Jesus said about Himself…‘I tell you the truth. The Son cannot do anything alone. He sees what His Father is doing and He does the same’. (John 5: 19)
Being fully surrendered to God means having the attitude of a ‘servant’
Philippians 2: 5-8 5‘Think as Jesus Christ thought. 6 Jesus has always been as God is. But He did not hold to His rights as God. 7 He put aside everything that belonged to Him and made Himself the same as a servant who is owned by someone. He became human by being born as a man. 8 After He became a man, He gave up His important place and obeyed by dying on a cross’.
The Bible gives us an illustration of what it means to be God’s servant
Jeremiah 18: 6 ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so you are in My hand…’
God has made you for His purposes
Stay in God’s hands
Obey His every command
By surrendering ourselves to God in this way, we fulfil the purpose we were made for
Ephesians 2:10‘For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Jesus Christ, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago’.
Illustration Elijah calls down fire from Heaven and all Israel turn their hearts back to God
Elijah did not act on his own initiative; he was fulfilling the purpose he was made for
1 Kings 18: 36 ‘Let it be known that I am Your servant, and have done all these things at Your command’.
Illustration2 Sunday nights ago, after busy ministry on Saturday and Sunday, Ps. Xiao Yuan went to a restaurant for the evening meal (chi wan fan)
God had another purpose for her being there!
She met a young Chinese lady
God was drawing this young lady to Himself
On the Monday afternoon Ps. K and Wang Juan met with her and guided her into a salvation experience with Jesus!
Last Sunday Ping Jin was water baptized
She will be joining the Chinese ‘Experiencing God’ Group soon
Holy,Holy,Holy, Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee
Holy, Holy, Holy, Merciful and Mighty
God in Three persons, blessed Trinity
Holy,Holy,Holy thought the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see.
Only thought art Holy, there is none beside thee,
Perfect in power, in love and purity.
Holy,Holy,Holy, Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and sky and sea.
Holy,Holy,Holy merciful and mighty
God in Three persons Blessed Trinity
Holy,Holy,Holy, Lord God Almighty…
Why do we repeat these beginning words? Surely it is to constantly remind ourselves that there is a separation of the things in our life. There are the mundane which are the secular aspects of life. In comparison there exists that which should be separate and be appreciated for its being so much above, higher, greater than the mundane. Those aspects that are so much greater need to be considered separately as being HOLY.
What therefore is HOLY? Considering that we see the Lord Almighty as Holy, we should realise that it is a person, not a thing. Our Sovereign Lord is Holy indeed and we need to come to Him in reverence and awe.
Mankind over the centuries has tended to take the idea of holiness in its glory and attached it to things. The Old Testament does indeed designate items to be set aside and treated as holy, but we have transferred this through to items of our own creation. Ponder on what various people today say about objects or people being anointed. Are they objects that God has designated or are they just man designated? Holy water for example, items of the communion table, buildings, robes and the such have been given an inherent ‘holiness’ which can lead to these items being worshipped instead of the Lord.
The worshipping of such things has distracted us from the purity of Holiness. We need to reawaken our sense of awesomeness at the Majesty of our Almighty God and worship Him and Him alone.
The veil was rent in two and therefore the old ways are no longer necessary. Each and every believer has an instant access to our Lord and God through Jesus Christ. We don’t need helps to meet Him, but we do need to meet with Him – but when?
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee…
As we read through the gospels we come across passages that refer to Jesus going off on his own to pray and often this is mentioned as early in the morning.
Our sleep is an amazing part of our life which we often take for granted. Our bodies don’t shut down when our minds are ‘put on hold’ but continue unabated with the lungs constantly breathing in and out and the heart steadily pumping right through the night. The muscles we used or abused during the day relax and our whole body is being silently renewed ready for the next day’s efforts.
When waking in the morning the mind too is mostly refreshed and ready for the tasks ahead. Early in the morning is a time when it is usually quiet with the air still and fresh itself. Often, as well, there are few people around to distract you by demanding to be listened to or to do something for them.
It is at this time when each and every believer’s hearts and minds should meet with their Lord. It is then that they should realise just who they are and thank Him for who He is and what He has done in the creation of the world and for its continuous existence.
