God What
will you do with 2006? What
will you do with 2006? How
will you spend 2006? All those hours, days and
weeks that lie ahead of you... The
Bible says 'make the most of the time’ (Ephesians It
means that as this brand new year of 2006 begins, we are
called to take time to plug into God's plan for us –
NOW. It means becoming obedient to his revealed
will for our personal life, our work, our marriage, our
priorities... – NOW. It means prayerfully
discerning the divine and eternal opportunities before
each of us – NOW. Yes, now. 'For Now is
the accepted time. Today is the day of Salvation.'
(2 Corinthians 6.2) So, today, let us hear his
voice, let us harden not our hearts. What
is worship? Editor:
Elizabeth Goodridge and Ian Yearsley of Southwark Diocese
begin a new series on worship. Worship
is a word which is so familiar that we can easily forget
the breadth of its meaning. It is a biblical word:
in Genesis 22 Abraham tells his men that he and Isaac
will go and worship; in Matthew 4 the devil offers Jesus
all the kingdoms of the world if only he will bow down
and worship him: two out of some 150 references. Worship
is sometimes one of the most difficult aspects of
Christianity for outsiders to comprehend. Is it an
attitude or an activity? And who benefits from it,
is it something believers do for God or just to satisfy
themselves? But
worship is also a word of everyday experience; not just
the title given to some high officials, but about things
to which we assign honour and value. And so,
without always realising it, we may give worship to all
kinds of things: money, status, family, work are just a
few of them. Even, sometimes, to our particular
view of the Christian church, excluding others. In
the coming months, we shall look at a whole range of the
uses of the word 'worship'; both religious and secular,
and see how these relate to Christian faith. We
shall explore ways in which our worship of the God we
know in Jesus the Christ and through the power of his
Holy Spirit has implications for the kind of worth and
value we give to everything in life: status, mobility,
money, technology, relationships. We
shall also think about the two most characteristically
Christian acts of worship: baptism and the Eucharist.
But none of this will be abstract ideas; worship always
begins where we are, in God's real world. A world
which we share with others; how we relate to others will
determine how we share worship with them. In
2006, come near to God, and he will come near to you.
James 4.8 One
of the greatest truths of the universe is that God is on
a persistent redemptive search for each one of us. Could
2006 be the year when he finds you? Entering
into a relationship with God is not so much a matter of
trying to find him as of letting him find us. This
must not be understood, however, to mean that since God
has done everything possible to save us, our individual
salvation is now automatic. God has gone to the
utmost lengths to save us, but in order to be saved we
must turn to him in contrition and repentance and invite
him to take up residence within us. There
are many people who think that because they have felt God
close to them at certain times in their life (for
instance, when they had a miraculous escape from death or
something happened that seemed more than a coincidence)
they must be favoured by him and have no need to invite
him into their hearts. Certainly there are many
people who have an awareness of God's presence at times,
but they can never experience the rich sense of his
presence in their hearts until they invite him to come in.
He loves every one of his creation, but he loves them too
much to gatecrash the soul. He comes in only as we
give our consent. 'No
one is constitutionally incapable of finding God,' says
Billy Graham. If we do not find him, then the
problem is not to do with our constitution but with our
consent. When, by an act of the will, you decide to
let God in, then believe me, nothing in earth or heaven
can keep him out. So
if you realise that what you have at present is religion
and not a personal relationship with God, then pray this
prayer now: 'Gracious
and loving father, I realise that my eternal destiny is
in my own hands. You have done all you need to do, so now
I must do what I need to do. Loving father, I come.
Please save me. In Jesus' name I ask it. Amen. From
Selwyn Hughes (Every Day with Jesus) God's
fragrance – do people catch a whiff of it on you? 'and
the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.'
John 12.3 A
story runs of how a lady was having tea outside a tea
shop late one afternoon, when she became aware of a
pleasant scent filling the air. She asked the
waiter the source of the scent and was told that it came
from the people passing by. He explained to her
that they worked in a perfume factory down the street and
were on their way home. When they left the factory
they carried with them the fragrance that had permeated
their clothes during their day's work. As
the perfume workers leave the factory full of the
fragrance of where they have been, so we, as we leave our
churches and chapels and wherever we spend time with God,
are meant to carry the perfume of his presence with us.
