Fri, Mar 24th - 3:14PM

Ramblings in Prayer

There are so many prayers in scriptures, I find it sometimes difficult to pick out my favourite.  Paul puts some wonderful thoughts on paper & seems to remember everyone. Mary's Magnificat from Luke's first chapter is a wonderful response to her being "With Child"  Bearing our Lord Jesus. The prayer of Jesus for his Disciples in John 17, WOW the complete intercession from a Son to His Father.  The prayers offered are an example to us all, my words seem so insignificant after reading some of these. Yet one of the most meaningful & one of the most frightening must surely be the prayer of Jesus whilst in the garden of Gesthemane.

Here our Lord literally poured out his innermost feelings to God his Father.  If there is another way, "Father if you are willing, take this cup from me";     Here is our Lord in anguish, so tense was his whole being that his sweat dropped liked great drops of blood.  So intense that an Angel arrived to minister to him & strengthen his resolve.  He was in agony, why, it could not have been death, but it could only be the nature of that death. Death where God would forsake him, when he took on the sin of the world, God could not look at him at that moment. So Jesus would be alone, not afraid of death itself, but because he would be ALONE. Without God for the time of his death. On that AWEful cross. O the agony he must have suffered for me. Yet through all this his thoughts were not of himself, but totally centered on God's will. "Yet not my will but yours be done".

In complete & total obedience to the Father.  In Anguish & agony, that is how our Saviour went about His Father's business. Remember in the Temple when he was a boy, lost from his parents, he said "Why do you look for me, you know I must be about my Father's business".

That my fellow believers is the perfect example to each one of us, how & when comes to mind, but I believe that when we meet God  with that attitude, we can move mountains, we can do all the things God wants us to do, in his power.  That I believe what Paul's prayer is all about from Ephesians chapter 1 verse 16.  That out of His glorious riches......that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God. verse 19.

That my friend's is AWESOME

Love in His Name  Stuart

Thu, Mar 9th - 3:06AM

Ramblin's about Lent

Here we are into Lent now & it seems as though our run up to Easter is going well, or is it? So what is Lent?  My dictionary of the Christian Church describes it as the 40 day period of fasting before Easter. Now it is reduced to fasting on Ash Wednesday & Good Friday itself.    In the first three centuries it was only a time of three days, expanded to forty days from AD 325. We in Britain traditionally give up something, which represents fasting.

I was reading from Luke 18: 9ff entitled "The Pharisee & the tax collector" Jesus told the parable of two men who went up to the Temple to pray, The pharisee stood up & prayed about himself, "God I thank you that I am not like other men- robbers, evildoers & adulterers, or even like this tax collector, I fast twice a week & give a tenth of all I get.

The tax collector stood up, we are told at a distance, probably at the back. He would not look up, but kept his head bowed. Beating his breast, he said "God have mercy on me, I am a sinner"

As I contemplate this passage I begin to realise that I may be more of the former than the latter! So where does that leave me?

I tell you the truth, on my knees telling God that I am a man of unclean lips, and I ask for mercy, in this period of self awareness before God, I find myself coming short of the mark. This in turn forces me to seek God & ask him to enable me to walk humbly & receive mercy.

When Easter Friday arrives I sincerely hope that I will be totally right with God through the works of Christ, that I might boast only about Him who saves, about him who made that awesome sacrifice for the sin of the world.

In this world that wishes to remove the cross from buns, in case it offends, where a Church has been charged a sum of money for (Planning Permission)  for placing a cross in its grounds, as this action constitutes advertising!!  Where will it all end?

Be encouraged my friends, the scriptures tell me that although Friday is here, Sunday is a'coming.

Then we will meet our glorious Saviour, what a day that will be. "The day of The Lord"  So as Paul writes "In the time of my favour I heard you, in the day of Salvation I helped you".

  "Now is the time of God's favour, now is the day of Salvation.  2 Cor. 6:2.

What is our response to this challenge?

Is Not Our God Awesome

Love in His Name   Stuart