my shame.

I found the acrostic, THINK, adapted by J. John (2) very helpful. I try to remember it before that little, destructive part of me, the tongue, gets into gear.

I hope you might find it helpful too.

Before speaking, THINK, is it:

TRUE?

HELPFUL?

INSPIRING?

NECESSARY?

KIND?

“What is Truth?” “The Truth shall make you free” “Speak the Truth in love”

1 See for instance, Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and Deborah Cadbury’s The Seven Wonders of The Industrial Revolution.

2 Used with permission.

Sheila Calder

Monday 31st August 2020

Psalm 16 v 8

I know the Lord is always with me, I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.

Pastor Matt shared this scripture with Martin and myself just before Martin left on his first trip to India and since then it has become one of my favourite verses of scripture as it has been a real source of hope and comfort through many situations over the years.

We are told clearly in God’s Word, as the end times come there will be a time of persecution and trials - Luke 21 v 16

‘Even those closest to you, your parents, brothers, relatives and friends will betray you’

So we have to expect that living as a Christian will not be easy... are we experiencing some of this now?... with us unable to meet together as a church, plus I’m sure we all have our own trials to deal with, maybe not physical persecution, but our own battles or trials to contend with however seemingly big or small, that can shake our world.

But whatever may be done or said against us or our family and friends, we can continue to praise God and stand firm because we have these promises from God...

James 1 v 2 to 4 and 12

Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.so let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong, in character and ready for anything... God blesses the people who patiently endure testing. Afterwards they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

Jeremiah 29 v 11

For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, they are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray I will listen.

With God on our side we cannot and will not be shaken.

Prayer

Thank you Father God that you care for us and will watch over us and will help us to stand firm against the evil one.

Amen

Sharon Tromans

Monday 24th August 2020

Live With Confidence, Not Condemnation

Romans 8 is a favourite chapter for many of us, yet over the past week or so I have been captured afresh by its truths and assurances.

It begins confidently: “There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” What a glorious declaration of the fact that, as followers of Jesus, we have no need to fear God’s condemnation – nor do we need to condemn ourselves when we struggle and stumble.

Perhaps, you’ve been struggling recently or feel that you’ve been stumbling along from one day to the next. If that’s not the case, that’s great, but we all know are times when that’s just how we feel. Well the good news is that God doesn’t condemn us, nor should we condemn ourselves.

It reassures me to know that the victories of Romans 8 come straight after the battles of Romans 7, which are encapsulated best in verses 24 and 25: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

I think that’s what I love most about Romans 8; that its confidence and its triumphal spirit is born out of struggle followed by the realisation that Christ has defeated all that we struggle with, so we don’t have to defeat anything ourselves.

In the coming week, walk with your head high. Not because you’ve got everything sorted, but because you are “in Christ Jesus” and he’s sorted it all for you.

Let’s pray:

Lord Jesus, thank you, that You bore all my guilt and condemnation on the cross. Thank you, that though I still struggle and stumble at times, I have the victory in You. Help me to live in the reality of Your imputed righteousness and Your indescribable love.

Amen

For the week ahead:

As this is now a Weekly Motivation, I recommend the whole of Romans 8 for your contemplation in the week ahead. If you’d like to do this, see below, where I’ve broken it down for you, so that you can focus on a few verses per day for the next seven days. I suggest the following routine each day:

• pray for the Holy Spirit to speak to you through the living words of scripture;

• read the short passage slowly and reflectively (perhaps twice);

• then pray through its truth, giving thanks and asking for the Spirit’s help to have complete faith in these truths and live them out;

• if it helps, take a few minutes to write down your thoughts and reflections – perhaps you could copy out a verse that has spoken to you, so you can remind yourself of it later in the day, or week;

• now, spend some time in prayer for yourself and others, for specific situations, for the future of the church, and so on.

Day 1

Give thanks that Jesus has set us free from sin and death and condemnation, so that we can live by the Spirit: v 1-4.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Day 2

Be assured that we no longer continue to live according to the mind and efforts of the flesh – instead the mind set on the Spirit is full of life and peace: v 5-8.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Day 3

We can be live confident lives because we have God’s Holy Spirit living in us and working through us: v 9-11.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Day 4

We are not slaves of the flesh who fall back into fear, but children and heirs of God who look forward with hope: v 12-17.