We are called to spread everywhere the fragrance of the
knowledge of him (2 Corinthians 2.4). If we allow
ourselves in worship to be permeated with Christ's love
and the sweetness of his presence, then we will be able
to take the Jesus in us out into the world. MORE
THAN CONQUERORS Editor:
We are delighted to offer you a new series by the ever-popular
Dr Herbert McGonigle of This
series is about encouragement. We all need
encouragement in these days as we live our lives and
serve the Lord. Each month a Bible event and a
historical anecdote will be used to bring us a word of
help, support and encouragement. There's
more with us than with them!! 2 Kings 6:11-19.
We begin the new year with a Bible event from 2 Kings and
an anecdote from Often
we need to ask the Lord to open our eyes. When our
strength has failed and faith is weak, we're apt to think
that God has forgotten us. But he hasn't! He is near and
only our dimness of vision prevents us from seeing his
great presence and power and provision. Fear not! Trust
God! Believe His word! There's more with us
than with our enemy! In
the early 1950s a well-known department store in Finally
a letter arrived from the Quakers. It thanked the
department store for their generous offer but declined to
accept it. 'Our Meeting House has been here for
almost two hundred and fifty years,' they explained,
‘much longer than your store. We have no wish
to sell our property. However, if you would agree
to sell your site to us, we are very interested in buying
it. We will give you a very good price for it.
Just state your selling price and we will honour it.'
The letter was signed 'Cadburys.' The department
store thought they were dealing with a small congregation
of Quakers. Instead they were dealing with the
Cadburys' empire. Cadburys could have bought the
department store twenty times over! When
our enemy the devil attacks us, by ourselves we are weak
and feeble. But when Christ dwells in us by his
Spirit, we are mighty! The devil is no longer
attacking us; he is attacking the Captain of our
salvation – and the devil cannot win! There's more
with us than with him! As we go through 2006, be
encouraged. With Christ we are more than conquerors! The
Revd Dr Herbert McGonigle is Senior Lecturer in
Historical Theology and Church History at The
Basket and the Bible The
story is told of an old man who lived on a farm in the
mountains with his young grandson. Each morning,
Grandfather was up early sitting at the kitchen table
reading from his old worn-out Bible. One
day the grandson asked, "Grand-father, I try to read
the Bible just like you but I don't understand it, and
what I do understand I forget as soon as I close the book.
What good does reading the Bible do?" The
Grandfather turned from putting coal in the stove and
said, "Take this coal basket down to the river and
bring back a basket of water." The boy did as
he was told, even though all the water leaked out before
he could get back to the house. The grandfather
laughed and said, "You will have to move a little
faster next time," and sent him back to the river
with the basket to try again. This
time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty
before he returned home. Out of breath, he told his
grandfather that it was "impossible to carry water
in a basket," and he went to get a bucket instead.
The old man said, "I don't want a bucket of water; I
want a basket of water. You can do this.
You're just not trying hard enough," and he went
out the door to watch the boy try again. At
this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted
to show his grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he
could, the water would leak out before he got far at all.
The boy scooped the water and ran hard, but when he
reached his grandfather the basket was again empty.
Out of breath, he said, "See, it's useless!" "So
you think it is useless?" the old man said.
"Look at the basket." The boy looked at
the basket and for the first time he realized that the
basket looked different. Instead of a dirty old
coal basket, it was clean. "Son, that's what
happens when you read the Bible. "You might
not understand or remember everything, but when you read
it, it will change you from the inside out." Faith,
Hope and Love in Today's World: beginning with
'Faith' What
is the state of faith in This
is confirmed by a survey of those with no religious
affiliation in Destiny
- what happens after we die? Generally
people felt that traditional Christian responses were
irrelevant to these questions. Therefore, re-establishing
this link is one of the most important tasks facing the
church today. How
do we encourage faith in those around us today? It
requires an evangelistic approach that is rooted in
building relationships, trust and example. This is
reflected in the success of courses like Alpha, but it
also applies individually: We
need to listen to people's stories, in order to
understand their questions and to find out what God is
already doing in their lives. Lifestyle
is crucial, as it is here that people see the reality of
Jesus in us and our lives. We
should also be prepared for our own faith to be
challenged, as this is the way in which our faith will
grow. SERMON
NOTEBOOK: Location, Location, Location The
Garden of Eden: Genesis 2: 8-25 Paul
Hardingham continues his popular 'sermon notebook' with a
new series considering places in the Bible. This
month we start a new series of Sermon Notebook looking at
places in the Bible, beginning with the Garden of Eden.