Consider that in contrast the first thing that many people do is to turn on a radio or a TV to get the latest news, which is often about murders, wars, protests, catastrophes and the like, or to go to the other extreme, what the latest pop star or sports person is doing in their lives. What frame of mind will be developed for good in such people?
On the other hand ponder on how uplifting, how powerful, how exciting and how peaceful it is to have time with our Lord each morning knowing that we can be in His care throughout the day.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Merciful and Mighty…
As we recognise His holiness we ponder and feed on His gracious mercy. Think of what He has done for us in that we don’t actually deserve anything. We often forget Him, many people actually ignore Him, some despise and hate Him, and some don’t even believe He exists.
If this attitude happened towards us as a person we would surely react with possible bitterness, anger or disappointment and want to reject the person who hurt us. Is God like that? No, He is merciful and forgives those who finally meet with Him and is longsuffering at all times with everybody.
God in Three persons, blessed Trinity.
He does this through the three aspects of His being – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament times the aspect that was mostly seen was as the Father through His mighty works. However as we read the Psalms especially we can see aspects pointing towards the Son and through all the actions of the Holy Spirit moving through many and mysterious times. The wonder is that after the reconciliation of fallen man by Jesus’ death on the cross and the temple curtain being ripped in two, thus distinguishing the end of an era, Jesus bestows on believers the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What we have in us is but a miniscule amount of the Holy Spirit’s total power and majesty, but it is totally sufficient for our frames.
What a blessed combination of Grace and Mercy is this aspect that we call the Trinity- three in one, one in three, distinct yet complete. It is no wonder unbelievers cannot understand this but to those who do believe it is a mind illuminating blessing.
Holy,Holy,Holy thought the darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see.
God hidden through darkness? The darkness here is that of the mind. Consider how dark fallen man’s mind is. So often it is focused on itself and cannot see the beauty of anything around it. It is all of self and ravages against anything that is not in its own frame of reference. Therefore it is not surprising that God’s Glory is incomprehensible because not being able to be seen, then it doesn’t exist for them at all. To such people who cannot see, being able to see is an illusion- such people to them have been ‘conned’ into believing a non-entity. A totally blind person from birth just cannot understand what visual sight really is even though it does exist. Just because someone won’t recognise God’s Glory doesn’t negate its existence likewise!
Only thought art Holy, there is none beside thee, perfect in power, in love and purity…
A totally blind person can create a visual reality in their mind, but it cannot be the real thing. Similarily many people create a God of their own imagination. Maybe their God will always make things go well, will always save them from harm, will always give them prosperity and good fortune. These images are never perfect; they are stained by our feeble minds. Only God is Holy in its absolute sense and any attempts to totally understand this state by our minds will always fall short. We would love to have perfect understanding but must leave that to Him alone. Likewise His love and power are so immense, so embracing, that all we can do is stand in awe and be engulfed by His grandeur knowing that in spite of the infinite value of all that God is, He can relate to each and every person as an individual in a unique manner.
Holy,Holy,Holy, Lord God Almighty! all Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and sky and sea.
By the process of brainwashing over centuries most of mankind has lost the power to recognise the works of God and His general Providence in the day to day functioning of the world. There has always been a ‘seeking’ attitude in man to understand the world in which he lives and this led to the development of ‘science’. Originally this science was to seek how God had created and caused things to function. Over time God became left out and knowledge became the end in itself. Nowadays many people regard anything to do with God as a hindrance to science and stops people being ‘open-minded’ to new discoveries.
God, however, constantly overrules such notions. For those who can see there are a plethora of situations. Doctors may perform surgery, but the body also has a tremendous part within itself to heal and most often this is through rest. In nature we see constant examples of God’s work and blessings through the ebb and flow of seasons, in rain and sunshine, in wind and calm. Basically the world has never changed. Over centuries man has shifted some things on the surface which is mere scratch on an orb, yet the planet remains as it has always been. All this time God has worked for this little planet in so many ways most of which we are not aware of at all. All these works lead to praise for their maker in the form of a testimony to His goodness –if only we could be truly see!
Holy,Holy,Holy merciful and mighty God in Three persons Blessed Trinity..