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Day 5

Though we live in a fallen world, we are filled with the hope of freedom and future glory: v 18-25.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Day 6

When we feel weak, we are supported and strengthened and sustained by the Spirit: v 26-30.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Day 7

We cannot be condemned, nor separated from God; we are more than conquerors through God's eternal love in Christ: v 31-39.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Martin Yates

Monday 17th August 2020

Isaiah 35 verses 1 - 4

The desert will rejoice, and flowers will bloom in the wastelands. The desert will sing and shout for joy; it will be as beautiful as the Lebanon Mountains and as fertile as the fields of Carmel and Sharon. Everyone will see the Lord's splendour, see his greatness and power. Give strength to hands that are tired and to knees that tremble with weakness. Tell everyone who is discouraged, “Be strong and don't be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.”

This week signifies 23 weeks of home working for us. It has brought many challenges including sharing an office for a while, coping with power cuts and no water supply! I’m sure that staying at home has brought many difficulties and times of stress for all of us. We will all have experienced many days that have exhausted us and maybe even brought us to our knees.

One way that we have both dealt with difficult days is by spending time in our very small garden. If you’ve never seen it, it is small, a legacy of the days when we didn’t “garden” so bought a house with a small garden! However, as this pandemic has continued, lockdown tightened, loosened and tightened again, the importance of outdoor space, creation, have been mentioned time and time over. How these places can bring, hope, restoration, peace and respite.

The people of Israel were given fresh hope by the words of the prophet Isaiah and his vision for their restoration after difficult times. How the land will rejoice, will blossom, rejoice greatly and shout for joy! We too can know His restorative power through marvelling at creation in all its forms. From the blistering heat, incredible storms, gentle rainfall, beautiful plants, flowers and trees. God can offer strength to tired hands and weak knees (verse 3), He encourages us to “Be strong” (verse 4)

Let’s ask God to help us find something new and uplifting in His creation this week.

Prayer

Dear God, thank you for the splendour of your Creation, pointing me to your glory and reviving my hope in you.

Amen

Kay Cram

 Monday 10th August 2020

Psalm 67

(For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A Psalm. A song)

It has felt very strange that for several months we have not been able to sing together and use stringed instruments in worship in our Church building. It has been wonderful to have our musicians and vocalists leading us in many reflective and encouraging songs for our “virtual” services … thank you!

This Psalm has 7 verses which I hope will bless and encourage us all each day this week.

Verse 1

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face shine on us –

This verse reminds us of the blessing found in Numbers 6 v 24 – 26

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.

I know that many people have been touched and encouraged by the different musical versions of “The blessing” and this Bible verse is also on the poster outside our Church building. Even though we are not there, we pray that the words will help those who walk past and read it.

Verse 2

so that your ways may be known on earth,

your salvation among all nations.

This verse asks for the Lord to be gracious to us so that everyone will know that He is God, that He is compassionate on all He has made, and He has provided us a way of salvation through Jesus Christ. Today we need to keep praying for our world so that people will acknowledge and know God.

Verse 3

May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you.

What is praise? “If you praise God, you express your respect, honour, and thanks to God” (Collins Dictionary).

We have so many reasons to praise God. Perhaps we can think of things about God’s character and His actions in our lives and especially His gift of Jesus that compel us to praise and honour Him today. As one of the songs we love to sing says:

You're rich in love and You're slow to anger

Your name is great and Your heart is kind

For all Your goodness I will keep on singing

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

(‘Bless the Lord O my Soul’ by Matt Redman)

Verse 4

May the nations be glad and sing for joy,

for you rule the peoples with equity

and guide the nations of the earth.

This reminds us that even though the world seems very confusing and unsettled , the Lord rules and guides the nations. We can be glad that He is in control and even though we do not know what will happen next, He is just and will do what is right. As we used to sing at school and Sunday school, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”

Verse 5

May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you.

A repeat of verse 3 probably like a chorus or refrain that we have in songs. Or it could be we need reminding again that all people of all nations should praise and honour God. This is like a foretaste of the words in the book of Revelation about Heaven

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Chapter 7 v 9 - 10

Verse 6

The land yields its harvest;

God, our God, blesses us.

Many people have expressed how much more aware of God’s creation they have been over the last few months during the pandemic, especially as we have had to use our outdoor spaces and go for exercise outside. This verse talks about how God provides and blesses us with food, and this has been so true for us and again our hearts should be thankful. This Psalm also keeps reminding us that we are “all peoples together” and we should still look for ways to help and support those around us.

Verse 7

May God bless us still,

so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.

The last verse of Psalm 67 suggests that God’s blessing is ongoing and He wants everyone to recognise His goodness and faithfulness. May God keep us safe and united as a church family and also as part of the wider Church in this country and throughout the world, recognising God’s hand on our lives and in our world.

Prayer

Lord God , we praise your holy name and we thank you that you bless us every day. Please help us to honour You and trust You even when times are difficult and uncertain. May our lives encourage others to praise You too. Thank you for Your presence with us always.

Amen

Ali Orton