Despite the questions surrounding its historicity, we
have here 'a story rooted within our space and time,
which catches us up into itself, and confronts us with
the truth about ourselves' (David Atkinson). So what can
we learn from Creativity The
garden provided the context for God's gift of life to
human beings. Adam is presented as an estate manager in a
park of trees. We are also stewards of God's world, who
are intended to find fulfilment in the creativity of work
and engaging with God's world. What
place does creativity have in our lives? Freedom At
the centre of the garden was the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, of which Adam was forbidden to eat. The
freedom of man was limited by this one prohibition to
remind us that human freedom is God given and conditional
upon our obedient dependence on God. Things go wrong when
we put ourselves at the centre and attempt to be God. How
do we try to make ourselves like God? Relationship God
recognised that it is not good for Adam to be alone.
Human beings are created for relationship with God and
others, reflecting the nature of God himself as Trinity.
God created Eve as Adam's helper, one to complement and
complete him. Although marriage is presented here as a
primary means of intimate relationship, today's church
has a key role in enabling intimate friendships between
single people. Where
do we experience intimacy ourselves? In
the garden Adam and Eve were naked but not ashamed. It's
this openness and unity which challenges us to live the
life of The
future of the world An
extract from a sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury The
following is an extract from a recent sermon given by
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Nidaros
Cathedral, When
God tells Adam in the first chapter of Genesis that he is
to subdue and have dominion over the earth, many would
say that this is the beginning of a tragic and
disgraceful story - the story of how human beings ravaged
and exploited the earth for their own purposes,
exhausting its resources and ruining it for future
generations. Those
who are now most deeply concerned about our environment
often accuse the Jewish-Christian tradition of being
responsible for a history of greed and abuse directed at
the natural world. But...
if humans are to 'subdue' the world, the one thing this
cannot mean is that they are licensed to treat the
creation with indifference or violence or disrespect.
The first thing we must do is surely to look at it as God
looks; to delight in the joyful order of God's mind as it
is shown in what God makes... Before human beings
were ever on the scene, creation is looked at by God with
this loving joy. Paul
reminds us in Colossians that the entire world holds
together in Christ and because of Christ. He is
supremely free, the Lord of creation. He above all
is free from the downward spirals of sin, greed, selfish
longing, violence; he alone is completely surrendered to
God the Father, receiving everything from him with total
responsive love for all eternity. It does not mean
that he manipulates and controls the world; on the
contrary, he exposes himself to the greatest risks and
dies in anguish on the cross. But it is he who
transforms everything, restoring it to its proper dignity
and beauty. So
our Jewish and Christian tradition, far from giving us
unlimited license to exploit, sets before us a picture of
what our real humanity is like; and central to that
picture is the loving appreciation of the dignity of all
God has made. It
tells us that we are in danger of slipping into subhuman
ways of relating to the world and each other. And
it shows us the path to freedom - the freedom Jesus
speaks of, the freedom to seek God's kingdom and God's
justice, careless of the risks we may run, knowing that
our value depends ... on God's loving gaze always turned
towards us. In his strength we renew our commitment
to honour the world he has made. Keeping
the eternal perspective It
has been said that "if men indeed exist for the
glory of God, then their final end and their destiny as
persons is not to be found in the passing world..." This
perspective lies at the heart of the Christian world view.
As we consider our future this year, it is good to
remember: Christians are God's servants in and for
the world, but we nevertheless have our centre of gravity
outside this world. We
are citizens of two cities: our earthly citizenship
is temporary, for here we are only 'aliens and strangers'
(Heb 11.13) who are seeking – and will one day be
given – 'a better country – a heavenly one,
whose architect and builder is God.' (Heb 11:14, 15, 10)
The church is an outcrop of the Without
a vision of eternity, we cannot get a true hold on time.
Without seeing the heavenly country we miss even the
earthly one. We are not to accustom ourselves to
this world as if it were a destination rather than part
of a journey. ....
In a season of calm weather, |