Story

Nicky Gumbel suggests there are many doubts people have in this whole area of being filled with the Spirit, the principal one being: ‘If I ask will I receive?’ Jesus simply says (Matthew 7:7-8): ‘I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you.’ Jesus must have seen that they were a little sceptical because he repeats it in a different way: ‘Seek and you will find.’ And again he says a third time: ‘Knock and the door will be opened to you.’ He knows human nature and so he goes on a fourth time: ‘For everyone who asks receives.’ They are not convinced so he says a fifth time: ‘He who seeks finds.’ Again a sixth time: ‘To him who knocks, the door will be opened.’ Why does Jesus say it six times? Because He knows what we are like. We find it difficult to believe God would give us anything – let alone something as unusual and wonderful as his Holy Spirit and the gifts that come with the Spirit.

Nicky Gumbel, Alpha Questions of Life, 2007 edition, Eastbourne: Kingsway Communications, p.154.

Imagine your place of influence is like a bathtub full of water. A strange analogy, I know, but bear with me. Now imagine taking a syringe or an eyedropper full of blue ink and adding one droplet of ink to the bathtub of water every day. At first the blue ink will have almost no effect; it will simply disperse quickly and be absorbed by the abundance of water. Over a prolonged period of time, however, and with each additional drop of ink, the water will take on a slight hue or tinge of blueness. Slowly but surely over time the water will turn light blue in colour, then a darker blue and then darker still until eventually the entire bathtub of water will become the same colour as the ink that you are putting into it. Such is the power of the “drip factor.” Similarly, tiny droplets of water over time can bore through solid rock, and your influence as a leader has much the same effect (be it a positive or negative). If you, as a leader, maintain an upbeat, positive and enthusiastic attitude, day in day out, this will become highly contagious to the people around you because, as the saying goes, “a rising tide lifts all ships.”

R. Ian Seymour

Mark Batterson relates how on a January morning in 2007, a world-class violinist played six of Johann Sebastian Bach’s most stirring concertos for the solo violin, on a three-hundred-year-old Stadivarius worth $3.5 million. Two nights before, Joshua Bell had performed a sold out concert where patrons gladly paid $200 for nosebleed seats, but this time the performance was free.

Bell ditched his tux and coat tails, donned a Washington Nationals baseball cap, and played incognito outside the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station [as an experiment]. The experiment was originally conceived by the Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten and filmed by hidden cameras. Of the 1,097 people who passed by, only seven stopped to listen. The forty-five minute performance ended without applause or acknowledgement. Joshua Bell netted $32.17 in tips, which included a $20 spot from one person who recognised the Grammy Award winning musician.

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the greatest musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, on one of the most beautiful instruments ever made, how many similarly sublime moments do we miss out on during a normal day?

Source: Mark Batterson, 2014, The Grave Robber, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, p.15-16

(Shorter version): A wealthy businessman was upset to find a fisherman sitting beside his boat. ‘Why aren’t you out fishing?’ he asked. ‘Because I’ve caught enough for today,’ replied the fisherman. ‘Why don’t you catch more fish than you need?’ the businessman asked. ‘What would I do with them?’ replied the fisherman. The businessman said, ‘You could earn more money, buy a bigger boat, catch even bigger fish and make more money. Soon you’d have a whole fleet of boats and be rich like me.’ The fisherman said, Then what would I do?’ The businessman replied, ‘You could sit back and enjoy life.’ The fisherman said, ‘What do you think I am doing right now?’

I once heard the story of an international shoe manufacturing company, who had ambitions to expand into new markets. The abolition of apartheid in South Africa, during the early 1990’s, presented new opportunities so they decided to test the market. Initially, the company sent their most experienced sales person, samples in hand, to test the market place and sell what he could. Shortly after arriving in one of the townships, the experienced salesman sent a telegram back to his home office saying, “No one here wears shoes. STOP. Market non-existent. STOP. Returning home a.s.a.p.” Now, although the company had great expectations the fact is, a market has to exist before you can supply it.

The company didn’t give up, however, and a couple of months later they tried again. This time though, instead of sending an experienced salesman, they sent a novice salesman, who lacked experience but more than made up for it with enthusiasm! The same thing happened and shortly after arriving, the head office received another telegram. As before, this one said, “No one here wears shoes. STOP. Market completely untouched. STOP. Send me everything you’ve got a.s.a.p.!” Enthusiasm always outsells experience every time!

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, adapted from Maximize Your Potential

Every lifeguard knows you can’t save people as long as they are trying to save themselves. If somebody is drowning and flailing around in panic, a lifeguard knows to just stay back for a few seconds and wait until that person gives up. Because if you try to save others while they’re trying to save themselves, they will pull you under, too. When they finally give up, they relax; you put your arm around them and just swim back to shore. It’s really quite easy. God wants to save you. Jesus Christ wants to save you from your hurts, your habits, and your hang-ups. He wants to save you for his purpose and by his grace. But you’ve got to quit trying to do it yourself. You’ve got to relax. You need to let go and let God be God.

Rick Warren

Rick Warren quote taken from a daily reading plan from YouVersion Bible app.

Jesus was himself a guest at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. And it was here – when they ran out of wine – Jesus performed his first miracle and changed six jars of ordinary looking water, used for ceremonial washing, into the best choice wine! In this miracle Jesus provided what was lacking; He brought fullness where there had been emptiness, joy where there had been disappointment and something internal (wine for consumption) from that which had been external (washing up water). In other words, the substance; the make-up; the dynamic changed: What was once water became the best wine they had ever drunk! And what made the difference? Jesus did. It’s the same with a marriage: it’s been well said that ‘wise are the couple who invite Jesus to their wedding, and into their marriage.’

Years after her harrowing experience in a Nazi concentration camp, Corrie ten Boom was speaking in a church when she found herself standing face-to-face with a man who had been one of the cruellest guards she had ever met in the camps. This man had humiliated and degraded both her and her sister, jeering at them and visually ‘raping’ them as they stood in the delousing shower. Now he stood before her with an outstretched hand, asking, ‘Will you forgive me?’ Corrie said, ‘I stood there with coldness clutching at my heart, but I knew that the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. I prayed, “Jesus, help me!” Woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me, and when I did I experienced an incredible thing. The current started in my shoulder, raced down into my arm, and sprang into our clutched hands. Then this warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. “I forgive you, brother,” I cried with my whole heart. For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I have never known the love of God as intensely as I did in that moment.’

The Bible says, ‘be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you’’ (Ephesians 4:32 NKJV). Who are you struggling to forgive today? Rise above your feelings and do it! When you do, you will set yourself free and be able to walk in the peace and joy of the Lord.

Source: The UCB Word For Today, 14/6/2017)

Vaughan Roberts recounts the following story: ‘A few days before Christmas in 1991, nineteen-year-old Robin Farmer had just returned to Northern Ireland after his first term at university in Scotland. He was working in the family shop in County Tyrone when a terrorist gunman burst in and aimed a gun at his father, who was a police reservist. Robin instinctively dived in front of his father and was hit instead, dying shortly afterwards. That courageous sacrifice reflects something of what Jesus did for us. As Robin’s father can say, ‘My son died for me’, so we can say ‘God’s son died for us’. That’s why he had to come to earth. There was no other way by which we could be right with God and have our sins forgiven. Christmas is essential: it really matters!’

Source: Vaughan Roberts booklet, Christmas In Three Words

Do you remember the old movie, “Back to the Future,” directed by Steven Spielberg? The ‘back to the future’ idea is a great starting point for discovering your purpose and discerning the direction in which you should now travel. Go back in time, to when you were a child and you will uncover clues that will point you in the right direction for the future.

As a child, what were your favourite subjects at school? What did you love to do, where did you achieve the best results and the most recognition?
What were your hobbies, interests and past-times as a child? What are they now? What do you really enjoy doing? What is it that gives you a buzz? What is it that you’re good at and that enjoy doing so much that you’d gladly do it for free, if you had to do?
How could this ‘talent’ or skill be of service or value or use to others? How could you supply a need or create a desire for what it is you are good at?
Now ask yourself this question: What would you do with your life, if you had an absolute copper-bottom guarantee that you couldn’t fail? If there were no restrictions whatsoever and there were no obstacles such as money or time, if you absolutely knew that you couldn’t fail, what would you attempt to do? When you have answered this question, figure out exactly what you would have to do and what obstacles you would have to overcome in order to achieve this goal. Now you have direction; a purpose, a mission.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt from Discover Your True Potential, Louisiana USA, Pelican Publishing, p.27-28

Bill Johnson shares the following insight to explain how and why he believes the watered-down doctrine of healing has become prevalent in the west.

He tells how a number of years ago, he heard a pastor talk about a building project he once had for his church. The pastor related how much he wanted to help the contractor in the building process. He was obviously excited for the new project, but because he had no building skills, it wasn’t easy to find a place for him to fit in. He was persistent in asking if there was any work he could do. His enthusiasm over the building project finally persuaded the contractor to find him something to do. The contractor told him he needed one hundred two-by-fours cut to eight feet in length for the next morning. The pastor was excited he got to be involved in his own church project. So after everyone else had left for the night, the pastor stayed and cut the timber. He took the first piece of wood, measured eight feet with his tape measure, and marked it. He then carefully cut it to eight feet exactly [it was a perfect measurement]. So, instead of using the tape measure for the second piece of wood to be cut, he used the previously cut board, as he thought it would be much easier. He laid it on top of the new one, carefully drew a line where the board needed to be cut and sawed off the part that was too long. He then took the newly cut board and placed it on top of the next piece that needed to be cut. He used this method of measuring throughout his assignment to cut one hundred boards.

I’m sure you can see the problem. By using the previously cut board as a measure, the next board is marked and cut about one-eighth of an inch too long [the width of the saw blade]. This process wouldn’t have been so devastating had he only had two or three boards to cut. But when that method is used for one hundred boards, you end up with ones at the end of the pile being over nine feet long.

For over two thousand years, we’ve been comparing ourselves to the previous generation, noticing only slight differences. And to console ourselves with the task at hand – the Great Commission to disciple nations, displaying the greater works – many create water-down doctrines that dismantle the example and commandments that Jesus gave us. Instead of comparing ourselves with ourselves, we should have been using the original standard found in the life of Jesus so that the measure of God’s goodness revealed in Christ would have remained the same through the past two thousand years. God is bringing us back to the original measurement so that He might be revealed more accurately as the Father who loves well.

