Category Archives: Pastor’s Desk

COME OUT!

Pastor's Desk

Dear Family

Living life as a believer is becoming increasingly more difficult in some ways and in others, actu-ally easier. As our world spirals into anti-godliness and the doctrines of man, it can become more easy to see the difference between light and dark. On the other hand, unless we are rooted in the Word, unshakeably, we will find it more and more difficult to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.

God’s condition for sonship is quite simple as found in 2 Corinthians 6:17-18 “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

Almighty God leaves no room for a watered down life-style. Either we are for Him, or against Him. Running with the foxes and hunting with the hounds is just not what we are all about as believers. God is looking for a people who will not entertain the things of this world as desirable above Him. In fact, we read in James 4:3 “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” Ouch! Can’t get clearer than that!

Unfortunately we are being pummeled on every side to water down what the Bible says and to believe instead the popular feelings and philosophies of the day. Even large segments of the church have capitulated faith and adherence to the Word in favour of a liquidized religion which proceeds from the mouth of Hollywood. The angel of light is successfully blinding many believers. People who previously stood for the Word and even impacted Christianity in huge measures have been corrupt-ed and fallen from the faith. The Bible warns us that these are all symptoms of the last days.

The call to us is clear: “Come out.” Let’s not be found choosing to rather take an easy road and believe what man is saying just because so many are saying it. If God has said it then there is no debate. Modern man is no more entitled to sin than man in any other previous time. Either it’s God, or it’s not!

(Un)fortunately the choice is still ours!

 

Show me your glory

Pastor's Desk

Dear Family

There is much written on the subject of the “glory of God” for us to study and learn from. Most of it leaves us feeling better about who God is and what He is able to do for us. All the “weight” or “heaviness” of His goodness is wonderful to dwell upon. We natu-rally love to know that our God is completely surrounded by mercy and goodness. I love the way the Psalmist states the obvious for us in Psalm 19:1–4 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

But as I thought about His glory, I felt the LORD saying to me, “Now show me YOUR glory”. And this is what I think He meant:

Jesus taught in Matthew 5:14–16 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

The Apostle Paul says to us in Philippians 2:14–15 “Do everything with-out complaining or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe”.

As believers we do not have an option but to be reflectors of God’s glory. I have no doubt that God is often pained by my lack of reflection of who He actually is. My flesh is rotten to the core. But we have lost our license to behave as we want. Besides, we are dead! Our lives are now in Him and He in us and so our role is to reveal Him to everyone – His glory through us. What an in-credible privilege! These cracked jars of clay are the vessels God has chosen to reveal Himself to the earth. Will you be a reflector of His glory in response to His desire, “Now show me your glory”?

Paul

 

Restoration

Pastor's Desk

Dear Family

It is always so comforting to me to know that we are not alone in this crazy, mixed up world of ours. Not only are we not alone but, as believers, we are active participators with the God of restoration in the lives of broken humanity. In every way we are commissioned to work with Him to be a part of His plan – the restoration of sonship.

I am so proud of our own Luella Campbell who explores this concept of sonship so in-credibly well in her recently published book, “Learning to be a son” – a must read for everyone. “For God so loved the world…” makes so much more sense when we understand the concept of sonship and begin to relate to God on that basis. Personally I see it all as God’s plan to restore. Eden was perfect. It became what we have due to man’s decision not to relate in submis-sion to the Father. Jesus, the perfect Son of God, enabled us back to the Father, back to Eden. And now through Him, restoration!

The prophet Amos looked forward to the day that David’s “fallen tent” would be restored. It must be noted that he speaks of the “fallen tent”, ex-pressing the low condition to which the family of David and the kingdom had fallen. If you think mankind is bad now, Israel was devastated then. But the prophet Amos speaks of a bet-ter time: Amos 9:11–12 “In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the LORD, who will do these things.” What a joy to be in that dispensation now! After the cross we have the phenomenal privilege of being a part of that restoration based upon the completed work of Calvary. He has brought “many sons to glory” and continues to do so every second of every day. And He uses us. Wow!

