Trustable

No, you won’t find this word in the dictionary. Trust, trusted, trustworthy, trustfulness trustiest and trusting, they are all there. The word ‘trustable’ was uttered by a youngster on national television, about a trustworthy person in his life, but in the stress of the occasion he couldn’t find the right word. ‘Trustable,’ don’t you jut love it.

Our God is completely ‘trustable’, absolutely and completely. Because we’re using a different word, maybe we will think about it more. ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.’ Psalm 46. You can’t get anything more strong and reliable than a rock. ‘God alone is my rock and my salvation. I shall never be shaken’ Psalm 62:2. ‘God is my light and salvation, whom shall I fear. The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?’ Psalm 27:1

The Bible is overflowing with words of dependability describing our God. But I think ‘trustable’ is a good way of putting it.

Church Mission Statement

I would like to share with you our church mission statement.

A family that strives to be

Whole-hearted for God

Open-hearted for each other

Broken-hearted for the world.

We want to be whole-hearted for God, whatever it may cost and we know it will cost. Jesus told us that. We want to be all for Him when the going gets tough, when we are persecuted and the world doesn’t understand us or hates us because of what we believe and the stand we make. May we not be like the Laodiceans, neither hot or cold. We want to give this Christian life all we’ve got.

We want to be open-hearted for each other, trusting each other, being there for each other. Again it can be costly. Being there when we are needed by others, it will sometimes be inconvenient, time costly, money costly. But the other members of the congregation are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We want to be broken-hearted for the world. Our world is in a terrible mess; we realise this whatever our situation or country of origin. It would be depressing to even list the world problems. May the Holy Spirit lead us to help where we can.

Our Every Provision

What do we trust? In out modern society we often forget that all we have ultimately comes from God. We’ve all heard about the young lad who thought milk came from cartons or bottles and was amazed to see a cow being milked. Even if today we are using milk substitutes, the ingredients will still come from God. Our food is all grown somewhere in the world. Again any substitutes come from God-provided substitutes

What about the air we breathe? It’s all provided by God As we take each breathe we don’t think about it. Only when the air-quality is poor caused by pollution or adverse weather conditions do we give it a thought. Mars and the moon have different atmospheres, but they are still provided by God. When harvest festivals were more popular it was a reminder of where our food came from. ‘We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, But it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand.’ Matthias Claudius.

Our provisions are not from super-markets, our wealth is not from banks (where thieves break through and steal). We can’t rely on ourselves, we are weak and fallible. ‘Our help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.’ Ps 121:2

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Heavenly Instructions.

‘Go’, ‘Get up,’ ‘Come, follow me,’ ‘Love.’ ‘Pray.’ Jesus gave many instructions to the crowds and His followers. Those instructions are the same He gives to us today. ‘Go;’ we are instructed to go and tell others about His love and sacrifice. Only a few of us go to other nations and work on what is known as the ‘mission fields.’ But we can all go and tell others, our neighbours, family, office colleagues, and work mates. It is the same instruction today, ‘Go.’

‘Get up.’ As we become older it becomes more difficult. I am not so eager to get up and obey His wishes for my life on any particular day; getting up is less inviting. But we need to get up, there are people who need our help and need to hear the good news.

‘Come follow Me,’ This is costly and out of our comfort zone. Telling others is not easy. Following our Master is not always comfortable or convenient.

‘Do not..’ There are those who think following the Christian life is a series of ‘Do Not’s.’ But every time we hear this instruction it is for our good and to keep us safe. This message could be expanded to ‘Do not because I have something better for you.’

Never Alone

As a mature English woman I was travelling alone right across Russia with a party of Australians. Talk about being out of my comfort zone! My knowledge of Russian was about three words, the country I was travelling across was beautiful but strange to my Western eyes. The Australians were delightful and friendly, but their lifestyle was so different from mine. My only constant was God, He was with me all the way.

I was reminded of the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 139:10 ‘if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me.’ By reading and meditating on God’s word when I had the opportunity I could appreciate God’s beauty in creation, the majesty of some of Russia’s architecture and the kindness of the Russians. I appreciated the warmth and companionship of my fellow travellers, I recognised God in the eyes of the street children in Vladivostok and the military precision of the Kremlin guards. I was able to prove that God was indeed at the far ends of the earth.

Sometimes it takes being lonely to feel closer to God.