Source: Bill Johnson, 2016, God Is Good, Pasadena USA: Destiny Image Publishers, p.41-42

In the Lord’s Supper we share in receiving spiritual nourishment and refreshment for our souls. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:53-54 NIV). Again, Jesus was not speaking about a literal eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood to gain eternal life but of a spiritual feeding on Christ: We feed on Christ in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving. The sixteenth-century Reformer, John Calvin, called the bread and the wine “visible words”.

In the Lord’s Supper we share in the unity of the saints. Paul wrote: “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” (1 Corinthians 10:17). And so in Communion we join together with believers down the ages and throughout the world, in receiving and worshipping the risen Jesus.
In the Lord’s Supper we share in receiving Christ’s personal affirmation of His love for us. Jesus instituted the sacrament and invites us to partake of it, and so we join together, come into His presence and then we each personally receive a vivid reminder of His love for us in the sacraments, the symbols.
In the Lord’s Supper we share in receiving Christ’s personal affirmation that the blessings of salvation are reserved for us. We are eating and drinking a foretaste of the King’s wedding banquet, where a place has already been reserved for us.
In the Lord’s Supper we share in affirming our personal faith in Christ. As we share in Communion we are acknowledging that our sins were the reason for Christ’ suffering and death, and that our forgiveness is found only in accepting by faith the gift of God. Paul wrote: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV).

In addition to all of this, Christ is spiritually present in a special way when we come together as a church and share in Communion. Jesus promised to be with us always: “Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). But he also promised to be present when believers gather in his name to worship: “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). – I think of it like this: Jesus is always with us because we live in the same house, but when we come together in worship to share communion, it’s like we are in the same room, sat around the table. Jesus presence with believers is an abiding presence but in another sense, there is a special presence, a nearness of His being with us, when we come to share in the Sacraments… when, that is, we partake with a sincere and grateful heart (after self-examination).

A note from a friend:

How are you?

I just had to send a note to tell you how much I care about you. I saw you yesterday as you were talking to your friends; I waited all day hoping you would want to talk with me too. I gave you a sunset to close your day and a cool breeze to rest you, and I waited.

You never came. It hurt me – but I still love you because I am your friend.

I saw you sleeping last night and longed to touch your brow so I spilled moonlight upon your face. Again I waited, wanting to rush down so we could talk. I have so many gifts for you!

You awoke and rushed off to work. My tears were in the rain. If you would only listen to me! I love you! I try to tell you in blue skies and in the quiet green grass. I whisper it in the leaves

on the trees and breathe it in colours of flowers; shout it to you in mountain streams; give the birds love songs to sing. I clothe you with warm sunshine and perfume the air with nature’s scents. My love for you is deeper than the ocean and bigger than the biggest need in your heart! Ask me! Talk with me! Please don’t forget me, I have so much to share with you!

I won’t trouble you any further. It is YOUR decision, I have chosen you and I still wait because I love you.

Your friend, Jesus.

Anon.

A hurricane is one of the most powerful natural forces known to man. Wind gusts of up to 155 miles an hour; rain up to 5 inches an hour; the ability to create waves 10 storeys high, with surges up to 25 feet wide. Hurricanes have been known to level entire cities in minutes. In the eye of the storm there is relative calm as descending air currents inhibit storm development but the immediate surrounding wall of the storm contains the most powerful elements of the hurricane; the strongest winds and heaviest rains. There’s a lesson here for all of us. God doesn’t take away all our troubles – at least not as quickly as we’d like Him to – but He promises us peace in the midst of them. And if you ask Him, today God will bring you to that place of peace too!

Source: The UCB Word For Today , 5/2/2016

If you have ever lifted up a flagstone or a rock in the garden you will have noticed all the bugs and creepy crawlies scurrying for cover as you expose them to the light. Similarly, when someone comes close to God they see the light of His holiness and it shows up their own sinfulness and unworthiness. That’s why we need to come into the light; we need to confess our sin and not scurry away and hide from God. When we confess and repent of our sins the blood of Jesus cleanses us and we are forgiven and able to bathe again in the light of God’s holiness.

It is one thing having stubborn tenacity and refusing to change your mind; it’s another being down right pig-headed and awkward. The following story illustrates the point well.

One night, prior to the Second World War and just before the invention of radar, a battleship spotted an intermittent light fast approaching it from out of the darkness. The captain of the battleship alarmed but ready for action, ordered his signalman to flash a message in Morse code. “Unidentified vessel, change your course immediately.” No sooner had the message been dispatched than back came the same reply. “Unidentified vessel, change your course immediately.” The captain saw red and instructed his signalman to send a new message: “Change your course immediately, I am a Captain.” The response was again instantaneous and read, “Change your course immediately, I am a Seaman, Third Class!” By now the captain was furious and so one last time the signal went out, “Change your course immediately, I am a BATTLESHIP.” As before the response came back just as swiftly, “Change your course immediately, I am a LIGHTHOUSE! … Your call!”

Original source unknown: This adaptation from Discover Your True Potential by R. Ian Seymour

Talking about overcoming obstacles, John Maxwell reminds us that Robinson Crusoe was written in prison. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress in the Bedford jail. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote The History of the World during a thirteen-year imprisonment. Luther translated the Bible while confined in the castle of Wartburg. For ten years Dante, author of The Divine Comedy, worked in exile and under the sentence of death. Beethoven was almost totally deaf and burdened with sorrow when he produced his greatest works. Lord Nelson’s obstacle was sea-sickness. Nelson, who destroyed Napoleon’s fleet suffered from sea-sickness!

John C. Maxwell, 1993, Developing The Leader Within You, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, p.29-30 , 165

When he was president of the USA, Abraham Lincoln once turned down the advice of his colleagues to appoint a particular man for an important position within the government. His reason, Lincoln said, was because he didn’t like the man’s face. The advisors objected, saying, “How can a man be responsible for his face; for the way he looks?” Lincoln replied, “Every man past the age of forty is responsible for his face.” You see, Abraham Lincoln knew that you could tell a lot about a man (or woman’s) attitude by looking at their face! – Make sure your face portrays what you want others to see.

Sometimes people say: ‘How do we know the words of the Bible haven’t been lost in translation; how do we know the Bible is accurate?’ The answer to that is simple: the accuracy of what has been written, copied, and passed down through the centuries is remarkable. The Bible is indeed a precise translation of the original texts. We know this because we can compare it to the original manuscripts. There are some 24,300 ancient manuscripts or fragments of scripture known to be in existence today. The oldest fragments of New Testament Scripture are a piece of papyrus containing part of John’s gospel dating back to between 117–138AD (which is exhibited in John Ryeland’s Library in Manchester), and three fragments of papyrus in Magdalen College, Oxford that have been dated to the third quarter of the first century (i.e. somewhere between 42–66 years after Christ’s death). Also in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These contained fragments of every book in the Old Testament (except Esther), and included the complete book of Isaiah. The scrolls have been dated to around 100BC and the discovery of them has proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the Bible we have today is an authentic copy and translation of the original documents. So, the Bible is accurate, very accurate.

We should also remember that Jesus quoted scripture often. The only ‘Bible’ Jesus had at that time was the Old Testament, but Jesus is recorded as quoting verbatim from it nearly forty times (from thirteen different books), and he also referred to Scripture on many other occasions. But more than any of this, Jesus himself is the most compelling proof that the Bible is God inspired and true. Jesus fulfilled Scripture and, indeed, He will fulfil what few prophecies remain in the Scriptures when He returns. On the subject of the Bible being God inspired, or God-breathed, John Benton, author of Looking for the Answer, makes the valid point that the Bible’s prophetic teaching is ‘probably the most direct evidence for the special involvement of God with this book’.

Cited in Why Believe The Bible? by John Blanchard, 2004, Darlington: Evangelical Press, p.25, p.28

There’s a story told that might help us, about a man of faith who was dying and who asked his Christian doctor to tell him about heaven. As the doctor fumbled for a reply, he heard a scratching at the door… and he had his answer. “Do you hear that?” he asked his patient. “It’s my dog. I left him downstairs, but he has grown impatient, and has come up and he hears my voice. He has no notion what is inside this door… but he knows that I am here.” And that’s the same for all of us: We don’t know exactly what lies beyond the Door, but we do know that Jesus is there.

Jesus said, “No-one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44 NIV). We need to pray that the Father would draw people to Jesus. – If we try to convert people in our own strength we will fail.

A man I know, Andy, recently took me to see a friend of his who was dying. Andy desperately wanted to see his friend accept Jesus and he pleaded with his friend to see me. The man agreed because of his friendship with Andy.

“Ian, come and tell him the gospel,” Andy said to me! Well, I went along, with Andy in tow, and I did what I was asked… but it was extremely hard going. Why? Well, because this was Andy at work, desperately wanting to see his friend saved… but we saw no evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in his friend’s life. Don’t get me wrong: Andy’s desire was truly commendable, and time was running out… but people need to be open to the gospel and have ears to hear!

I read from my Bible, spoke about forgiveness, salvation, eternal life, and Andy’s friend was very polite and listened to me – because of his relationship with Andy – but as far as we know he didn’t hear. The lights were on but there was no one home!

Now I might be an evangelist but if you take the word Christ out of Christian you are left with Ian and Ian can’t save anybody! Ian stands for I Am Nothing… and if we are Christian that’s really what it should mean: I am nothing, Christ is everything.

All I do – what we all need to do – is to look for where the God the Holy Spirit is at work and go and join Him in the work of evangelism. So how do we know if a person is receptive or if the timing is right or how far along their spiritual journey they are? We just have to be obedient to God’s leading us, bold in our asking spiritual questions, and then keep on keeping on.

R. Ian Seymour

Raimundo DeOvies tells a story that when the great library of Alexandria was burned, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought if for a few coppers. It was not very interesting; yet there was the most interesting thing in it! It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the “Touchstone.”

The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it was on the shores of the Black Sea, lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles which looked exactly like it. But the secret was this. The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold. So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.

He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times, So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this and there were none of them the touchstone. Then he spent a week, a month, a year, three years; but he did not find the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. It’s cold. Throw it into the sea. And so on and so on.

But one morning he picked up a pebble and it was warm… he threw it into the sea. He had formed the ‘habit’ of throwing them into the sea. He had gotten so into the habit of throwing them into the sea, that when the one he wanted came along… he still threw it away.

