broken

I am the owner of a broken down car.
I know 'who cares', its not a very prestigious club, but I am stuck because I hold on to peices of metal without life in them.They are not easy things to process and get closure from.
I inherited this stange affilation to ferrous objects with wheels. I remember talking with Dad about a particular car the family had and expressing my thoughts on its value and what should be done with it. I said " Its just a bucket of bolts Dad lets take it down the scrapper"
I might as well have been swearing!
Dads reply "Its not a bucket of bolts 'Its a good little car'".
To Dad this car had history and He had developed a realtionship with it that would have been hurt or broken if He had 'betrayed' the car by taking it to the scrap dealer.

Dad had owned many cars but this was a GTE it was the sports model that He brought just prior to meeting my mother and it was our family car for 10 years or more. We had fixed it many times, even rebuilt the engine on the kitchen table, been on family camping holidays, I learnt to drive in it and crashed it the same day. Stuff had happened in that car. As things had broken on it they where not replaced and so in its latter stages it had no carpet or door trims where missing and it was a bit unreliable. But I used to dream at night of restoring its former glory, sometimes I would get out the pieces of trim that had long ago been seperated from there postions on the car and sit them back in place and imagine this machine as new again. It was not to be.
Eventually we found a buyer with a apreciation for what this car was really worth who made promises of restoring it as we had not been able to manage. This was a last a good home to let go of our cherished conveance to safe hands . And so the parting was achieved!

Now I have the same problem again and this is me the same person who has declared many times my desire to be without a car.

What is my problem.

A whole new world, 2012!

Sometimes I think its funny how humans think. We love new things, for example I know I used to love going back to school and getting new exercise books! acres of Fresh clean pages with no mistakes or work I am not fully satsified with. How simple these types of thoughts and pleasures are but how profound and how deep is the need we have the longing to be made perfect. We long for order and rightness we long to be clean.

But sad to say all these things are futile and empty, because if we look at our own history we should know that mistakes and imperfections will come. It is therefore irrational (humanly speaking) to hope for perfection, which is the source of our joy at comtemplating things like new year.
The world is in bad shape economically, environmentally and huge natural disasters are happening all over the planet with alarming freqency. Wars, death, starvation, sickness suffering it all won't disappear just because we get a new calander in a few days time. No mankind wills still carry all these burdens into next year and all the years afterward unless something changes.

Who should we put our hope in who will not fail? Who can make and end of this woefull life and grant us a new life in which these things are but a painful memory, which can be forgotten, instead of an every day reality.

Only the sure promises of our Mighty savior can give us course to trust and a hope that will not fail.
The eternal life He has promised will not be marked by woes and cares of this life, all our tears he promises to wipe away.
This is the new world we long for not new books or new years!
I choose to put my hope in someone, not something and not just anyone or anyman but the only man who has ever delivered completely according to His word. Jesus. Come Lord Jesus come.

Detierch Bonhoffer, a man who stood upon The Rock.

When God gets a hold of a man, When that man gives all of himself to the service of the Master, Powers of good are released through that man that inspire other men for years and years and years.
Even though His life was shortened by forces of evil, the work He was able to achieve touched many and without any self promotion or aggrandisment. He simply walked the course that was layed out for Him without faltering or caving in to fear. Such is the nobility of a son of the living God.

Oh that I would be like Him Lord, that my eyes would see the glory of the coming of the King and yet not fail to notice the beggars by the wayside that cry out in want of the saviour, send me to those whose hearts have been made ready that I may with them prepare a way for the Lord.

Mighty men

What where the mighty men (that King David lead a little futher down the path of history) doing when Golith was making a mockery of Gods people? Where was their might then, surely men who where capabale of despatching 300 men single handed would have not feared one measly Giant. Where did their might come from if they didn't possess it previously.

The fearless Leadership of David (a gift of the Holy Spirit) increased the courage of His men. David was a cataylst, a conduit for the zeal of the spirit and it caught a fire where ever he went. However David was not a self made man and he knew it. He was chief among men at retreating into God. David and his men where formidable, even untouchable force when their leader was walking closely with God. But God was always his source, His was the Power, and the Glory which David expressed so well in many verses.


God chose David because He was the least of His brethern and only a common shepherd. Humility is the key to meekness , or what I call quiet inner strength and Submission to the Highest Authority . Without this strong leaning on the Almighty we shall all fail and fall. God made David and God will make any man who doesn't trust in his own strength but rather in the power of the Holy one to accomplish His will through us.
Let us retreat into God men. Meditate on His Awesme Majesty. Who is like Him who sits on High.

Daily bread

With what shall we fill ourselves today? Today I have food in the cupboard but what of tomorrow?

Questions that plague people the world over? Even wealthy obese westerners are concerned about these although they are readly able to calm their fears with more food which is seldom far away at the moment. Concern over these issues drives people to buy insurance, build storehouses and make their stomach their god.

