Category Archives: Pastor’s Desk

Our words

Pastor's Desk,

Dear Family
Words are always the product of thoughts which incubate deep down inside. Jesus said, “…For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” Read the following and then decide what this guy thought a lot about:
“He’s enduringly strong, He’s entirely sincere, He’s eternally steadfast. He’s immortally graceful. He’s imperially powerful. He’s impartially merciful. He’s God’s Son. He’s a sinner’s savior. He’s the centerpiece of civilization. He stands alone in Himself. He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented. He’s supreme. He’s preeminent. He’s the loftiest idea in literature. He’s the highest idea in philosophy. He’s the fundamental truth in theology. He’s the miracle of the age. He’s the only one able to supply all of our needs simultaneously. He supplies strength for the weak. He’s available for the tempted and the tried. He sympathizes and He saves. He guards and He guides. He heals the sick, He cleans the lepers. He forgives sinners, He discharges debtors, He delivers captives, He defends the feeble, He blesses the young, He serves the unfortunate, He regards the aged, He rewards the diligent, He beautifies the meek. Do you know Him?

Well, my king is the king of knowledge, He’s the well-spring of wisdom, He’s the doorway of deliverance, He’s the pathway of peace, He’s the roadway of righteousness, He’s the highway of holiness He’s the gateway of glory, He’s the master of the mighty, He’s the captain of the conquerors, He’s the head of the heroes, He’s the leader of the legislators, He’s the overseer of the overcomers, He’s the governor of governors, He’s the prince of princes, He’s the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

His life is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His word is enough. His grace is sufficient. His reign is righteous. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Well. I wish I could describe Him to you. But He’s indescribable. Yes. He’s incomprehensible. He’s invincible, He’s irresistible. I’m trying to tell you, the Heavens cannot contain Him, let alone a man explain Him. You can’t get Him out of your mind. You can’t get Him off of your hands. You can’t outlive Him, and you can’t live without Him. Well. The Pharisees couldn’t stand Him, but they found out they couldn’t stop Him. Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him. Herod couldn’t kill Him. Death couldn’t handle Him and the grave couldn’t hold Him. That’s my king!

He always has been, and He always will be. I’m talking about He [who] had no predecessor and He [who] has no successor. There was nobody before Him and there will be nobody after Him. You can’t impeach Him, and He’s not going to resign. We try to get prestige and honor and glory to ourselves, but the glory is all His. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, and ever, and ever, and ever. How long is that? And ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and when you get through with all of the forevers, then ‘Amen’.”

“Oh I wish I could describe him to you.” – Dr S.M. Lockridge

What do we think about most of the time? We only need to listen to our words to find out!

Paul

Like a Child

Pastor's Desk, ,

Dear Family

Quite often in the Scriptures, we find patterns of thought which are so contrary to the way we see things. We read stuff and wonder what on earth God was thinking to say what He does. For example, read this crazy stuff from Luke 6:34 & 35: “And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back…” Lend without expecting anything back?! Taken out of context we could end up in real trouble. Just imagine how long your business would survive with that one!

Likewise, the Master once said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” What? This is nearly as wacked as “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” Some really interesting stuff!
How on earth do we become like “little children.? Surely we need to understand what we are doing, to grow up, to mature? After all, the Apostle Paul does say: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” Why on earth would we then need to become “like little children” in order to enter the kingdom of heaven? Clearly Jesus means something else.

I loved the total trust I saw in the eyes of my children when they we little. The way they would just believe what I said, listen to what I said, and usually do what I said. I loved the way they would simple adore me because I was their dad. I loved their cuddles, their kisses, their reckless abandon in demonstrating just how they felt about me. I loved them running towards me, with arms opened wide, launching into the air just knowing that I would catch them, play with them, hold them and love them. I loved praying with them at night time and seeing their confidence that they could go to sleep without fear. I loved watching their reactions when they received gifts for any occasion or just because. I loved hearing them laugh and play. Oh yes, I just loved having little children around!

Mmmmm…. Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?