Og Mandino

Og Mandino, 1982, University of Success, New York: Bantam Books, p.114-115

The truth is we’re already rich. No matter where you stand on the economy, we live in the richest time of the richest nation in history. (…) For example, in our Western culture today, we observe a five-day workweek. Think about what that means. Most people have to work only five days in order to have seven days’ worth of food and shelter and clothing and health care. We take it for granted. But that’s unique to our little window of history. And it’s still not the case everywhere. What’s more, there are households of three, four or more people that send only one person into the workplace to earn money. And with that one person’s earnings, the entire family can amass enough money in five days to give them food and shelter for seven days. Outside of work, that leaves at least fifty hours per week for nothing but leisure. Most people in the world can only imagine such luxuries. (…) [Do you ever get] bad cell phone coverage? That’s a rich-people problem. Can’t decide where to go on vacation? Rich-people problem. Computer crashed? Slow internet? Car trouble? Flight delays? Amazon doesn’t have your size? All rich-people problems. Next time there is a watering ban in your neighbourhood, just remember that many people, mostly women, carry jugs on their heads for hundreds of [metres] just so they can have water for cooking and drinking. They can’t imagine a place where there’s so much extra water that house after house just sprays it all over the ground [watering the grass]. Feeling guilty? I hope not. That’s not my purpose. On the contrary (…) guilt rarely results in positive behaviour. But gratitude? Great things flow from a heart of gratitude.

Andy Stanley

Source: Andy Stanley, How To Be Rich, 2013, Grand Rapids Michigan: Zondervan, p.28-30

Too many priorities paralyse us: Do you know why animal trainers carry a stool when they go into a cage of lions? They have their whips, of course, and their pistols at their sides. But invariable they also carry a stool. The trainer holds the stool by the back and thrusts the legs towards the face of the wild animal. The animal tries to focus on all four legs at once, and in an attempt to focus on all four, a kind of paralysis overwhelms the animal, and it becomes tame, weak, and disabled because its attention is fragmented. Same with us: divided attention paralyses.

John Maxwell

Source: John C. Maxwell, Developing The Leader Within You, 1993, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, p.31

An American veteran who was part of the D-Day invasion described meeting Churchill prior to the launch of that bloody offensive against the forces of the Nazi’s. He said D-Day was the most frightening experience of his life. “In fact,” he said, “I don’t think some of us would have been able to do what we did if it weren’t for a visit we got just before we crossed the English Channel.” That visit was from Winston Churchill. He rode up in a jeep, got out, and mingled with the troops. “He shook hands with us and even hugged some of us,” the veteran recalled. “He spoke of his own wartime experience and identified with our emotions. Then, he stood up in his jeep and gave a five minute speech. He spoke the whole time with tears in his eyes.” Here’s what Churchill said: “Gentlemen, I know you are afraid. I remember being afraid when I was a soldier. I had the privilege of defending my country… through dark days when we didn’t know whether we would accomplish what we had been given to do. But this is your moment. We are counting on you to rise to the occasion and achieve everything you have set out to do. The fate on the free world rests on your shoulders. May this be your finest hour.” The veteran said, ‘Needless to say, our group of frightened soldiers turned into a band of men who were ready to take on anybody.’

Source: The UCB Word For Today , 6/3/2014

A man stood beneath a magnificent oak tree and marvelled that such a regal giant amongst trees could grow from such tiny acorns as were littered all around him. Then the man looked over a fence into a neighbouring field and noticed an abundance of giant pumpkins growing on the ground. The pumpkins were still connected to their tiny vines which simply could never support such weighty fruit. The man pondered this seemingly ludicrous situation and came to the conclusion that God must have got things wrong. “Surely, it would make more sense for giant pumpkins to grow on a giant tree and for the tiny acorns to grow on a tiny vine?” the man mused to himself.

Just then an acorn fell from the tree and hit the man directly on the top of his head. The man looked up towards the heavens, gave a wry smile and humbly corrected his assumption, “Maybe God was on top of things, after all!”

Thomas Edison, the great inventor, was also a great man of persistence. Over the course of his lifetime he patented over a thousand of his inventions, one of the most famous of which was the electric candescent light bulb. The story goes that it took Edison several years and many thousands of experiments before he finally discovered the successful formula that gave the world the electric light that we know today.

Throughout the long course of his experiments, try as he might, Edison just couldn’t manage to make the filament in the bulb last more than a few seconds. Eventually after many hundreds of such experiments, Edison was asked why he continued to persevere after failing so many times. Edison replied, “I don’t consider that I have failed hundreds of times! I have, in actual fact, only succeeded in finding hundreds of ways it won’t work… but it will.” After many more hundreds of experiments, Edison finally succeeded in inventing a light bulb where the filament lasted months, and months and months. Thomas Edison was a man of persistence. So, take a leaf out of Edison’s book and don’t ever give up!

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt adapted from Maximize Your Potential

I remember some time ago being on the treadmill at the gym, and I got a bit bored of the monotony and figured the treadmill was so repetitive that I could do it with my eyes closed… so I did a rather foolish thing, I tried it! – I put my hands over the safety bars (not that it helped), closed my eyes and counted to five. That was easy enough, so I tried it again, this time see if I could reach 10 seconds. What I forgot is that our eyes help us to maintain balance… by the time I got to 7 seconds I fell head over heels and ended up crumpled on the floor with my head continually bouncing up and down off the moving belt! I hurt myself (not badly) but it was nothing compared to my pride. The whole gym came to a standstill as people looked over to see what had happened. Totally embarrassed I jumped up and blurted out without thinking: “It’s alright. ‘I’m okay… I just closed my eyes for a second!”

If we take our eyes off the goal that Jesus set for us – to live holy lives, pleasing to God – we run the danger of losing our balance, of falling and injuring ourselves, or others. We need to realise that sin is serious, and the damage it causes. Keep focused and don’t give in to temptation.

R. Ian Seymour

“If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, He’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, but He chose your heart. And what about the Christmas gift He sent you at Bethlehem? Not to mention that Friday at Calvary. Face it, He’s crazy about you!”

Max Lucado

Nicky Gumbel relates how, in 1934, a twenty-four year old farmer, Albert McMakin, who had recently become a Christian, was so full of enthusiasm for the gospel that he filled his truck with people and took them to a meeting to hear about Jesus. There was one particular good-looking farmer’s son whom he was especially keen to get to a meeting, but the young man was hard to convince – he was too busy falling in and out of love with different girls, and just didn’t seem attracted to Christianity at all. Eventually Albert McMakin managed to persuade him by telling him he could drive the truck. When they arrived, Albert’s guest decided to go in and he was ‘captivated’ and began to have thoughts he’d never known before. He went back to the meetings again and again until one night he went forward and gave his life to Jesus. That name of the good-looking farmer’s son, who went because he got to drive the truck, was Billy Graham.

Graham became a world renowned evangelist and went on to lead thousands to faith in Jesus. Now we can’t all be Billy Graham, but we can all be like Albert McMakin; we can all bring our friends to hear about Jesus, to come and see.

Nicky Gumbel, Alpha Questions of Life, 2007 edition, Eastbourne: Kingsway Communications, p.181

John Calvin (16th century reformer) summarised why we need to pray like this: “Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant. On the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom; in a word that they may declare that from him alone they hope and expect, both for themselves and for others, all good things.”

Cited by John Stott, Through The Bible Through The Year, Abingdon: Candle Books (2006), p.201

Here’s an anonymous piece of prose that’s been around for some time, called, ‘The Long Silence’:

At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God’s throne. Most shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly – not with cringing shame, but with belligerence.

‘Can God judge us? How can he know about suffering?’ snapped a pert young brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. ‘We endured terror… beatings… death!’

In another group a Negro boy lowered his collar. ‘What about this?’ he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. ‘Lynched … for no crime but being black!’

In another crowd a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes: ‘Why should I suffer?’ she murmured. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

Far out across the plain there were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering he permitted in his world. How lucky God was to live in heaven where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred. What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life, they said.

So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he had suffered the most: A Jew, a Negro, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the centre of the plain they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.

Before God could be qualified to be their judge, he must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth, as a man!

‘Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will think him out of his mind when he tries to do it. Let him be betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let him be tortured. At the last, let him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die. Let him die so that there can be no doubt that he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it.’

As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people assembled. And when the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered another word. No one moved. For suddenly all knew that God had already served his sentence.

Stand out from the crowd: Many years ago in a small hotel in Philadelphia, USA, an elderly couple, on a business trip from England, approached the night clerk seeking a room. “We have tried several other hotels,” said the man, “but it seems there is a convention in town and they are all full. Do you by any chance have a room you could let us have?”

The hotel clerk shook his head sadly and said, “I’m sorry, all our rooms are taken as well.” Then, seeing the couple’s dejected look, the clerk thought hard and came up with a suggestion: “Look, I will be working on the desk all night and so I don’t need my room. Why don’t you take that?” The couple were taken aback by his kindness and generosity, and after a little more persuasion they accepted his offer.

The next morning when they were checking out, the elderly man said to the clerk, “Young man, you would make a great hotel manager. How would you like me to build a fine hotel for you in New York City and then you could come and manage it for me?” The clerk smiled politely and jokingly said, “Sir, I would like nothing better in the whole world.”

They parted friends and the clerk thought nothing more about it until a couple of years later when he received a letter from the man, along with an invitation; an offer of a round-trip visit to New York to come and visit – guess what? – his new hotel. It turned out that the elderly gentleman was William Waldorf Astor, or Viscount Astor (the British peer). His hotel was the (now-famous) Waldorf-Astoria on the corner of Fifth Avenue in New York City. The clerk’s name, the man who went the extra mile and dared to be different, was George C. Boldt. He became the Waldorf-Astoria’s first manager and went on to become one of the greatest hotel managers in the world.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt from Discover Your True Potential

A man took his son to the movies, and the son ran up to the popcorn counter and asked for the big bucket! The dad said, “Son, you’ll never eat all that!” The boy answered, “Don’t worry, Dad, I’m a lot bigger on the inside than on the outside.” – That’s what integrity and character is all about: being bigger on the inside.