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Not all the Answers

Sallie had questions. She wanted to believe in God but had so many questions. She thought that when she could find the answers, she could then come to love God. But God doesn’t organise things like that. How can our finite minds understand everything about a finite God? Then Sallie caught covid, she was one of the very ill patients, was hositialized and very nearly died. As she slowly recovered she had time to think and to know that she would never know all the answers to her questions. She decided to just accept and give her life to God. As the saying goes ‘Let Go and let God.’ God was able to work through her illness and her acceptance.

Vivienne married and moved to a remote village where she knew no-one except her new family. There was no way the villagers were going to accept her and only referred to her as David’s (her husband) wife or Stewart’s (her father-in-law) daughter-in-law. He was an important man in the village. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. ‘Oh Lord,’ she cried, ‘Aren’t I suffering enough? Then her neighbour who had also suffered from this disease invited her in for a cup of tea. The villagers, previously hostile, began to help her with all the things she couldn’t do. Suddenly she was accepted and became part of the village.

Our God is able to turn round bad things and use them for our and His good.

A Different Day

I had prayerfully planned my day; I always like to be organised, but I do talk things through with God first. There was some essential shopping to be done, then in the afternoon I planned to visit visit two separate elderly friends who do not get out very much. In between i was going to do 101 other tasks . I need to keep on top of everything.

My shopping was good and for once I had bought everything on the list. After a necessary snack break I was just about to put on my coat to make my first visit, when the door bell rang, I had a visitor. My lovely Christian handicapped friend was visiting me. We had a lovely long uplifting talk but as she was just about to leave, there was another ring of the bell. This was someone who had some business to do with me. We also had a long helpful talk . By the time she left there was no time for visiting. and my 101 jobs had not been done either. What about my God-guided pans?

Why had my plans changed so much? I had felt they were God’s plans in the first place. Why was I visited instead of visiting. It doesn’t matter, The important thing was I had been doing God’s will because I had handed over the day to Him. I didn’t need to know, I only needed to obey.

An Eye for an Eye

I love the way The Message puts it, ‘An eye for an eye……… That’s not going to get you anywhere. Here’s what I propose, ‘Don’t hit back at all.’ … No more tit-for-tat stuff.’ Matthew 5:38-42. Where is revenge going to get us? Sadly there are countries all round the world who are doing just this – tit-for-tat. The circle needs to be broken. I believe in the past there have been tribes who, intent on revenge have decimated their tribes to near extinction. To get ones own back involves violence, injury and death. The story of Poldark comes to mind.

Maybe we all have a wish to stand up for our rights, but it is not our right to cause trouble to others. Who are we to execute judgment? In Romans 12:19 we read ‘Vengeance is Mine, says the Lord, I will repay.’ Matthew 5 tells us we have been called to be peacemakers . The prayer by St. Francis of Assai says ‘Make me an instrument of Your peace, where there is injury, let my bring peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.’ In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.’ That sounds good

Not many of us have the power help nations who are at war, but when we hear a piece of unkind gossip (nearly all gossip is unkind) we can refuse to repeat it and conversely find something kind to say about that person. We can lobby the politicians, write to the government and fight for injustice against the underdog. Of course, we should not suffer abuse ourselves of any kind but God’s wisdom can protect us. After any interaction with people, they should feel uplifted.

Books, books, books

Bit by bit during the last few days I’ve been re-arranging my study. As I needed to move two book cases to better accommodate my computer it involved completely emptying the book cases. Then with difficultly I moved the empty pieces of furniture and moved the computer table about twelve inches along the wall. On replacing the books back on their shelves I was amazed how many spiritual books I had. Many were written by people I knew.

I realised that they weren’t doing me any good on the shelves. So I’ve decided to use them to enrich my Christian life. Some are by well-known authors, Tim Chester, Christopher Wright, Peter Maiden, Pete Grieg and many more. Others are by authors who have probably written only one book. Many are study books on various books of the Bible or important topics. Some of those I have read recently and they have aided me in my Christian writing. I thought about the many hours, days and years the authors have spent to produce these books, including the many hours of prayer.

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Empty Rituals

‘Do you think that all God wants are sacrifices – empty rituals, just for show? He wants you to look to Him! Plain listening is the thing, not lavish religious production.’ 1 Samuel 15:22-23 The Message.

I love the way The message puts things, so clear and in everyday language. But just think about what it says. In the western world we don’t do sacrifices, but often we do things that are just for show. ‘Don’t the church flowers look nice this week. By the way I arranged them,’ , ‘I had a record number of birthday cards this year, I must be popular!.’

By bringing conversations round to ourselves, we are idol worshipping, the idols being ourselves. In a conversation we do not have to be the centre of attention. We should not think of ourself more highly than ourselves. We probably idol worship more often than we think.