Mercy comes to different people in different ways. To some it really equates to giving them what they want, even though they don’t want to do anything to earn it. To others it can equate to letting them off when a wrongdoing has been committed- with no responsibility and no consequence.
God’s mercy is to give to an individual a pardon for all the wrongdoings without them even seeking it, initially without even seeing any need for it. Modern man especially shuns from the thought that he is born a sinner who is separated from God as a consequence of the Fall. He sees himself as having been born perfect and then being ‘damaged’ by his parents, society or total environment. As a consequence of this attitude he feels he is not responsible for any supposed failures. However he has inherited an innate knowledge of good and evil, yet has a tendency to always err to what is wrong in the eyes of God. Mercy is God having dealt with this through Christ’s death on the cross. This was done without any pleading from men. It was God’s initiative from the start and is given freely to all who acknowledge Him. All of mankind deserves death, but God’s mercy overshadows this and the millions who have or will accept what He has done for them really know first hand what this mercy means.
At the same time He is also mighty in all of its immense meaning. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that He is not in full control of. His might is such that He can withhold it completely, use it gently or even use it with catastrophic force all according to His great purposes.
The word Trinity is not in the Bible, but the essence of it is throughout the old and new Testaments.
‘Tri’ means three, as a triangle having three sides or a tricycle having three wheels.
Often the analogy of ice/steam/water is used to describe this relationship. However this analogy is not really a good one. The problem is that the molecules of ice/water/steam do not all occur at the same time. The actions of temperature change it from one state to another.
The Trinity however is the state that each part of it exists as a totally entity at all times. To many people this appears to be ludicrous, and to an unspiritual mind it could be said to be true. However to the spiritual mind that has been enlightened and expanded it is accepted by believing that it is indeed a true fact and as a result believers can look in awe at the Majesty of the Trinity.
Over the centuries man has ‘discovered’ more and more things and as such his ability to ‘think’ is considered more advance today than it was a few centuries ago. We often see this idea bandied around; ‘People in the old days just don’t have the knowledge we have today’. By implication modern man puts himself on a pedestal compared to his forefathers’ understandings. However true this is in many ways he doesn’t contemplate that there is so much more to know and one day his very own ideas will be seen as linked to the dinosaurs.
Taking this idea to its conclusion we can understand that there are thoughts beyond what we can presently understand and the concept of the Trinity will then be able to be fully understood. What a blessing to accept this as believers now.
Living their life, making their plans to get what they want and expecting God to bless them
When God doesn’t bless them…They become disappointed with God
They say…“Since believing in Jesus, God has not blessed me…so, I don’t believe in Jesus anymore”
James 4: 13 ‘Listen carefully, those of you who make your plans…’
James 4: 15 ‘It would be best to say…if the Lord wills, we will…do this or that.’
The Christian Life is not about Jesus following you around blessing your plans and what you want
The Christian Life is you following Jesus and doing what God wants!
Matthew 4: 18-20
Notice: They followed Jesus
They did not say: “Jesus, we are so glad You came today, quick; get in the boat, wave Your hands all over the place and bless our fishing business – see You later!”
Matthew 4: 21-22
Notice: ‘…immediately they…followed Him.’
They did not say: ‘Jesus, how nice of You to come by and see what we are doing, it’s not convenient for us to follow you right now, our lives are quite busy; you know what it’s like, family commitments, all this work we have. Why don’t you come back when we have some free time – then we will reconsider your offer’
Jesus showed us that when we are fully surrendered to God, we will experience God!
John 5: 1-8 God healed a crippled man through Jesus
John 5: 19 ‘…the Son does nothing on His own initiative; all these actions are led by the Father. The Son watches the Father closely and only does what he sees the Father doing.’
Fully surrender to Jesus and you will experience God
In 1962, at the opening of Vatican II in Rome, Pope John XXIII affirmed, “I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent.” Vatican II itself “proposes again the decrees of the Council of Trent.” On 12/31/95, honoring the 450th anniversary of the opening of Trent, Pope John Paul II declared, “Its conclusions maintain all their value.”