Adapted from John Maxwell, 1999, The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, p.7

Listening takes special concentration. I remember, some time ago, watching some film clips on TV, taken from an unknown management seminar, where one of the speakers was demonstrating how we, as human beings, have become such poor listeners. The speaker, to prove his point, asked the audience to participate in a little exercise that would last about ten seconds or so. This is roughly what he asked them to do: “Would each member of the audience please raise their right hand into the air and in a few seconds when I say, “Now,” put your hand down again and place it on to your right knee.” With that the speaker raised his own hand along with the audience and looked at his watch, nodding slightly, as if counting off the seconds. After about five or six seconds of silence, the speaker lowered his hand and touched his right knee and at the same time, he looked at the audience, raised his eyebrows and nodded for them to do the same. Everyone, bar a handful, followed suit and then two seconds later the speaker concluded the exercise by saying the word, “Now!” – Of the hundred or so people in the audience, every one of them heard the instructions but only about five or six of them actually listened to the instructions! (The speaker asked everyone to lower their hand when he said the word, ‘now’ – not when he nodded at them to do so!) The point was well and truly made! We hear with our ears but to listen we have to concentrate and use our minds as well. You see, hearing is a physical act whereas listening is a mental act.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, Maximize Your Potential, Chapter 3

The Magi followed the star all the way from their homeland (tradition says they were from Parthia, near the site of ancient Babylon, where Iraq stands today). They would have journeyed for months and travelled well over a thousand miles to and from the town where Jesus was staying. Who has ever heard of following a star around the world? If you are sceptical there’s something you might like to know. Every 804 years a rare triple-conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars occurs and it looks like a brilliant star. Modern astronomers, studying ancient records, have discovered that around 2000 years ago (right about the time Jesus was born) this rare conjunction strangely occurred three times in the same year. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying the Magi followed a conjunction (I believe that God, who created the heavens and the earth, created a special star to signal the arrival of his Son). But what I’m saying is if you’re sceptical about a star leading foreign ambassadors half-way across the world it’s worth suspending that scepticism, since we know for a fact there was a rare astronomical sight visible from that part of the world at just the right time.

Paul Barnett

Paul Bennett, Is the New Testament history?, 1994, Hodder and Stoughton, p.122 – cited by John Dickson in Stranger Than Fiction, p.29

What does it mean to die in the Lord? Here’s a piece of prose that might help us, titled, ‘Gone From My Sight’:
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean blue.
She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she is only a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky meet and mingle with each other. Then someone at my side exclaims, “There, she’s gone!”
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in hull and mast and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place on her destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at that moment when someone at my side says, “She’s gone,” there are other eyes watching for her coming and heavenly voices ready to take up the glad shout, “There, she comes!”
And that is dying in the Lord.

Bishop Brent

Does God still perform miracles of healing today? The short answer is: Yes, God still performs miracles and yes God still heals people today. Let me share an example with you. Pastor Surprise Sithole (pronounced ‘Sit-holy’) works for Iris Ministries (founded by Heidi Baker) and in the last twenty-five years he has planted more than ten thousand churches in Malawi, Mozambique and throughout southern Africa. In his book, Voice in the Night, he shares his own personal story about how God called him to be an evangelist, and how miracles and healings are demonstrating the power of the gospel and impacting the church all over Africa.

In one of many incidents described in the book, Surprise Sithole was on the outskirts of a village when he heard a woman screaming and then he heard someone else shouting his name. When he arrived at the scene, a group of people had gathered around a young woman who sobbed in excruciating pain and cried out, ‘I don’t want to die! Oh God! Please don’t let me die.’ The young woman had been bitten by a deadly snake; a poisonous puff adder. Her right leg was already twice the size of the left one and, with the nearest hospital some distance away; she would never have made it in time to receive the antidote treatment! One of the women asked him, ‘Will Jesus make her well?’ Surprise knew that Jesus can do anything, and so, in faith, he sat beside the poor girl, put his hands on her swollen leg and simply prayed over and over again, ‘Lord Jesus, please bless your child; please bless your child.’ As he prayed droplets of fluid, like beads of sweat, began to drain out of the injured leg and a few moments later the fluid began gushing out and the crowd gasped in amazement as the girl’s leg returned to its normal size! She stopped sobbing; the pain had gone and she immediately got back on her feet and walked around feeling fine. It was a miracle! That very same night Surprise Sithole held a public meeting which was full of people who had heard what had happened and who wanted to know more about Jesus. The healing of the young woman demonstrated the power of the gospel and opened the way for effective evangelism, and the end result was that the church in that village grew very rapidly indeed. Yes, God still performs miracles and yes God still heals people.

Surprise Sithole says he’s often been asked why so many miracles happen in Africa when they seem to be so rare in the West. Interestingly, he believes it’s because in Africa people have a simple faith: they believe what God’s Word says and God blesses them for their faith. Whereas in the West, he says, ‘people think they are too clever and sophisticated to simple believe and accept God’s Word, and so they question everything, including what the Bible says, and this displeases God.’

Surprise Sithole, 2012, Voice in the Night, Chosen Books: Michigan USA, p.63

Have you ever watched those extreme makeover TV programmes where famous presenters get rid of the old and bring in the new – maybe Ground Force with someone’s garden, or Changing Rooms, or even a person undergoing personal self-image reconstruction with – new hair, makeup, wardrobe etc. We get to see the way things were, and then the way they are now, re-created. If nothing else, it’s entertaining to see the shock and absolute delight on people’s faces as the new creation is revealed. But TV makeovers, at best can only ever temporary… they won’t last forever. And that sort of thing is absolutely nothing compared to the changes and re-creation that God is going to bring about, when He re-creates the new heaven and the new earth.

R. Ian Seymour

How heavy is a glass of water? That depends on how long you have to carry it for. A minute is no problem… after an hour your arm might ache, but after 24 hours you’ll probably be in fairly bad shape! In each case the glass weighs exactly the same but the longer you carry it the heavier it feels. It is the same with carrying a grudge or un-forgiveness.

Source: quoted in The UCB Word For Today , 20/6/2008

On the subject of prayer, there’s a funny story told about a family who had the minister over for dinner, and when he got there and sat at the table the Mum asked her five-year-old to say grace. Puzzled, the child asked, ‘What should I say?’ Her mum replied, ‘Just say what you’ve heard me say, dear.’ So, bowing her head, the little girl prayed, ‘Dear God, why on earth did I invite the minister over for dinner?’ Amen.

Encouragement: ‘Two men who shared a hospital room ended up becoming friends. One was allowed to sit up for an hour every day. His bed was beside the only window. The other man spent his life flat on his back. Each day the man at the window would describe the activity and colour of the outside world: the park overlooking the lake, ducks swimming, children playing, couples walking hand-in-hand, the skyline in the distance. His friend, who could see none of this, smiled and imagined it all in his mind’s eye. One day the man by the window died and his roommate moved into his place. He propped himself up to look outside and was amazed to see a drab brick wall! Confused, he asked the nurse how come his friend had described the scenery in such glowing terms. She replied, ‘Actually, he was blind and he couldn’t even see the wall. He just wanted to encourage you.’

The UCB Word For Today, 22/12/2017

Joel Osteen relates how he heard a story some years ago, about a famous golfer who was invited by the King of Saudi Arabia to play golf in a tournament. He accepted the invitation and the King flew his private jet over to pick up the pro. They played golf for several days, and enjoyed a good time. As the golfer was getting on the plane to return home, the King stopped him and said, ‘I want to give you a gift for coming all this way and making this time special. Anything you want. What could I give you?’

Ever the gentleman, the golfer replied, ‘Oh, please don’t give me anything. You’ve been a gracious host. I’ve had a wonderful time. I couldn’t ask for anything more.’

The King was adamant. He said, ‘No, I insist on giving you something so you will always remember your journey to our country.’

When the golfer realised that the King was resolute, he said, ‘Okay, fine. I collect golf clubs. Why don’t you give me a golf club?’

He boarded the plane, and on his flight home he couldn’t help wondering what kind of a golf club the King might give him. He imagined that it might be a solid gold putter with his name engraved on it. Or maybe it would be a sand wedge studded with diamonds and jewels. After all, this would be a gift from the oil-rich king of Saudi Arabia.

When the golfer got home he watched the post and the delivery services every day, to see if his golf club had come yet. Finally, several weeks later, he received a certified letter from the King of Saudi Arabia. The professional thought that rather strange. Where’s my gold club? he wondered. He opened the envelope, and to his surprise, inside he discovered the deeds to a five-hundred-acre golf course [golf club] in America.

Sometimes kings think differently from you and me. And friend, we serve the King of Kings. We serve the Most High God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (cf. Ephesians 3:20).

Source: Joel Osteen, Your Best Life Now, 2008, London: Hodder & Stoughton, p.15-16

Three principles of ethical business practice taken from Proverbs 22:

Reputation: A good name is more desirable than great riches, to be esteemed better than silver or gold (v4).
Humility: Humility and fear of the LORD bring wealth and honour and life (v4).
Generosity: A generous man will himself be blessed (v9).

Do you sometimes think Christianity is boring? Do you think being a Christian isn’t exciting? Check out these headlines: Man in desert discovers burning bush that can’t be extinguished. Sea opens and thousands walk through on dry land. Giant who threatened a nation killed by teen with slingshot. Jewish girl saves her people from destruction. Three young rebels survive blazing furnace. Man brought back from the dead after four days. City walls mysteriously fall. Preacher swallowed by giant fish lives to tell the tale. Prophet caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot. – Christianity isn’t boring, it’s an adventure. – Adventure means ‘exciting and dangerous undertakings’. When you embark on the spiritual adventure with God you can expect Him to test your faith in ways you never imagined. The book of Hebrews talks about those ‘who through faith conquered kingdoms… shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the Flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength…’ (Hebrews 11:33-34). John Eldredge says: ‘Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wilderness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of man… Moses doesn’t encounter God at the shopping centre. He finds him in the deserts of Sinai… Deep in a man’s heart are fundamental questions that cannot be answered at the kitchen table… it’s fear that keeps [us] at home where things are neat and orderly and under [our] control.’ When God wants to do something wonderful through you, He has to get you from where you are to where He wants you to be. How about it: are you ready to embark on a spiritual adventure with God?

Source: The UCB Word For Today, 21/12/2014

Nicky Gumbel, in The Heart of Revival, writes: ‘It is estimated that 170 million Christians are committed to praying every day for revival. Already the church is growing faster than ever before and Christianity is gaining more adherents than any other religion. Indeed, it is growing three times the rate of the population explosion. More Muslims in Iran have come to know Christ over the past ten years than during the previous thousand years. In Africa, 20,000 people a day are becoming Christians. Some estimate that there may be as many as 100 million Christians in China alone.’

Nicky Gumbel, 1997, The Heart of Revival, Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications, p.49-50

One of the early Christian theologians said that trying to explain the Trinity was like trying to empty the ocean with a cup. The doctrine of the Trinity is indeed a mystery that we’ll never be able to fully understand, but we can understand something of its truth by summarizing the teaching of Scripture like this:

God is three persons
Each person is fully God
There is one God.

