Monthly Archives: February 2023

THE SCRATCH PATCH

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THE SCRATCH PATCH

I love the scratch patch!  Millions of tumbled semi-precious stones waiting to be looked for, pounced on, turned over, held up, squinted at, admired and stowed in a tin for purchase and for use at some later stage when the desire to create overwhelms me.  Look at this one!  It’s colours are subtle, muted, blended to perfection by a skilful Creator.   Ooh!  Look at this one!  Each one is more fascinating, inviting, sending the imagination into a frenzy of “What can I do with this one?  How can I use that one?”

The scratch patch is relaxing, therapeutic, soothing.  I can sit among the gems and forget my troubles.  Every stone begs for attention.  “Look at me.  No, look at me.”  Such an array of shapes, contours and edges, patterns and colours stirs the imagination with excitement and anticipation.  Hours of pure pleasure pass unnoticed.   Ideas fizz and pop inside my brain as my collection grows. At last, my tin is full of stones, just the right shape and colour for everything I might want to do with them.  

The scratch patch reminds me of words, an array to choose from, firing the imagination with mental pictures as vivid as the shapes and colours of the scratch patch stones.  I communicate with words.  I build or break down bridges between myself and others with words.  I search for words as I search for stones.  My mind becomes the ‘scratch patch’, picking up a word here, turning it over, fingering its shape, admiring its nuances, questioning its meaning, “Does it fit here?  Does it express my thought to perfection?”

A sentence is like a precious gem.  Nouns, verbs, adjectives — each word giving shape and colour to a thought.  Hang the thoughts on a string and an idea forms, a blend of beauty and symmetry like a necklace of sparkling jewels, a gift to someone who needs help. 

Words can do far more than their individual meaning.  They have power to hurt or heal, power to build or destroy, power to lead into truth and hope or into error and despair. 

Therefore, I must continually ask the question, “What shall I do with my words?”  As I choose my stones to create a necklace to adorn the neck of someone I love, let me also choose from my ‘scratch patch’ of words those which will adorn my tongue with beauty, peace, and life as a choice gift to my neighbour.

From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled;
with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied.
21 The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:20-21

YAHWEH SHAMMAH – THE LORD IS THERE

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YAHWEH SHAMMAH – THE LORD IS THERE

God revealed Himself to His people through His names, symbolizing who He was in their human experiences. To Abraham He was Yahweh Jireh, the God who provides, to Gideon, Yahweh Shalom, the Lord is Peace and to David, Yahweh Rohi, the Lord his Shepherd, but to His redeemed people He would be Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is There. This is one of the most beautiful of His names because it expresses the greatest desire of His heart.

From Ezekiel 40 to 48, the prophet was taken in the spirit to see Jerusalem, which God is building for His people when He finally wraps everything up, destroys evil and restores His creation to its original purpose. Ezekiel watched as an angel measured the city and glimpsed its beauty and perfection.

God also told him the name of the city – Yahweh-Shammah.

The distance all around will be 18,000 cubits.
“And the name of the city from that time on will be:
THE LORD IS THERE. ” Ezekiel 48:35

Jerusalem was the capital city of Israel, symbolic of God’s people and His presence among them. The temple was in Jerusalem, the gathering place for the people to celebrate God’s feasts seven times a year, God’s goodness in providing for them, to anticipate the coming of their Messiah and to worship God with their sacrifices and offerings.

Jerusalem had taken a pounding from their enemies because of their idolatry and their social injustice and oppression of the poor. Ezekiel had seen God’s glory leave the temple, as though God were saying that He was finished with them (Ezekiel 8-10). In Isaiah 54:11-17 God comforts His people and reassures them that, after the devastation of war and exile, He would rebuild the city with jewels and precious stones instead of stones and bricks and that the city would be repopulated with restored families.

In Revelation 21, the city reappears, this time in all its splendor, its walls built of precious stones and its gates of pearls and shining with God’s glory. While John gazes on the beauty of the city he hears a voice saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them.” It’s almost as though God heaves a big sigh of relief because He has finally reached the goal He set out to achieve in Genesis 1:27, that He and mankind would live together in a perfect love-relationship forever.

John’s tour-guide angel also measured the city. Like Ezekiel’s city, the new Jerusalem is a perfect square. John explains that this city is actually the Lamb’s bride; strange symbolism but it tells us that God’s biggest dream will be fulfilled when Jesus finally marries us and we become one with Him forever. He will live in His people and we in Him in a perfect eternal union.

But God is also Yahweh Shammah now, the God who is there when we are lonely, when we are grieving, when we feel hopeless, when we need forgiveness, when we feel insecure or anxious or afraid. He is as close to us as the air we breathe. Jesus came to earth as Emmanuel, God with us and He promised to be with us always, even to the end of this age after which we will be with Him forever..

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WHY ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:30-31

The answer to this question will affect the way you live out your Christian life. There are two possible answers.

You could answer it this way: “I am a Christian because my sins have been forgiven and I am going to heaven when I die.” Salvation (the forgiveness of your sins and asking Jesus to be your Saviour) is your passport to heaven. You have lost your guilt; you are assured of God’s help and you have escaped hell. Now you can live in the knowledge that your eternal destiny is secure and help in trouble is only a prayer away.

Is this the way the Bible explains why Jesus came to earth?

Heaven and earth are at war. Satan challenged God for the position of highest authority over His creation. He has already won humanity through deceit and stamped on us his rebellious nature. Jesus took up the challenge by coming to earth as a human being to live our life of perfect obedience to the Father. He was the only one capable of rescuing us from the devil’s clutches and giving us another chance to come back under God’s authority. If Satan could get Him to break His oneness with the Father, the contest would have been over and Satan would have won. God would have been dethroned and we would be under an eternal regime of cruelty and slavery.