Paul

Revealing Christ

Pastor's Desk,

Dear Family,

I recently attended a very dear friend’s funeral. I had known him for over 30 years. It was a huge shock to my system when I received a call from his children to say that he had died as I did not realize that he had even been sick. I felt this deeply as some of the best memories of my early twenties were made with him. We spent many hours doing all sorts of things together. He was a musician of note and wherever we went, people knew him and it did not take long before his guitar was out and the crowd was being entertained. He also happened to be around when I had my very first kiss with my wife-to-be, in Main Street, Port Elizabeth; he was the one who fetched my wife-to-be from her pad and brought her to mine so I could propose; and he was the MC at our wedding. A very special friend indeed. Shortly after I received Christ I wrote him a letter (as I did to all my friends) telling him about my faith and the hope I had in Jesus. I do not recall him ever responding to that letter, but whenever we met up again through the years, he was always respectful of my standing. Last time I saw him, about 6 months ago, he told me he had started attending a little church close to where he lived and that he and the pastor had many discussions over a whisky or two. God is faithful!
I received an email from another mutual friend following his death and in it she said, “He was such a special soul, a gentle person, never a harsh word to say about anyone, never heard him swear or skinner (gossip) or tell a rude joke, music ran through his veins.” This summed him up completely. But it got me thinking….how would someone sum me up? How would someone sum you up? The fact is that the Bible calls upon us to “Do everything without complaining or arguing, 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 you hold out the word of life…” Mmmmm…..shine like stars? Everything without complaining or arguing? Shu! I have such a long way to go. But this is not optional for us. God calls upon us to allow Him to shine through us so that He can be revealed to the earth.

We may not all go to China or elsewhere to tell people about Jesus, but we can all allow Him to shine through us! Reveal Him today, everyday!

Glory of God

Pastor's Desk, ,

Dear Family

My family and I were driving back from East London a few nights ago, and I happened to glance up at the skies through the sunroof. The air was crisp and the visibility perfect. What I saw literally took my breath away (causing my wife to lecture me about keeping my eyes on the road). The sky was indescribably beautiful – plastered from the one end to the other with a display of stars unlike I had ever noticed before. Wow! My mind raced to Psalm 19 which says “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.”

“The heavens declare the glory of God….” What is the “glory of God”? Well, probably many answers would be correct, but I share the following option with you. For me, the glory of God is simply the indescribable, indefinable beauty of His spirit. Not an aesthetic or material beauty, but the beauty that oozes from His character, the very essence of His being. So, as I gaze at the heavens’ declaration, I humanly understand something of that beauty, complexity, wonder, majesty, weight, etc of who God actually is. Moses understood this as God’s goodness, and yes, it is that as well. But who can actually verbalize the glory of God – this eternal glory that is manifested in so many different ways, in so many attributes that He chooses to reveal to us?!

And the wonder of wonders is that the all glorious, Almighty God, chooses to cover us and even infuse us with His glory! The Psalmist in Psalm 8 says of man that God has “crowned him with glory”. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:6,7 “ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” And again in Colossians 1:27 “…Christ in you, the hope of glory…”

All around us, all over us, and even in us, the awesome beauty of who He is. Why not pause a while to celebrate the glory of God – who He actually is? Eish!

Paul

Missions

Pastor's Desk, ,

Dear Family

As we reflect on missions in this month’s edition of Chronicles, I want to remind you what missionaries and mission is all about. As background, the word “mission” is derived from the Latin missionem, meaning “act of sending” or mittere, meaning “to send”. The Greek word we translate as “apostle” was translated as “missionary” in the Latin translation of the Bible, and basically means “sent one”. So in effect, all those men and women who have been sent to a mission field somewhere, are in fact “apostles”. We can take this even further, and know that we have all been sent in a sense, and thus all qualify as “apostles”. After all, Jesus is the chief apostle and we are his disciples! This is certainly a far cry from the hype with titles we see in the church today. The fancier a preacher becomes, the more likely he is to be called, “apostle”. Though in fact, the person who labours in the field, often unknown, mostly unrecognized, and probably under supported, is the actual biblical missionary or apostle.

Jesus’ commission to His disciples in Matthew 28:19 to “…go and make disciples of all nations…” means that whoever you are, and wherever you go, you represent the King, you go in His name, and as such are His “sent one” to wherever you find yourself. Whether we like it or not, God sends each one of us to go to our families, our friends, our social circles, our work places, our play places and anywhere else we find ourselves, with a message and a mission. God sent His Son to die in our place to reconcile us again to Himself. He did this because He longs for all mankind to know Him, to love Him, and to fellowship with Him. Our sin condition separated us from Him, but He sent the solution, the Missionary, Jesus Christ. Now he sends us who have come to know Him to do and to be likewise.

My prayer is that each one of us will respond as Isaiah did as we read in Isaiah 6:8 “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Paul