In 1562 (during the Reformation) the Church of England affirmed its doctrinal beliefs in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion; and the very first article or statement declares:

‘There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power and eternity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’

I love a good ‘cops and robbers’ TV show. Whenever the police are closing in on the bad guys, they yell, ‘Freeze! Drop the weapon and put your hands in the air!’ That’s kind of what happens when we follow Jesus. He doesn’t yell at us saying, ‘Freeze! Drop your weapon…’ But in a way, he does say, ‘Stop! I want to take your life in a new direction. Drop everything you’re holding onto, lift your hands, and surrender to me.’

Source: unknown – cited in Daily Bread devotional on YouVersion

Mark Batterson writes: I don’t know how I missed this memo my entire life, but did you know you have a dominant eye? Make a triangle with your hands, fully extend your arms, and find an object to focus on. Now close one eye, then the other. With one eye, the object will move – that’s your weak eye. If you aim with that eye, you’ll miss the target every time! But with your dominant eye, the object will stay in the triangle. I’m [left] eyed, so I close my [right] eye to shoot. – I think many people are looking at life through their weak eye! If you have a critical eye, you’ll find something wrong with everything.

Mark Batterson, The Grave Robber, 2014, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, p.225

There is an old story told about a professor who was studying man’s different attitudes to work. One day the professor went to a construction site and spoke with three labourers who were laying bricks. “What are you doing?” he asked the first man. “Hey, I’m just a bricklayer. I’m only doing what I’ve been told to do, “ came the reply. “If you’ve got a problem with it go and see the foreman over there!” The professor smiled politely and moved on to ask the same question to a second man. “Well I know it’s a bit mundane and it’s not much of a job, but it pays £10 an hour and I’ve got bills to pay just like everyone else so I’m not complaining.” The professor thanked the man and moved on to ask someone else. In the distance he noticed a man intent on his work so he walked over and said, “Excuse me. Do you mind if I ask… what are you doing?” The bricklayer looked up, smiled and with a gleam in his eye said, “Why can’t you see? I’m building a cathedral.”

Remember, ‘your attitude in life almost always determines your altitude in life.’

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt from Discover Your True Potential

The earliest books of the Bible are from around Moses’ time (15th century BC) and the latest from the end of the 1st century, around 95AD, so the material was published, collected and brought together over a period of around 1500 years. Although the books are not in chronological order there is a definite logic to the way they have been assembled, an amazing development of common themes and an overall unity. It truly is an amazing book – ‘out of this world’ some would say! Others might not agree. Sometimes people object and say: ‘Surely you can’t (or don’t have to) believe everything you read in the Bible.’ The first thing I want to say in response to that is that we do not need to believe or agree with everything that is written in the Bible before making a decision for Christ. Secondly, and let’s be clear here, Christians do not venerate or worship a book. We are not called to believe in a book, as such, we are called to believe in Jesus Christ as revealed to us in and through this holy book. The main point of the Bible is to show us how to enter into and remain in a relationship with God through Jesus.

It’s a bit like when someone brings a new baby into church. We don’t admire the buggy and say, ‘Oh what a lovely upholstered buggy: truly an outstanding design and manufactured with such skill.’ We don’t admire the buggy we admire the baby contained within the buggy. Similarly with the Bible, Christians don’t revere or worship a book, but God who is revealed to us in and through the book.

R. Ian Seymour

There’s a story told of a little boy out flying his kite: It was a blustery day with thick, low clouds and the kite went up and up until it was entirely hidden by the clouds. “What are you up to then?” a man asked the boy. “I’m flying my kite”, he replied. “Flying your kite?” the man said. “How can you be sure? You can’t see the kite.” “No,” said the boy, “I can’t see it, but every now and again I feel a tug and I know for certain it’s there!” – If you want to know more of God’s presence in your life, in you want to feel Him tugging at you, directing you, blessing you, then get into God’s word.

The renowned theologian and lecturer, J. I. Packer, states: ‘A [biblical] ministry which is wholly concerned with gospel truths can still go wrong by giving those truths an inaccurate application. Scripture is full of truth that will heal souls, just as a chemist shop is stocked with remedies for bodily disorders; but in both cases a misapplication of what, rightly used, will heal, will have a disastrous effect. If, instead of dabbing iodine on, you drink it, the effect will be the reverse of curative! – and the doctrines [in the Bible] can be misapplied too, with unhappy results.”

Business is a God Idea: In the agrarian economy in existence at the time Proverbs was written, the material welfare of the people depended upon production and trade of grain. A farmer who withheld grain committed a serious enough offense to invoke a curse. A farmer who sold grain committed a worthy enough act to invoke a blessing (Proverbs 11:26). Production and trade was God’s primary method of delivering the means of material sustenance to people. The principle remains true today. Our economies are much more complex, but a modern business is the equivalent of the ancient farmer. God still uses production and trade to deliver material sustenance to people, enabling them to flourish.

In common with every human institution, business is marred by sin. All of us can readily point to examples of greed and exploitation of people and the environment, but it is wrong for us to conclude that business is not a sacred pursuit. Business is a God idea and is included in God’s great plan for redemption of the world! God is looking for Christians who are prepared to make business their mission in life. A business producing goods or services, helping people flourish, activating biblical principles in ethics and justice, and contributing to the common good by supporting the local church financially and paying taxes to the government is a business after God’s own heart! Business is thoroughly a godly pursuit. When businesses engage in production and trade ethically and justly, there is blessing for the whole society.

Rod St Hill

Rod St Hill, Bible on Business, reading plan on YouVersion, day 14 of 31

A Customer is the most important person ever in this office,
Whether in person or by mail.
A Customer is not dependent on us,
We are dependent on him.
A Customer is not an interruption of our work,
He is the purpose of it.
We are not doing a favour by serving him,
He is doing us the favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.
A Customer is not someone to argue or match wits with.
Nobody ever won an argument with a Customer.
A Customer is a person who brings us his wants.
It is our job to handle them profitably for him and ourselves. (Anon)

Did you know there are more Christians in the world today than at any other time in history and the church is growing at a tremendous rate? In our own neighbourhoods it is very easy to lose sight of the big picture and so I want to take a moment to put the church on a larger map. The Church of England is very good at counting and collating figures. Bishop John Pritchard, in his book, Going to Church, reports that the church, worldwide is very alive and well. Listen to some of these statistics:

2.1 billion: the number of Christians in the world (a third of the world’s population, comprising Roman Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Pentecostals, and many others).
80 million: the number of Anglicans worldwide (17 million in Nigeria, which has had to double the number of dioceses in the last ten years to cope with the growth of the Church).
70,000: the net increase in the number of Christians every day worldwide.
Western Europe is the only part of the world where the Christian faith is struggling. Everywhere else the Church is growing, especially in South America, Africa and South-East Asia. It is estimated there are 10,000 new Christians every day in China.
While we are about it… 1.7 million: the number of people who attend a Church of England service each month, with about 1 million attending every Sunday.
23 million: the number of hours of voluntary service given by Church of England parishioners each month.
1 million (just over): the number of children educated in Church of England schools.

And what is really exciting… there are signs of revival and large-scale church growth here in England, chiefly in the charismatic evangelical churches – like Holy Trinity Brompton (founders of the Alpha course) and St Andrew’s Chorleywood; and also especially in the black Pentecostal churches in London. There have been over 500 new churches in the London boroughs in the last 10 years. One of the largest, Kingsway International, has 10,000 Christians meeting every Sunday.

In Narnia, it is said ‘Aslan is on the move’. In our own country, today, God is on the move. And He is especially moving in the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches. The Church of Christ is alive and well and busy, and the kingdom of God continues to grow just as Jesus said it would.

R. Ian Seymour

John Pritchard, Going to Church, 2009, London: SPCK, p.38-40

At the end of a meal in a restaurant with some friends, I got up to pay for my meal and was told by the waiter, “It’s been paid for already. Someone else has covered it for you.” As we confess our sins to God through Jesus [with a repentant heart], he assures us that they have already been paid for on the cross.

Source: Explore Bible notes, 7/1/2015

We live in a fallen world – fallen from God’s grace because of man’s sin. Adam’s sinful act of disobedience affected Creation and now Creation is out of kilter. The earth is under a curse. God said to Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 3:17). This is the greatest environmental disaster that has ever happened. The world we know is not the place it was originally created to be… earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, floods, wars, famines, disease, epidemics … When God finished making the earth it was a good creation (Genesis 1:31). But today it is a groaning creation, filled with suffering, death and pain. All of this is a result of Adam’s sin. Creation is not at fault. Creation is groaning as it waits to be renewed; waiting for God to recreate the new heavens and the new earth (see Revelation 21v1).

CRITICISM

‘Hope For The Flowers’ by Trina Paulus, is a book about an ambitious caterpillar called Stripe, who decides to climb a mountainous pillar of caterpillars, all of whom are clambering over each other trying to get the top. Stripe hurls himself into the pile and as he begins his arduous ascent he asks a fellow climber ‘What is at the top anyway?’ In response he is told that no one really knows but it must be wonderful because everyone is trying to get up there.

Stripe sets to discover the truth for himself but he finds the climb a tremendous struggle as he is pushed and shoved and walked on and over from every direction. In his determined effort to succeed he steps on others and uses them to gain height and leverage. ‘It’s every one for himself,’ Stripe says, ‘and you’ve just got to make up your mind and just do it.’

Eventually, Stripe nears the top of the pile and he can see the way ahead more clearly, but what he sees dismays him. He can see there’s a tremendous pressure from the ones at the top of the pillar to hang on and this causes the pillar to shake violently, sending many of the climbers crashing to the death below. The mystery of the mountain is suddenly revealed to Stripe as he hears an incredulous voice from the one at the summit say, ‘There is nothing here at all!’ Another following closely behind answers, ‘Quiet! Everyone will hear you. We are where they want to be. That’s what’s here!’

Stripe suddenly realises that he is so high up and yet, he is not high up at all! Things only looked wonderful from the bottom, and at the top he realises that he has wasted his life climbing the wrong mountain.

One preacher put it like this: ‘It may come as a bit of a surprise but God is waiting for you and depending on you to do his work. He is depending on you to be generous with your time and abilities and money for others. He is depending on you to give of your time and resources in order to help the person in need. He is depending on you to spend time with the sick and the lonely. He is depending on you to use your money so that others may come to know Christ. And He is depending on you to use your abilities in the ministry of our local congregation. God is depending on you to bring his love to others.’

