Let's Help Each Other To Preach God's Love.

Jesus Christ is God’s beloved Son – the Saviour sent to us by the God of love.

‘Here is My Servant, whom I uphold, my Chosen One in whom I delight; I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will bring justice to the nations’ (Isaiah 42:1; Matthew 12:15-21).

These words turn our thoughts towards the Lord Jesus Christ.

At His baptism, we hear the voice of the Father – ‘This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.’ At His baptism, we see ‘the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and resting on Him’ (Matthew 3:16-17).

Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s Word of prophecy: ‘All mankind shall see the Saviour sent from God’ (Luke 3:6).

After His resurrection, we hear Jesus Himself speaking. He says, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…’ (Matthew 28:18-20).

Let us bring Christ to the nations. Let us serve the Lord in the power of the Spirit.

Never take God’s love for granted. Let us be deeply appreciative of His love.

Read about God’s ‘steadfast love’ and rejoice in Him: ‘Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens…How precious is Your steadfast love, O God! …O continue Your steadfast love to those who know You…’ (Psalm 36:5, 7, 10).

Rejoicing in the Lord’s ‘steadfast love’ is quite different from taking His love for granted.

We dare not say, “God loves me. I can do what I like.”

We must not become like the wicked – ‘there is no fear of God before his eyes’ (Psalm 36:1).

Where there is true rejoicing in God’s ‘steadfast love’, there will also be ‘the fear of the Lord’ which ‘is the beginning of wisdom’ (Psalm 111:10).

A real appreciation of God’s ‘steadfast love’ brings with it a real awareness of our own sinfulness.

Knowing how much God loves us leads us to pray, ‘Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away’ (Psalm 36:11).

Through Jesus Christ, the God of love gives to us His wonderful redemption.

God gave His promise – ‘I will make a new covenant’ (Hebrews 8:8-12; Jeremiah 31:31-34).

God has fulfilled His promise. There is now a ‘new covenant in Jesus’blood’ (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25).

The old covenant cannot even begin to compare with the new covenant. It is only a ‘shadow.’

The new covenant is the real thing. It is ‘much more excellent’. It is ‘a better covenant’ (Hebrews 8:5-6),

The old covenant is ‘outdated’ (Hebrews 8:13). It has seen its day. Now, it’s past its ‘sell by date’!

We look at the old covenant and we say, ‘There must be more than this’.

There is more – ‘much more’.

Through ‘the blood of Christ’, ‘our hearts and lives’have been ‘cleansed’. Now, we can begin ‘to serve the living God’ (Hebrews 9:14).

‘What a wonderful redemption!’- ‘eternal redemption’ (Mission Praise, 765; Hebrews 9:12)!

Through Jesus Christ, the God of love gives to us His victory over Satan.

The Pharisees are developing their wicked plan. God is fulfilling His saving purpose (John 11:49-53).

The voice of ‘common sense’ is not always the voice of the Lord (John 12:4-6).

There is a higher wisdom than ‘common sense’. We are to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He leads us to put Jesus at the centre of our lives.

Jesus is not suggesting that the poor are unimportant. He is emphasizing that we must not lose sight of Him.

If our concern for the poor is not truly grounded in devotion to Christ, it is not the obedience of faith (John 12:8).

The Pharisees are lying in wait for Jesus. They say, ‘The world has gone after Him’ (John 12:19). They are going after Him too – in a different way!

The crucifixion draws near. God is to be ‘glorified’ in the defeat of Satan and the salvation of sinners (John 12:28, 31-32). Jesus had ‘come’ for this ‘hour’ (John 12:27).

What are we to do when everything seems to be hopeless?

1 Kings 14:1-15:8

What are we to do when everything seems to be hopeless? – We turn to You, Lord. You are the God of hope. Our hope is in You. You can turn things around. Your love changes everything. Your love changes us. Thank You, Lord, for Your love. It’s Your love that gives us hope for the future. We look to the future – and we look to You. We say, “I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

What, Lord, is most important to us – the person who leads us in worship, the place where we worship, or the God whom we worship?

1 Kings 8:14-53

What, Lord, is most important to us – the person who leads us in worship, the place where we worship, or the God whom we worship? We know what our answer should be – but, often, our lives tell a very different story. Help us, when we worship, to learn that nothing and no-one can ever be more important than You. May our lives start catching up with the lessons that we learn when we are reading Your Word.

No-one goes on forever.

1 Kings 1:1-53

No-one goes on forever. We read about David’s reign coming to an end, about David being replaced by Solomon (1 Kings 1:30). Help us, Lord, to pray that the future will be “greater” than the past (1 Kings 1:37,47). In all of life’s changes, help us to remember this: You are the living God (1 Kings 1:29) – the God who remains constant when everything else is changing, the God whose love is unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable.

We thank You, Lord, that You are the God of new beginnings.

1 Kings 2:1-46

We thank You, Lord, that You are the God of new beginnings. Your purpose doesn’t stand still. It moves forward. Will we move forward with You? – That, Lord, is the question that each of us must ask answer. We cannot stand still. There are two ways we can go. We can move forward with You. We can go back to the past, back to what we were before Christ saved us, before He took hold of our lives, before He began to make us new people. Dare we even think of going back to the old life? That life can’t even begin to compare with our new life in Christ. Help us, Lord, to press on into the future, Your future, the new life in Christ, eternal life.

Jesus Christ takes us out of judgment and into salvation.

Unbelievers have ridiculed “fire and brimstone” preaching. We cannot, however, allow their scornful attitude to lead us to dismiss “fire and brimstone” preaching. We dare not say that such preaching belongs to the past. We must note that the Bible preaches “fire and brimstone.” We must ask, “How does the Bible preach “fire and brimstone”?” The fact that the Bible preaches “fire and brimstone” means that this emphasis on divine judgment must not be excluded from our preaching in today’s world. The way that the Bible preaches “fire and brimstone” teaches us that we must always preach with a view to leading men and women to know Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Jesus Christ is the only way out of judgment. Jesus Christ is the only way into salvation. We hear the Gospel. we hear its promise. We hear its warning. The Gospel places us at a cross-roads. Each of us must decide. We must come to Christ. We must trust Him as our Saviour. We must come to Him, believing that He died on the Cross for us. We must come to Him and receive His free gift of the forgivenss of our sins. It is only through faith in Him that we will come to know, for ourselves, the truth of the final words of Psalm 11: “upright men will see His face” (verse 7).

Overlowing Blessing

Psalm 23 - "The Lord is my Shepherd ... "

The words are so familiar. When we start to think that we understand all that this great Psalm is saying to us, the Lord comes to with something new, something fresh, something that speaks to our hearts, something that brings blessing into our lives. What are to say about this? ~ From God to us, comes blessing, much blessing. How much blessing? Who can say? All we can say is this - It's His blessing, and His blessing "overflows" (v. 5).