Regardless of what a Catholic friend, a liberal priest, or a professor at a Catholic university may say, Trent remains the official teaching of Rome and has been reconfirmed many times since by the highest Church authority. Here are only a few of Trent’s anathemas, all of which were renewed by Vatican II, The Code of Canon Law, and the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, and which remain today as the official teaching of Roman Catholicism, sustaining the inflexible dogmas of that “infallible” Church, regardless of statements by anyone to the contrary:
*If anyone denies that by…baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted [or] denies that…[the] justice, sanctification and redemption…of Jesus Christ is applied both to adults and to infants by the sacrament of baptism…let him be anathema….
*If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law [i.e., the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church] are not necessary for salvation…and that without them…men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification…let him be anathema….
*If anyone says that baptism is…not necessary for salvation, let him be anathema….
*If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out…that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema….
*If anyone says that the sacrifice of the mass…wherein that life-giving victim by which we are reconciled to the Father is daily immolated on the altar by priests…is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross but not a propitiatory one…offered for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities, let him be anathema.
No bolder nor clearer rejection of the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ could be declared. This brief sample presents the actual teaching of Roman Catholicism as it is taught to and practiced by hundreds of millions of Catholics today. There is no disputing the fact that this is a false gospel, which, sadly, holds Roman Catholics in bondage on their way to the flames—not of a “purgatory” invented by popes, but to the eternal Lake of Fire.
I do not believe we fully understand this Pandora’s Box Marriage Legislation, where within 10yrs
the next frontier will be multiple partners, all in the name of human rights
I do not believe there is adequate study done on the issue of personal identity of kids raised by
2 dads or 2 mums, or eventually 3 dads and 5 mums, or 9 dads and 21 mums
I do not believe this issue has been debated fully, completely and comprehensively
I do not believe our pragmatic politicians care for the moral climate of the country, nor do they
listen to the will of the people (moral asset sales)
I do not believe we have politicians with moral courage in our hive of bees, where political spin
becomes a disease with one aim: the retention of power
I do not believe that our ancestors or forefathers would comprehend or welcome this change
I do not believe those who died in wars for our liberty would welcome this moral change
I do not believe our descendents, whose gender identity will become even more confused will
welcome this watershed moral change
I do not believe that unborn kids have a voice in this issue, no one ever talks about their rights:
my unborn kids deserve a mum and a dad, logic declares it, observation witnesses it,
study reveals it, common sense declares it
I do not believe Christian ministers will not be required to perform gay marriages against their
conscience, and thus be guilty of ‘hate speech’ leading to imprisonment
I do not believe that Christians who look to the moral standards of the Bible will not be thrown to
the political and media lions, for coliseum entertainment
I do not believe any good will come of this further liberalisation of traditional values, which have
not been tried and found wanting, they have simply not been tried
If this legislation passes then as the politicians clap and cheer at the so-called ‘victory’ a great
wail will go up from ancestors and descendents alike, as we step further to the moral fiscal cliff.
Our jails are full, our rates of domestic violence are the highest in the world, our crime rate soars,
society is sick and we think that liberal laws and the sexualisation of the young will fix it.
Kids have a right to be raised by a mum and a dad. We have not strengthened that traditional
family picture for a generation and we wonder why the social fabric crumbles, why we need
to spend over a billion dollars a month on welfare.
We think to further liberalise the gender roles and doing away with the terms ’husband’ and wife’
is ’less discriminatory’ more ‘loving and accepting’. Bar humbug. Confused genders roles
means a greater social breakdown, more moral decay, more cynical laughter, more ignorant
platitudes, increased sexualisation of the young, and the imposition of all this crap upon those
who hold to a Biblical worldview, to the point of imprisonment. Freedom of speech…. yeah right.
We live in an age of techno-fodder, overwhelmed daily by a growing plethora of media carnage,
explicit tv violence and sexual imagery. And no one knows where it will all lead. But the Bible does.
It talks of a time in human history when right will be called wrong, and wrong will be called right,
prior to a Judgement Day, an Armageddon, that doesn’t feature Arnold Schwarzenegger.
We think that moral laws are ours to make and ours to break. On Judgement Day we will discover
to our horror this is not the case. We cannot break the law of gravity without paying a high price.
We cannot break God’s moral law of gravity without paying a high price.