There’s an account in Old Testament, that one time, after God delivered Israel from the hands of the Philistines, Samuel the prophet took up a large commemorative stone which he called “Ebenezer”. In my study at home I have a large “Ebenezer” stone which I sometimes use as a door stop, and on which I have inscribed the words from 1 Samuel 7v12: “EBENEZER: Thus far has the LORD helped us.” This verse helps me not to doubt the Lord, but to trust him and remember all the times he has guided and helped and answered prayers.

R. Ian Seymour

A pessimist expects the worse to happen and an optimist expects the best, but expectations are never fussy about whose table they sit at, and they’ve never been known to decline an invitation!

The Scottish historian and essayist, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), became a wealthy and very successful writer after the publication of his three volumes on The French Revolution. However, Carlyle was another individual who experienced more than a little failure.

It was through his friend in London, John Stuart Mill (the famous philosopher and economist), that Carlyle first became interested in the French Revolution. In time that interest led Carlyle to start writing, what would eventually become a masterpiece of modern day literature. However, it wasn’t all plain sailing! After five months of continuous writing, Carlyle finished the first volume, which he then passed over to his friend, John Mill, so that he could give it his professional opinion. Unfortunately, whilst the manuscript was in Mill’s care, a maid lighting a fire accidentally burnt it! The whole thing, all of five months’ work, up in smoke! Mill was devastated and horrified at the loss as, indeed, anyone would be, but Carlyle never uttered a single word of condemnation. Of course, he was upset – who wouldn’t be? But instead of dwelling on the defeat, the non-success, Carlyle sat down and started out again from scratch!

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt from Discover Your True Potential

If you have ever seen people riding a tandem, the person in the front steers and the person behind offers peddle-power. We, all too often, want to steer and have the control and just call upon God to give us the extra ‘umph’ to get us up the hills! But we need to give control to God and let him steer.

John Maxwell states: Goals not only help you develop initial motivation by making your dreams obtainable, but they also help you continue to be motivated – and that creates momentum. Once you get going on the success journey, it will be very hard to stop you. It’s similar to what happens with a train. Getting it started is the toughest part of the trip. While standing still, a train can be prevented from moving forward by one-inch blocks of wood under each of the locomotive’s drive wheels. However, once a train gets up to speed, not even a steel-reinforced concrete wall five feet thick can stop it.

Source: John C. Maxwell, The Success Journey, 1997, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, p.78

In the field of commerce, thousands of products carry this piece of advice: ‘For the best results follow the maker’s instructions’. Stamped indelibly yet invisibly on every human being are the same words! – Follow the Maker’s instructions! – Christians look to God because he’s the one with the greatest knowledge about how we tick as individuals.

Stephen Gaukroger, First Steps: The handbook to following Christ, p.98

I wonder if you ever travel by train, maybe to Reading. As you approach the end of your journey the automatic announcement comes over the public address system: “We will shortly be arriving at Reading, our final destination!” – I sometimes look at the people in the carriage and think, “I do hope this is not your final destination!” – Of course, the train station is not the final destination for the passengers; it is just a stopover. The passengers are still in transit and from there they will travel on to their final destination. Similarly, Christians who die before Jesus returns go to heaven – like transit passengers on a stopover, they are in heaven waiting to travel on to their final destination – the new heaven and the new earth; the new creation described in Revelation 21-22.

Author and theologian, Christopher Ash, says, “I hope I don’t go to heaven when I die… I realise that I might have to, but I am hoping not to.” – Why is he hoping not to? – Because he knows that if Jesus returns before we die we will not need to go to heaven at all. In that event there will be no need for a stopover because we will join the straight through train and go immediately to be with the Lord in the New Jerusalem, the new creation.

R. Ian Seymour

Back in the days of telegrams, a wealthy woman, travelling overseas, saw an expensive diamond necklace and fell in love with it. In fact, she had always wanted a diamond necklace and desired this one so much that she sent a telegram to her husband. The telegram said:

“Darling have found the diamond necklace I have always wanted. Price: £50,000. Can I buy it?”

Her husband panicked and responded almost immediately by saying, “No, price is too high.”

However, in sending the reply the telegram operator omitted the comma and so the woman received a message that said, “No price too high.”

She, of course, purchased the necklace!

Moral: Good leaders make sure their instructions are clearly understood.

‘Listening’

When I ask you to listen to me

And then you start giving me advice,

You have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me

And you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way,

You are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me

And you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,

You have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I asked was that you listen.

Not talk or do – just hear me.

Advice is cheap: 25 cents will get you both Dear Abby

And Billy Graham in the same newspaper.

And I can do that for myself; I’m not helpless:

Discouraged, maybe, and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me

That I can and need to do myself,

You contribute to my fear and weakness.

But, when you accept as a simple fact

That I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational,

Then I can quit trying to convince you,

And get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.

And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.

Perhaps that’s why prayer works sometimes for some people,

Because God is mute and he doesn’t give advice or try to fix things.

He just listens and let you work it out for yourself.

So, please listen and just hear me.

And, if you want to talk,

Wait a minute for your turn, and I’ll listen to you.

Anon.

‘The Indispensable Man’

Sometime, when you’re feeling important,
Sometime, when your ego’s in bloom,
Sometime, when you take it for granted,
You’re the best-informed man in the room.

Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that remains there,
Is the measure of how you’ll be missed.

You may splash all you please as you enter,
You may stir up the waters galore,
But stop and you’ll see in a moment,
That it looks just the same as before.

The moral of this little story,
Is do just the best you can,
‘Cause you’ll find that in spite of vain glory,
There is no indispensable man.

Anon

Let go of your mistakes and move on. Don’t let a temporary setback become a permanent defeat; don’t allow your mistakes to imprison you. In some parts of India the locals have a technique for catching monkeys, which they then sell in the market place. The technique is very simply and it works like this: First of all, they put some tempting tit-bits of food, maybe some fruit and nuts, into a heavy glass bottle which has a narrow mouth. They then secure the bottle to the ground or to the base of a tree, sprinkle a few more tit-bits around it, and leave it alone for a while. The monkey comes along, puts his hand through the narrow mouth of the bottle and grabs a fistful of goodies. – This is the monkey’s mistake! – You see, the monkey can’t get its clenched fist back out of the bottle, and it doesn’t have the sense to simply let go of its treasure! It becomes trapped in a blunder of its own doing. – Don’t follow suit. Don’t become trapped in a blunder of your own doing; don’t allow non-success to become permanent failure; don’t allow non-success to imprison you. Instead, acknowledge your mistakes, then let go of them and move on.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt adapted from Discover Your True Potential

Often motivation comes after, or as a result of taking action, and not before. Sometimes you have force yourself into action; you have to be bold, have courage, take a leap of faith and then motivation catches up with you. This is what happens to young eaglets when they learn to fly: They jump into action and take a leap of faith. Well, actually, they are usually forced into action! Maybe you have heard the phrase, ‘stirring up the nest’? This relates to stirring up a hornet, bee or wasps’ nest but it could just as easily refer to what happens when it’s time for the eaglets to learn how to fly. You see, for several weeks the eaglets have sat around watching and waiting, and also being waited upon hand and foot, as it were, by the parent birds. But finally the time comes for the offspring to leave the nest and the issue then becomes how to inspire them to do so. This is where they are given a helping hand, (or wing)! One day the mother bird senses the time has come, so she stops feeding the eaglets. Of course, this makes them very eager! Next she begins to demolish the nest, literally tearing away great chunks at a time and letting them fall to the floor. This makes the eaglets very uncomfortable! Finally, – now that they are hungry and homeless – the eagle flies to a nearby perch and calls to her offspring to come. It doesn’t take long for them to get the message! Sooner, rather than later, they jump into action, take their leap of faith and begin to fly!

Sometimes, you have to push yourself (or others) into action. It’s like drawing water from a well; you have to prime the pump (expel the air) and then apply force before the water flows freely. Likewise, sometimes you have to force inspiration to flow before it flows freely.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt from Discover Your True Potential

In the third sentence of the Bible we are told God created light (Genesis 1:3). Do you know how fast light travels; what the speed of light is? – 186,000 miles a second! If we could travel at the speed of light then time as we know it would cease to exist. If we could travel at 186,000 miles a second, time would be instantaneous to us; it would be as though we could travel forwards and backwards simultaneously! God is like that. That’s why the Bible says: “And do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.” (2 Peter 3:8-9)

Don’t be tempted to become a Jack-of-all-trades, instead, concentrate on what you love to do and become a master of one. The following fable illustrates the point: Brer Rabbit, Brer Duck and Brer Squirrel enrolled in the school for animal welfare. Each animal was an expert in his own field of athletics, Brer Rabbit at running, Brer Duck at swimming and Brer Squirrel at climbing. However, although each excelled in his own field, they all achieved very poor results in the other events. It was felt that they needed to put in extra time on the events that they weren’t particularly good at. So, Brer Rabbit had to cut back on his running and instead concentrate his efforts on swimming and climbing. Eventually, he improved, but in doing so he had become just an average runner. Brer Duck, instead of swimming, practised full time on his running and climbing skills. He, too, improved a little, but in the end his webbed feet were so badly torn, because of all the running along stony pathways and the climbing of rough tree bark, that he could no longer swim properly. And as for Brer Squirrel, well, he spent so much time swimming and running that his claws were simply worn away to nothing. In the end, he could no longer grip the trees trunks and so he stopped climbing altogether! And the moral of this story is simply this: Concentrate on what you do best and become an expert at it.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour (excerpt from Maximize Your Potential.)

Hasn’t science disproved God and Christianity? When people ask this question, usually what they mean is, ‘hasn’t the theory of evolution replaced the creation story and so disproved Christianity.’ The answer to that question is an emphatic no! There is a saying, however, that ‘a mind convinced against its will is of the same opinion still.’ In other words, someone who is an avowed atheist and has already decided that God does not exist isn’t likely to change their mind, no matter how convincing the evidence is.

Appearances can often be misleading: Take for example the concept that you are sitting still. The truth is, because the earth is rotating, you are going eastward at more than one thousand miles an hour. Because the earth is revolving around the sun, you are going in another direction at two thousand miles an hour. And because we think the sun is rotating in a milky-way galaxy, you are flying away at fifteen thousand miles an hour. All these directions are realities. Therefore the appearance that you are sitting still is very misleading.

