Today’s reading from the Bible, James 4v7-10: Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands and purify your hearts, you double-minded sinners. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. New International Version – UK A comment for today: James’ letter emphasizes the importance of repentance and humility. It encourages believers to submit to God and resist the devil. It tells us that James believes that if we humble ourselves before God, we will receive God’s grace and be lifted up. In the world today, much old style wisdom has been lost from our general consciousness and understanding: Repentance of sin is considered old fashioned and irrelevant. Humility is thought to be for the passive and weak. The idea of submitting ourselves to God is completely misunderstood. And resisting the devil is thought to be superstitious nonsense. Taking time to ponder: Read and reread the Bible passage and the comments and then ask yourself whether the old style wisdom is something that you struggle with too. If you do not struggles - give thanks to God; but if you do struggle - ask God to help you understand why this old style wisdom is important today. Then close with the prayer that follows. Closing Prayer: Dear God, help us to submit ourselves to You. Help us to grieve, mourn, and wail over all of our sins. Then take the burden of them from us, through Jesus. Cleanse our hands and purify our hearts and help us to resist the devil’s temptations to sin. Draw us closer to you so we hear your voice. Help us to humble ourselves before You, so You can lift us up. Amen
2nd Sunday of Lent Readings: Genesis 17v1-7&15-16; Psalm 225v23-end; Romans 4v13-end; Mark 8v31-end. Let us pray: May the words of my mouth, and the thoughts and meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. A Word: In Genesis we hear God’s promise to Abram and Sarai, that God will make them the ancestors of a multitude of nations and kings, and God will be their God forever. This is an extraordinary promise because Abram and his wide Sarai are already old, and Sarai barren. As was the custom, as a sign of this promise from God, Abram and Sarai’s names are changed, and they became Abraham and Sarah. If you read later in Genesis, you will find that this couple met with angels, they became the parents of a son they named Isaac, the son who God asked Abraham to sacrifice, the son who Abraham would have sacrificed had God not stopped him and given him a ram to sacrifice in place of Isaac. And, from this father and son, the Bible tells the story of the growth of a nation; for God kept his promise and Abraham and Isaac became the ancestor of the Israelites, the people of God, the ancestor of King David, the ancestors of the people to whom Jesus the Messiah was born. The letter to the Romans, tells us that the belief and trust that Abraham had in God’s promise was counted to him as righteousness. For Abraham believed, without wavering, that God would fulfil his promise because God was capable of doing anything. It is this kind of faith and trust – when we believe that Jesus died to take away our sins from us – that the letter tells us can be reckoned to us as righteousness too. For Jesus died for everyone, and In Mark, we hear Jesus teaching his disciples that he was to suffer, be rejected and die, before being raised back to life 3 days later. Sadly, Peter took offense at what he heard and tried to stop Jesus; but Jesus would not be stopped and he warned Peter to move out of the way, to stop seeing things from a human point of view and called what he was doing, the work of Satan. Jesus then went on to teach the crowds that we are all called to deny ourselves, to carry a cross and to follow where God is leading us to. For, if we give up our lives for the sake of Jesus and the gospel, we shall be saved; but if we refuse this call and live any other way, Jesus warns that we shall lose everything – when Jesus returns with his father and the angels. Today as I think about Abraham’s confidence in God and Peter’s shock at being likened to Satan, I feel compelled to acknowledge that we all have a choice to make. Dare we trust in God’s promises and follow Jesus’ example and have this counted to us as righteousness? Or do we refuse to do God’s bidding and condemn ourselves? For, from time immemorial, God has called all people to him, calling all of us to be the kind of people we hear about in the psalm. A people of worship and witness in a world so in need of God’s love. A people called to turn to the Lord. A people called to tell God’s salvation plan to the generations still to come. A people who praise and glorify God because he hears and responds to the cries of the poor and suffering. A people who believe and trust in the promises of God. Today, my choice is to believe and trust that what God says is true and that what God calls us to is to be his people, a people made righteousness by Jesus. Let us pray: Almighty God, father of Jesus, you know we have no power to help or save ourselves. Show us the light of your truth and the error of our ways. Return us to the way of righteousness. Help us to reject sinful ways. Guide us to live in line with your ways. Defend our hearts, souls, minds and bodies from all that would hurt and harm us. Keep us in your flock as people of your sheepfold. Amen Thank you for joining us.