With all of the confusion and chaos around us, from our very parliament filled with Gucci clad, rolex wearing, blue light brigade luxury car driving “servants of the people” to our pot-holed roads and litter strewn pave-ments with street lights that work ac-cording to Eskom’s load shedding schedule known to no-one, we still have hope. Hope because we serve One much greater than the trivials of our day to day experience. Hope be-cause we bear the good news that God is in the process of drawing hearts to Himself. And where He is, there is restoration.

Paul

God’s Mercy

Pastor's Desk,

Dear Family

I can only begin to feel and absorb the atmosphere of joy and total awe of God in which the Apostle Paul penned the follow-ing words in Romans 11:33-36: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

It’s like “WOW!” stuff. Who is this God, this incredible all-powerful, all-wise, all-knowing One, who has chosen to give any regard to humankind at all? Who are we that He, the Creator and Lord of the uni-verse, should even waste a moment of His perfection to deal with this bunch of hat-ing, hurting, hopeless trash of humanity? And before the foundations of the earth were laid, Jesus was His plan for us to be able to be a part of His family! God’s mercy – indescribable!

Which is why the Apostle Paul goes on to urge us in Romans 12:1 to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleas-ing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.”

I’ve been in church long enough now to know that we face a really silly season, where everything which happens through-out the year (apathy, bad church attendance, placing family and work above God and then using Him as an excuse, with-holding of tithes for worldly pleasures, etc.) is exacerbated. We throw caution to the wind and money at everything except the things of God. And it’s so easy to do. “Jingle Bells” had me singing along the other day whilst following my wife around the grocery store obediently (and eventual-ly grumpily) pushing the trolley. The spirit of this world loves this time of year, when it can fool believers into thinking this is a “godly” time. The bible refers to the ene-my as coming as an “angel of light” for good reason. We will waste money on the silliest of things, believing it all to be God-sanctioned. Ho! Ho! Ho! And yet, the poor, the hungry, the destitute are some-how just not on our radars. Instead, we’ll spoil the kids a little more away from God towards Satan’s Claus. And poof! The view we have of God’s mercy becomes a distant memory until the new year when we feel guilty and church fills up again for a few months.

So here is a challenge for our family at Ebenezer: Let’s aim at keeping God’s mercy in view this year, and stay in awe of our incredible privilege of sonship. He owes us nothing. We owe Him everything, though we can give Him nothing except ourselves. All He asks is that we die to ourselves daily and follow Him. Will you?

FREEDOM

Pastor's Desk

Dear Family

Freedom means different things to different people. Our own South African context is perhaps an obvious one to understand, but there are many other forms of lack of freedom or bondage in which people find themselves. Debt, slavery, oppression, addiction, captivity, crime, abuse, greed, self-centeredness, fears of every description, issues of the past and so the list goes on. Many people spend their entire lives struggling against their “captor” and the reality is that even believers are often found in a similar position.

The Bible gives us incredible hope for all our bondages. Obviously it starts with the freedom from the power of sin in our lives we gain in Christ. That glorious starting point whereby God takes us out of the dominion of darkness and plants us into the kingdom of light – new creatures freed to worship Him. But then the journey begins – extricating ourselves from incorrect thought patterns and beliefs about ourselves, life and God. It’s His glorious word, the power of His Spirit, and the decision of our wills which combine to get us free. I am not of the opinion that these are merely psychological crutches to help us hobble along in a life of hopelessness, but rather a source of unlimited power enabling us to undo the works of darkness in our lives and to overcome. God wants us to be victors alongside His Son. That’s the point of the whole story. Over-comers in love with God, focused on Him and not on our issues.

In John 8:32-36 (selected verses) Jesus said, “…If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free….I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

And that’s really what freedom is all about – holding to His teaching by following Him and watching the shackles fly!

If you know bondage to anything other than Jesus, why not decide to choose His way, His life, His freedom. He simply invites us to die to self daily and to follow Him.

Paul