But Jesus won, exposed Satan as a liar and a usurper, and stripped him of his authority. By dying as a sinless substitute, He paid the penalty for our rebellion, and rescued us from Satan’s clutches. God reinstated Him as the lawful King over all creation.

So now the issue is: Whom will you worship? On the day of Pentecost, preaching to Jews and proselytes, Peter put it like this:

“Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36 NIV).

Through the resurrection of Jesus, God proved that Satan’s last weapon, death, could not hold Him. Jesus was the winner. Now He offers us, by believing in Him, a share in His Kingdom

He leaves the choice to us. God has put His rightful king back on the throne. We must choose who will reign over our lives. If we do nothing, we remain under the dominion of Satan and will take everything that’s coming to him as the one Jesus whipped. If we choose Jesus as King, the Holy Spirit, God’s representative on earth, makes us alive, and comes to live and rule over us as His temples. We enjoy all the benefits of sonship because we have been adopted into His family as His own children.

So why are you a Christian? Are you a Christian because you want a free ticket to heaven or are you a Christian because Jesus is the rightful ruler over your life? Your reason for believing in Him will make all the difference!

WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

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WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:13-16

Caesarea Philippi, Israel’s “red light” district – the centre of Pan-worship, the goat-god whose devotees practised public sexual orgies with goats, and the temple built by Herod the Great to Caesar Augustus – was a place of terrible human wickedness to which no self-respecting rabbi would ever take his disciples…but Jesus did!

Against this backdrop, He asked His disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Peter responded, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, and we think, “Yeah, Peter! Good answer.” Jesus applauded him for his insight but, in the next breath, rebuked him for his utter misunderstanding of who this Christ, Son of the living God, really was. Peter got the confession right but the content of that confession dead wrong.

The disciples were continually squabbling about who would be the greatest in this kingdom Jesus had come to establish. It seems that they were expecting Him to drive out the Roman oppressors and restore the glory of the ancient kingdom of David. Moments before He ascended to the Father, they were still asking, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). They were still desperately clinging to the hope that He would set up David’s kingdom and rule over Israel.

When Jesus began to introduce them to the coming ordeal He was to suffer at the hands of the religious rulers, and the miracle of His resurrection, Peter pounced on Him with a vehement rebuke. How could He talk like that when He was destined to be king of the Jews? It is Peter’s rebuke (according to Matthew 16:22), “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you,” that gives us a clue to his misunderstanding of his confession. He thought that Messiahship meant political rule over a restored Israel where Jesus meant establishing His kingdom in the hearts of people through His death and resurrection.

In the verses that follow, Jesus gave them a clear picture of what He meant by His kingdom, not the glorious kingdom over which David ruled, but an inward kingdom of allegiance to Jesus as Lord, following Him, imitating Him, living a life of submission and loyalty to Him, and denying self in order to serve others. This is the heart of who Jesus is and what He came to do on earth.

But His disciples just didn’t get it. Time and again Jesus caught them arguing over the same issue – who would get the prime minister’s position in His government. James and John were even bold enough to ask Jesus Himself for the highest positions, much to the annoyance of the other disciples.

And what of us today? If Jesus were to ask you and me, “Who do you say I am?” would we be able to answer with the sincerity of full understanding, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”?

WHERE IS GOD?

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WHERE IS GOD?

Guess who is not around anymore, according to the world! Apparently, God!

“How can you say that?”

He was sidelined in our constitution. We are now a ‘secular’ state. He is no longer allowed in our schools (and there’s plenty of evidence for that!). Our young people’s behavior is hard on the heels of their American counterparts who kicked God out decades ago. Criminal behaviour in the schools is on the increase, including rape and murder.

He is not in the mass media. Read a fashion magazine or a ‘scandal rag’. People take the gifts and talents He gives and the resources He pours into their lives and use them to magnify themselves.

God is absent from most of our TV programs. His name is only mentioned as a swear word, His holy standards are ignored, and wickedness is paraded on our TV screens in the name of ‘entertainment.’

Did He leave because we shut Him out of our constitution, because we shut Him out of our schools, courts, and public life? Not according to the Scriptures. The government may reject Him, the media ignore Him and the world sideline Him, but He did not leave. God is still God and He is universally present.

The first man on the moon realised that God was there!

David’s contemplation of God led to him to this conclusion…

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. Psalms 139:7-12

We have the promise of Jesus that He will never leave us. He lives in His church. He has elected to make us His dwelling place. The church may be ailing but it’s not dead. The world may act as though God does not exist, but Jesus is alive and at work in His church.

The newspapers are full of bad news. The church is full of good news. I heard recently in a sermon that many of the Olympic athletes who took part in the recent Beijing Olympics are believers. The Kenyan marathon gold medalist gave his life to Jesus after winning the gold medal. Several of the swimmers are believers. There are 70 Jewish rabbis in New York who have turned to the Lord. The most influential rabbi in the United States who died at the age of 105, confessed that Jesus Christ is the Messiah in a letter he left to be read one year after his death. The son of the leader of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization, is a believer and is preaching the gospel.

Where is Jesus? He has never left us. He is in us by His Spirit and He is building His church. He is perfecting His bride for His coming and He is revealing Himself to the world through you and me. Despite the hostility we encounter, let us take heart. He may not be welcome in our country but no-on can shut Him out of our hearts!