Today’s reading from the Bible, Matthew 11v28-30: Come to me, all you who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. New International Version – UKA comment for today: In this reading, Jesus invites all who labour and are heavy-laden, to come to him to receive Christ’s gifts of rest, peace and comfort. This reading is a reminder that Jesus offers to walk with us, so we can learn from him and be changed by it. In this walk, Jesus invites us to wear a yoke alongside him, a yoke that is lined with his love, a yoke that can give us the guidance we need to keep God’s commands, a yoke that will not be forced upon us. For Jesus wants us to choose to walk in a yoke with him, so he can give us: the inward peace and joy we need and true rest for our souls.Taking time to ponder : Read and re-read the passage again slowly. Feel the words flow over and through you, then ask yourself the questions: Do I have burdens I want Jesus to help me to carry? Am I willing to walk with Jesus?Once you have your answer to yourself - offer them to God through Jesus then close with the prayer that follows.Adapted prayer - originally written by John BirchIn times of weakness and the hour of our need,yours Lord is the strength by which we carry on,the shoulder we rest our head upon.When our load is heavy and too great to bear,yours Lord are the arms stretched out,the grace that descends to wrap about.In our times of weakness and the hour of need,Lord, open our ears to hear you say,‘Come to me and find rest this day.’Thank you Lord, Amen
1st Sunday of Lent Readings: Genesis 9v8-17; Psalm 25v1-9; 1Peter 3v18-end; Mark 1v9-15. Let us pray: May the words of my mouth, and the thoughts and meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. A Word: In the reading from Genesis we hear about Noah. This is the man from ancient times who lived a godly life, listened to God, built an ark and filled it with pairs of animals and birds. By his obedience to God, Noah saved the animals and his family at the time of an ancient catastrophic flood that wiped away wicked people. Now in our reading, the flood is over and the water has receded. God is speaking to Noah and making an everlasting and binding promise in which God says that whenever He sees a rainbow, God will remember His promise to Noah and never again permit floods to destroy the whole of humankind. In the letter from Peter, we hear that after dying as a sacrifice of himself for humankind that Jesus went, alive in the spirit, to make an announcement to all the spirits who were imprisoned from Noah’s time; because they did not obey God and were wiped away by the flood. Peter tells us that because of Jesus and his death for the unholy, wicked and sinful; that the sin of every human being can be wiped away; in order to make us respectable, honourable and blameless in the presence of God. The letter also tells us that through baptism we are saved because through it we appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus. In Mark we hear that like so many of us, Jesus was baptised too. In Jesus’ case, he was baptised by his cousin John in the River Jordan; and as Jesus was baptised the heavens were torn apart and the spirit of God descended like a dove and a voice pronounced to Jesus that he is God’s son, the beloved, the one who God was well-pleased with. Then after his baptism, the Spirit of God thrust Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days and nights with wild beasts to keep him company, with angels to wait upon him and Satan there daring to tempt him. A reminder to us all that we spend our whole lives trying to evade and side-step temptation. But what does all of this mean for us, here and now? I believe that it tells us that not only does God know we are limited and frail creatures who Satan is always trying to trick into sin; but also that God wants to save us and make us clean and spotless. It is a plan through which God invites us to come and be saved by Jesus, who in Mark calls all who will listen to repent and believe that God’s promise has been fulfilled and the Kingdom of God come near. And, all we have to do is dare to return to God and be his people. Let us pray: Almighty God, father of Jesus, your Son who came to earth to be tempted as we are and remained clean of sin. Give us grace to know our weaknesses, to be able to control ourselves and obey your Spirit. Through Jesus: teach us your ways, nourish our faith, increase our hope, strengthen our love and empower us to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. For only through your power can we be saved from our weaknesses. Amen Thank you for joining us.