John Marks Templeton

Cited in Think Like A Winner, by Walter Doyle Staples, 1991, Pelican Publishing, Louisiana, p.54

In the Bible God says, ‘I…made the earth and created mankind upon it’ (Isaiah 45v12 NIV). Did you know that if the earth was 10 percent larger or 10 percent smaller, life as we know it wouldn’t be possible? Or that we’re just the right distance from the sun so we receive the right amount of heat and light? If we were any farther away we’d freeze, and if we were closer we wouldn’t be able to survive. Consider for a moment the amazing tilt of the axis of the earth. None of the other planets are tilted like ours at 23 degrees. This angle allows the sun’s rays to touch every part of the earth’s surface over the course of a year, as the earth circles the sun. If there was no tilt to the axis, the poles would accumulate enormous masses of ice, and the centre of the earth would become so hot we couldn’t stand it.

Source: The UCB Word For Today devotional 4/10/2016

The fine-tuning of the universe makes more sense if there is a God than if there isn’t. But what about evolution – did man evolve from ape? No, he did not! Gaukroger asks, tongue in cheek, ‘Can any right-thinking person really believe in Adam and Eve? Well, perhaps they can – given recent scientific genetic research which points to the possibility that all humanity may have evolved from a single couple! Indeed, according to some genetics experts, modern-day DNA research could theoretically trace our ancestry back to one man and one woman. ‘Evolution is not a fact! Evolution is [a theory] a description! If we ask the question, ‘Why did the man fall off the roof’ science can draw on its resources to tell us about the mechanics involved – the mass of the man, the velocity of the fall, gravitational pull, and so on. But this is only a description of what happened. Gravity did not make the man fall! To find out the cause we have to ask other questions. Did he slip? Was he pushed? Did he jump? Similarly, evolution is a [theory or] description of the way life may have started, but it cannot explain what made it start and why. Only non-scientific questions can do that. Was it chance? God? Evolution simply cannot say. This means that even if every single piece of current evolutionary theory proved accurate, it would still not rule God out of the picture.’

Stephen Gaukroger, ‘It Makes Sense: The Handbook to Believing’, 2003, Milton Keynes: Scripture Union, p.80-82

‘Nobody seriously denies that apes and humans share some physical characteristics, but that is a long way from proving a direct link between the two species. There is a huge gap between similarities and direct relationship. (…) There is no clear-cut and inexorable pathway from ape to man. Having spent twenty-five years researching the fossil record, the American scholar Marvin Lubenow opened his book ‘Bones of Contention’ with the words: ‘The human fossil record is strongly supportive of the concept of Special Creation. On the other hand, the fossil record is so contrary to human evolution as to effectively falsify the idea that humans evolved.’ Later he added, ‘Human evolution allegedly took place in the past over vast periods of time. Evolutionists readily admit that evolutionary processes work so slowly that they are not observable over the lifetime of one individual or even over successive lifetimes of hundreds of generations. In other words, there are no direct observations or experiments that can confirm the process of human evolution.’

John Blanchard, 2004, Has Science Got Rid of God, Darlington UK: Evangelical Press, p.57, p.60-61

It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than to believe that nothing made something out of nothing. Towards the end of his life, Charles Darwin wrote of ‘the impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe including man as a result of blind chance or necessity: When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look for a first cause having an intelligent mind and I deserve to be called an theist’.’ (…) Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, who comes from a Buddhist background, has said, ‘The chances that life just occurred on earth are about as unlikely as a typhoon blowing through a junkyard and constructing a Boeing 747.’

Cited by Nicky Gumbel in Searching Issues, 2004 edition, Kingsway, p.95

The sun’s temperature is 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit and we live 93 million miles away from it – just the right distance. If the earth’s temperature were even 50 degrees hotter or colder, all life would cease. Why was the earth not fixed in place twice as far away or twice as near? Because God is Creator; and in Him All things hold together. The earth rotates 365 times a year as we pass around the sun. What would happen if we only rotated 36 times instead? Well, if this were the case our days and nights would be ten times as long; we’d be terribly hot on one side of the earth and terrible cold on the other! Oxygen makes up about 21% of our atmosphere; just the right amount. Why not 50%? Well, if it was 50% the first time someone lit a match we’d all be toast! It’s 21% by design because God is Creator and in Him All things hold together.

Adapted from The UCB Word For Today devotional, 04/06/2000

Legalising sin does not make it right.

Alan McGuiness tells the story of Bette Nesmith, a single parent with a nine-year old son, who worked in a Dallas Bank. She seemed rather average with no particular promise for big things. She was glad to have the secretarial job – $300 a month was very good for 1951 – but she did have a problem: how to correct the errors she made with her new electric typewriter. Nesmith has been a freelance artist, and artists never correct by erasing, they simply paint over the error. So she concocted a fluid that she could use to paint over her typing errors.

Before long all the secretaries in the building were using what she then called “Mistake Out.” An office supply dealer encouraged her to manufacture the paint, but marketing agencies weren’t impressed, and companies (among them IBM) turned her down cold. But the secretaries continued to like the product, so Nesmith’s kitchen became her first manufacturing facility. Orders began to trickle in, and she hired a college student to help her sell the product. But it was not easy for two inexperienced saleswomen. “People will never paint out their mistakes,” a dealer would say. Records show that from August 1959 to April 1960, the company’s total income was $1,142.71, and its expenses were $1,217.35. “I don’t know how I made it,” Bette said. She worked part-time as a secretary, managing to buy groceries and save $200 to pay a chemist to develop a fast-drying formula.

With the improved product, Nesmith began taking her little white bottles around the country. She stopped in small towns and big cities. Upon arriving in a city, she wrote, “I’d get the phone book and write down the names of dealers and then call them. We’d go to each office supply store and leave 12 bottles.” Eventually orders began to pour in and the Liquid Paper Corporation began to fly. When she sold the company in 1979, the tiny white bottles were earning $3.5 million annually on sales of $38 million, and Gillette paid $47.5 million for the firm.

Source: Alan Loy McGuiness, 1985, Bringing Out The Best In People, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing, p.102-103

You can have faith without having much personal experience; you can hold to the Christian faith and not actually know God yourself. (I’ve met many of these dear souls!) – I have faith in my [doctor] but I don’t know him at all. We certainly don’t share our life together. I am grateful for his help, if needed, but we aren’t anything like best friends. Similarly, you can have faith in God from a distance, you can have a relationship with Christ but not be intimate; not be inhabited; intertwined; saturated.

What happened to change a handful of frightened men (the disciples), hiding away behind locked doors in fear of their own lives – men who had deserted their leader, who legged it to save their own skin and denied they even knew Jesus; what happened to change a band of unreliable followers into fearless evangelists; what changed a bunch of scaredy-cats into a pride of roaring lions; from cringing cowards to fearless followers, most of whom later went on to die as martyrs? What happened? Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples, that’s what happened! There is no other way to explain the extraordinary change in the disciples.

People might sometimes die for what they mistakenly believe to be true but people will not willingly die for what they know is not true… yet most all of the disciples were martyred; they willing died for their faith in a resurrected Christ.

Just fifty days after the resurrection – in Jerusalem at Pentecost – Peter with the other disciples beside him, stood up and declared boldly to the crowds: “God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of the fact” (Acts 2:32). The resurrection of Jesus is not a conspiracy theory! Why would the disciples make it up? Surely it would have been easier, and made more sense, to honour a dead Jesus as another in the long-line of martyred-prophets so revered by the Jews.

The evidence for the resurrection is overwhelming and conclusive: There is no other plausible explanation for the empty tomb; the lack of a body; the transformed lives of the disciples; the fact that church worship shifted from Saturday to resurrection Sunday. There is no other plausible explanation for the existence of the Christian church, or the evidence of millions of Christians living transformed lives after personally encountering Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit. Jesus is alive. The evidence is overwhelming and conclusive.

‘A Letter from your caring Father’ by Neil Anderson & Rich Miller

My Child, you may not know me, but I know everything about you. I know when you sit down and when you rise up. I am familiar with all your ways. In me you live and move and have your being. I knew you even before you were conceived. I chose you when I planned creation. You were not a mistake, for all your days were written in my book. I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. I knit you together in your mother’s womb and brought you forth on the day you were born.

I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me. I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love. It is my desire to lavish my love on you, simply because you are my child and I am your Father. I offer you more than your earthly father could, for I am the perfect Father. My plan for your future has always been filled with hope because I love you with an everlasting love. My thoughts towards you are as countless as the sand on the seashore, and I rejoice over you with singing. I will never stop doing good to you, for you are my treasured possession. I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine.

I am the Father who comforts you in all your troubles. When you are broken-hearted, I am close to you. As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart. One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes, and I will take away the pain you have suffered on this earth.

I am your Father and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus. For in Jesus my love for you is revealed. He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you. Come home and I will throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen. I am waiting for you.

Love, your Abba Father

Source: Neil Anderson & Rich Miller, Getting Anger Under Control, 2002, Oregon USA: Harvest House, p.150-151

Psalm 117 is the shortest psalm and indeed the shortest chapter in the whole of the Bible. There are only two verses. And not only is it the shortest chapter in the Bible, it is also the middle chapter of the Bible? There are 1189 chapters in the Bible and Psalm 117 is chapter number 595, slap-bang in the middle. Now when the Scriptures were originally written, and later compiled together, they didn’t have chapter and verse numbers – these were only added in the thirteenth century as a means of easy referencing (before the days of computers with paragraph and word counts). But in the Sovereignty of God there’s no such thing as chance and so it’s very interesting, is it not, that the central chapter of the Bible, being the inspired Word of God, should open and close with the instruction to “praise the LORD.” Psalm 117 serves as a permanent reminder that our praise of God should be at the very centre of our lives.

Why did Jesus become a man and come to earth? Bill Johnson makes the point that Jesus came to reveal the Father. Every other reason mentioned in Scripture – and there and many of them – is actually a sub-point to the primary reason, of revealing the Father.

Jesus came to atone for our sin (see 1 John 2:2; 3:5.)
He came to take upon Himself the punishment that we deserve – our punishment in death. He then made it possible for us to receive what only He deserved – eternal life. (See Romans 5:6-11.)
He came to destroy the works of the evil one. (See 1 John 3:8.)
He came to make an open display of the foolishness of the devil and reveal the wisdom of the cross. (See Colossians 2:15.)
He came that we might have abundant life. (See John 10:10.)
He came to initiate the present-tense awareness of the Kingdom of God – the realm and effects of God’s rule. (See Matthew 6:10.)
Jesus came to save men’s lives, not destroy them. (See Luke 9:56.)

Jesus came to a planet of orphans to reveal what we needed most – the Father.