Kids deserve a mum and a dad. Anything less is not the ideal. In all the raucous debate and
name-calling its funny how the rights of the kids are never mentioned. More fool us.
I do not believe that is silence I hear this morning as I walk along a quiet waterfront before dawn.
It is the haunting wail of an unborn child, pleading to be raised by a mum and a dad.
1. Palestine was NOT an Arab nation that the Jews came in and took over after the UN vote in 1947. Great Britain, in fact, controlled that region of the Middle East until she grew tired of governing the volatile area and asked the UN to decide what to do with it. Before Great Britain won the land in WWI, the Turks had controlled it since the early 1500s. Turks are not Arabs. In fact, Palestine has never been the name of any country!
2. Where did the name come from? The Romans! In an effort to rid Judea of its Jewishness, the Romans renamed the area Filistia (Palestine) in the mid-130s CE. They were tired of pesky Jewish uprisings and so decided to deport the Jews and change the name. The name came from the ancient Philistines (who have no connection to present day Arabs. The Philistines were wiped out in 1200 BCE). It was a region not a nation. There has never been a president of Palestine (before Arafat), or a government of Palestine! It could be compared to New England, which is a region in America and has no government.
3. The UN Vote did not merely give Israel authority to create a state, but granted to the Arabs living on the West side of the Jordan river to also create an independent country. The Arabs rejected it. They could have had their own nation in 1948, but they said no. The Jews accepted it and on May 14th, 1948 Israel was re-birthed. The Arabs became part of Jordan.
4. When the PLO was created, Jordan controlled the West Bank. The goal of the PLO was to liberate Palestine. However the West Bank was already in Arab hands. They wanted Israel. In other words, if their goal was to create an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, they should’ve been fighting Jordan, not Israel! Of course, their goal was Israel’s demise.
5. Before Israel was re-birthed in 1948, any person who lived in that region was considered Palestinian: Arab or Jew. The Jewish newspaper was called the Palestine Post. Why would any Jew name his newspaper after another people group? Why would any Jew name his paper after an Arab country?
6. Jerusalem was first capital of Israel under King David. It has never been the capital of any other country—including the fictitious Palestine. It has never (until Israel controlled it) been significant to Arabs. In others words you will not find these words in the Quran, but the Hebrew Scriptures: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.” (Ps. 137: 5-6)
7. When Israel captured Jerusalem in 1967, it was not from Palestinians, but from Jordan. Why didn’t Palestinians demand Jerusalem, when Jordan controlled it (1948-1967)? Why didn’t the Jordanians create an independent Palestinian state with the West Bank? It was certainly in their power? The reason is simple. Jordanians made no distinction between Arabs that lived east of the Jordan and those who lived west of the Jordan. They were all Jordanian. According to the quote at the top of this blog, Jerusalem has always been the capital of Palestine. Did anyone tell the Jordanians?
8. Israel had no plans on attacking Jordan during the Six Day War. However, King Hussein believed the false reports from Egyptian President Nasser of Egypt that they were winning the war. King Hussein, in hopes of getting more land, attacked Israel and his troops were driven back over the Jordan River in a matter of days. That is how Israel ended up with Jerusalem in 1967.
9. There is no language known as Palestinian. They speak Arabic like Jordanians and Syrians and Egyptians.
10. There is no rich Palestinian history. You will not find history books that detail Palestinian culture going back centuries.
11. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (a nation created by Great Britain 1922), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.
12. Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the landmass.
13. When the Jewish people began to return to ‘Palestine’ in the late 1800s: The Turks, not the Arabs, controlled it. Every bit of Land was paid for by the returning Jews—nothing was stolen! Even in 1948, the Arab were invited to join the new state. Many did, and they became the most liberated Arabs in the Middle East. However, 600,000-800,000 fled, and of course, Israel.
14. Israel was a swamp-infested wasteland that no one, including the Arabs really cared about. Until the Jews returned the land suffered neglect. It was only after the Jews came back and made the land prosperous and fruitful again and developed a nation, that the fictitious Palestinian history was developed.
15. Religious Significance of Jerusalem. Jerusalem or Zion appears nearly ONE THOUSAND times in the Old and New Covenants, whereas it appears in the Koran exactly ZERO times!
revdotdavid 