God however wants us to be content.

How can we be content with all these fears constantly attacking us? BY TRUSTING IN HIM.

If we are afflicted by fears God wants us to turn to Him for comfort. Is he able to comfort us? Has he not provided all our needs according to His riches in Glory?
ABOSOLUTELY.

God hand is not short that He cannot do anything. Nothing is impossible for Him, or us if we will only trust Him.

Today I die, said the Groom.

I attended the wedding of a quiet man.
It was a refreshingly christian wedding. Holiness being held as worth more and of lasting value compared to the cheap, quick pleasure of gratifing the flesh.
At speech time the groom who is a man of few words, told us about Adam being put to sleep so God could remove his rib and He likened this to dying. He went on to say when adam was born again by awakening he was blessed with a wife!
Matt was at the end of His single life and being born again into wedlock. It was without a doubt the most well considered and exellent speech I have ever heard at a wedding. It seemed like a good match so I pray that they will be happy and fruitfull together.

Why Doctrine is not God!

"As high as the heavens are above the earth so high are my thoughts above yours, Says the Lord."

For God knows all the thoughts of man, that they are vain altogether.

Why does any Man rise up, be it individually or collectively in synod or council, and declare what He believes in His mind to be full and final truth. How can anyone be so arrogant.
Its like one drowning man saying to another I feel like the water around me is getting more solid why don't you come this way because surely it is the way of salvation!

This what I believe and I could be wrong, God is knowable because He has revealed Himself, But we still dont know everything, nor will we ever, being finite approching infinite.
However the things that are revealed are not mysterious but plain and easily understood so that even a child can grasp them. That is why men are without excuse everywhere because the Creation reveals all that is necessasary to demand that Man seek to know God.
But some men amongst us have a pastors desire to gather the sheep into a fold, which is good and God given, They follow this course to the next logical step which is to define the inclosure.

This brings us to the doctrines and the undisputed King of doctrines in Western protestant Christianity, The Trinity Doctrine.
He's a really important question, if Doctrines are a work of God and so essential and foundational to the true faith, Why does God not then lay them out clearly in the Bible itself, Why do we require more books, creeds & catechisms ,or extra biblical information and sermonizing to actually get them straight in our heads? Surely sola scripture is all we'll ever need!(BTW I do not belive this but it is the main thrust of the next doctrine in the list 'The sufficency of Scripture', not realising that it contradicts itself!)

some doctrines are not the work of God but of man I say this because the don't come to us outlined in the cannon of scripture. They do not perfectly serve the purposes of God because they are faulty like the the men who wrote them and those who perpetuate them through the ages. That doesn't stop men from being proud of them though, men find it extremely easy to stand back and admire the work of there hands and bask in the warm sunlight of the pride of life. Of course not realising that they have fallen under a shadow in doing so. The only safe action for a believer/servant is to do Gods will and having done it glorfiy the One who willed it done.

In a recent semon I heard a doctirne of Man was being praised as though it was God, I quote " The Glory and the Majesty of the Trinity Doctrine is revealed!"
This coupled with the fact that with the attitude of the speaker seemed similar IMHO to the attitute of Saul as he zealously persecuted Christians, led me to the conclusion that This doctine has become for those who zealously defend it a false God in itself.

I will then reveal my firm foundation, my rock is that Christ Jesus is the Son of the living God.
This is the true foundation and all other ground is sinking sand as the hymn goes. This is not the trinity doctrine you will note. If the trinity doctrine was the bedrock, and keystone on which we should be building the church why did the Holy Spirit not cause Peter to say that "You are one of the persons of the triune Godhead."
He could easily have done this and it would have saved lots of fighting!

The God who created all languages has given us two terms that all men can easily understand and even translate clearly into any language. They are 'Father' and 'Son'. Real simple and with the knowledge of these terms comes the understanding that the former precedes the latter. Yet the trinity Doctrine denies this universal truth, And this is why I know it is false.
Two persons cannot be co-eternal and still rightly be called Father and Son. To do so is to render the terms meaningless. Which is nonsense and I am Absolutely certain that our Great God who ordered the universe so precisely could ever allow Himself to be defined by a nonsense.

I do not deny the Divinity of Christ or His right to be known as God or recieve our worship. But I don't consider God to be anyone's name, Its a title given to Divinity and its because of this that the written word we now possess is confusing espeically in John 1.
As for equality its like a wise man once said,
"All things are equal, it's just that some are more equal than others!"
Jesus is of course equal to the Father but in the same way my wife is equal to me. As it says in 1 Corinthins 15:27-28
For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under [him, it is] manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

The only defense to these glaringly obvious truth's Trinity adherents have is the flight to mystery which doesn't wash with me. There are things I don't expect to understand like the nature of eternity, but I refuse to leave my mind at the door when I come church since I know God wants me to Love Him with all of it!