Bill Johnson, God is Good, 2016, USE: Destiny Image Publishers, p.116

On Thursday, 15th January 2009, Flight 1549 too off from LaGuardia, New York, heading for North Caroline with 155 passengers and crew on board. Just one minute into the flight, the plane experienced a massive bird strike and all power was lost in both engines.

Faced with a pilot’s worst nightmare, Captain Chesley Sullenberger contacted the ground and weighted up his options. Almost immediately it was obvious that a return to LaGuardia was not on the cards, neither was the short flight to Teteboro, New Jersey. So with time running out and a calmness that revealed nothing of his inner turmoil, Captain Sullenberger spoke what most assumed would be his last words: ‘We’ll be in the Hudson.’

The fact that Flight 1549 landed on the Hudson River in one piece, without loss of life or serious injury was deemed nothing short of a miracle – and it some ways it was. But as Sullenberger revealed in an interview a few weeks later, he wasn’t praying during those five short minutes – ‘I assumed others were taking care of that.’ – What he was doing was responding to a unique situation as if it happened all the time.

After forty years as a pilot, Sullenberger reacted to the dilemma facing him as if it was second nature. His decision to ditch in the Hudson River wasn’t made because the rules told him that was the right thing to do. Neither was he making the decision based on the possible consequences of doing so – after all, planes are not designed to land on water, and most attempts have ended in complete catastrophe.

What allowed Captain Sullenberger to make the decision that turned out to be the ‘miracle on the Hudson’ was forty years of experience, training and discipline. Through hundreds and hundreds of flying hours, he had developed a set of habits and skills that, though now second nature to him, allowed him to make decisions that were not the obvious choices to make nor the ones that his pilot’s manual would have told him to choose.

Moral success is every bit as much about the formation of good habits over time and through disciplined effort, as any other skill. And the point of all this training and discipline is that on the day – at the moment of decision – you do the right things naturally.

Source: Different Eyes: The Art Of Living Beautifully by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, p.63-64

In Italy for around £3000 you can buy ready-made coffins that have beepers in them, two-way speakers, a torch, a small oxygen tank, and a sensor to detect a person’s heartbeat… just in case! True or false? (True)

In the mid-1700s a Russian peasant named Feodor Vassilyev gave birth to 69 children. True or false? (True) In 27 separate pregnancies she had 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets. Ouch!

In 1664, 1785 and 1860 passenger ferries sank while crossing the Menai Straight in North Wales. Amazingly, each disaster occurred on December 5th. Even more bizarre than this is that on all three occasions the name of the sole survivor was Hugh Williams. True or false? (True)

These bizarre stories are all true. What about Jesus’ resurrection: is the resurrection really true?

Source: John Dickson, Stranger Than Fiction, p.21-22

The psalmist wrote: “I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God. My times are in your hands’ (Psalm 31:14-15). As you walk with God you’ll find that you spend more time waiting than you do receiving. And when you do receive what you are waiting for, you’ll then begin waiting for something else! So we need to learn to wait with joy otherwise we will live with diminished expectations and frustration. (…) God has set a time for accomplishing things in your life and that’s when it will happen, not before. God knows what you need, when you need it, and how to get it to you. You might ask, ‘What am I supposed to do while I’m waiting?’ Trust him… say with the psalmist. ‘You are my God. My times are in your hands.’ Learn to enjoy the journey; enjoy where you are, while you are waiting to get where you want to be.

Source: The UCB Word For Today

Charles Finney, lawyer and evangelist, was speaking in a New York church in the 1830s. At the end of each evening, he gave people the opportunity to come to the front of the room and commit their life to Jesus. A great many lawyers came to hear him. One night, the Chief Justice of New York was sitting way up in the gallery. As he listened to Finney proclaiming the gospel he became convinced it was true.

Then this question came into his mind: ‘Will you go forward like the other ordinary people?’ Something within him made him think that it would be inappropriate to do so, because of his prestigious social position (at the top of the legal hierarchy of New York State). He sat there pondering the choice he had to make. Then he thought, ‘Why not? I am convinced of the truth… why should I not do it like any other person?’

He got up from his seat in the gallery, went down the staircase and came up the stairs at the back to where Finney was preaching. Finney, in the middle of his sermon, felt someone tugging at his jacket. He turned around. The Chief Justice said, ‘Mr Finney, if you will call people forward I will come.’ Finney stopped his talk and said, ‘The Chief Justice says that if I call people forward he will come. I ask you to come forward now.’

The Chief Justice went forward. Almost every lawyer in Rochester, New York, followed him! It is said that 100,000 people were converted in the next twelve months in that area. One person’s choice affected the lives of numerous others.

Life is full of choices. We make choices every day of our lives. You can make bad choices or you can make good choices. Your choices matter. Some choices have life-changing consequences.

Nicky Gumbel

Bible in One Year 2020 with Nicky Gumbel, day 123, YouVersion

The story of Christmas trees is fascinating! The tradition started in Germany hundreds of years ago. Tribes of people decorated trees to honour their gods, including the very powerful god Thor. The Oak of Thor was a huge tree that no one cut down! A Christian missionary named Boniface, who was there to spread the good news about Jesus Christ to the people, chopped down Thor’s oak to prove that Thor was a false god, not the true God who loved them and created them in his image! Nothing happened! They all began to believe in Jesus, and Boniface told them to use an evergreen tree to represent Christ, because its green leaves were constant and never-changing, like Christ’s love. So today we honour Jesus through evergreen trees at Christmas! Let’s praise God for His powerful love and how He always loves us, no matter what.

Phil Vischer

Source: YouVersion Bible reading plan, Why do we call it Christmas, by Phil Vischer

“Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet, novelist and dramatist.

A famous study in the classroom by Robert Rosenthal, a Harvard psychologist, and Lenore Jackson, a San Francisco school principle furnishes us with a good illustration of this. They asked the question: Do some children perform poorly in school because their teachers expect them to? If so, they surmised, raising the teacher’s expectations should raise the children’s performance as well. So a group of kindergarten through fifth-grade pupils were given a learning ability test and the next fall the new teachers were casually given the names of five or six children in the new class who were designated as “spurters”; the tests supposedly revealed that they had exceptional learning ability.

What the teachers did not know was that the test results had been rigged and that the names of these “spurters” had been chosen entirely at random. At the end of the school year, all the children were retested, with some astonishing results. The pupils whom the teachers thought had the most potential had actually scored far ahead, and had gained as many as 15 to 27 I.Q. points. The teachers described these children as happier, more curious, more affectionate than average, and having a better chance of success in later life. The only change for the year was the change in attitudes of the teachers. Because they had been led to expect more of certain students, those children came to expect more of themselves. “The explanation probably lies in the subtle interaction between teacher and pupils,” speculates Rosenthal. “Tone of voice, facial expressions, touch and posture may be the means by which – often unwittingly – teachers communicate their expectations to their pupils.”

Source: Alan Loy McGinnis, Bringing Out The Best in People, p.32-33

Many years ago there was a famous correspondence in The Times newspaper under the subject “What is wrong with the world today?” The best letter of all was also the shortest, and read: “Dear Sir, I am. Yours faithfully, G. K. Chesterton.” — What is wrong with the world today? We are; human beings! “I am,” said Chesterton! As the old adage goes, ‘The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart’. SIN.

Nicky Gumbel comments that people make all sorts of excuses for ignoring the claims of Christianity. Here are six of the most common ones:

‘I have no need for God.’ When people say this they usually mean they are quite happy without God. What they fail to realise is that our greatest need is not happiness but forgiveness. It takes a very proud person to say they have no need of forgiveness.
‘There is too much to give up.’ Sometimes, God puts his finger on an area of our lives which we know is wrong and we realise that we would have to give things up in order to enjoy this relationship with God through Jesus. But we need to remember: a) God loves us. He asks us only to give up things which do us harm. b) What we give up is nothing to what we receive. The cost of not becoming a Christian is far greater than the cost of becoming a Christian. c) What we give up is nothing compared to what Jesus gave up for us when he died on the cross.
‘There must be a trap/catch’. Sometimes people find it hard to accept that there is anything free in this life. They think it all sounds too easy; there must be some hidden trap. However, what they fail to realise is that although it is free for us, it was not free for Jesus. He paid for it with his own blood. It may be easy for us. But it was not easy for him.
‘I’m not good enough.’ Not one of us is good enough. Nor can we ever make ourselves good enough. But that is why Jesus came.
‘I could never keep it up.’ We are right to think we could never keep it up – we cannot by ourselves. But the Spirit of God, who comes to live within us, gives us the power and the strength to keep going as Christians.
‘I will do it later.’ This is perhaps the most common excuse. Sometimes people say, ‘I know it’s true – but I’m not ready’. They put it off. The longer we put it off the harder it becomes and the more we miss out. We never know whether we will get another opportunity.

Source: Nicky Gumbel, 30 DAYS: A Practical Introduction to Reading the Bible, 2006, Alpha Publications, p.30-31

Q. What does God want me to be?

A. Holy – “God has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace.” (2 Timothy 1:9)

Q. What does God want me to do?

A. To glorify him and enjoy him forever (1 Corinthians 10:31, see also Question 1, Westminster Shorter Catechism).

Q. What is God’s specific call on my life?

A. To use whatever gifts and talents He has blessed me with to serve others and to be a witness; a shining light that points people towards Christ. – Jesus said: “You are the light of the world… let your light shine before men” (Matthew 5:14, 16.) – When you use your gifts to glorify God you’re doing what He intended you to do.

Q. How can I do this?

A. The Spirit of truth will guide you (John 16:13.) – God says: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you (Psalm 32:8 NIV).

Overcoming obstacles: A starfish has five arms. If you cut one arm off the starfish will grow a new arm. Not only that, the detached arm will grow a whole new starfish, because the genetic imprint is contained in each and every one of its parts. – We need to be like the starfish and no matter what is thrown at us, we need to bounce back every time and multiply our efforts.

John Kehoe

Source: John Kehoe, Mind Power, 1997, Vancouver, Canada: Zoetic Books, p.3

Have you been waiting a long time for God to act or do something… praying about a particular aspect of your life, or a concern, or praying for a certain person for a long time… maybe for a very long time? I remember a true story (the details of which, unfortunately, elude me) of a godly man who prayed for over 30 years that his best friend would find Christ and come to faith. The man eventually died without seeing his prayers answered but a few days later during the funeral service, the minister read the Christian man’s eulogy and his best friend, tears streaming down his face, was converted!