Reading: Acts 10; 34 – 43 (GNB}

We’ve been learning a lot about the Apostle Peter over the last few weeks; what a brash and brutish man he was, How he often spoke without thinking, how he became the leader of the disciples with his charismatic manner and bravery of speech, How bold he was standing up to those in authority when proclaiming the Good News. What would his childhood have been like?

A good Jewish boy, kind to his mother, obeyed his father, prayed to God and followed every command. Did not mix with those not of his religion or culture. Went to work with his father (and brother) as a fisherman and married a nice Jewish girl. Then his chap Jesus comes along, says “Follow Me” and he does! He breaks the rules.

Dare to be different

When I was first asked to preach again, I was very honoured, and pleased as I already had something prepared to share. I asked our Elder if there was any specific theme, and she advised to just pray to The Lord and go with it. This is it, I thought, I can realise this topic that I’ve been working on. That night, I prayed very considerately and God led me to:

Daniel 6: The Den of Lions – not what I was going to talk about at all!

I’m sure we’re all very familiar with the story, but to summarise :

Through a life of hard work and obedience to God, Daniel had risen through the political ranks as an administrator of the kingdom.In fact, Daniel was so honest and hardworking that the other government officials–who were jealous of him–could find nothing to remove him from office.

So they tried to use Daniel’s faith in God against him. They tricked King Darius into passing a decree that during a 30-day period, anyone who prayed to another god or man besides the king would be thrown into the lions’ den.

Daniel learned of the decree but did not change his habit. Just as he had done all his life, he went home, knelt down, faced Jerusalem, and prayed to God. He dared to be different.

The Gift

When I was asked to preach again back in the summer, I decided that I didnt need to pray to God about the subject matter then because it was ages away. A short while later I realised that I’d just put my own time-scale onto God! Regardless of when I asked God to reveal His message, He would lead me in the direction He wanted for the occasion.

During that prayerful time, I was led to the many Scriptures which teach us about Gods love and gifts of the Spirit. We have been given the free gift of Gods love and there is only one thing you can do with a free gift – accept it unconditionally. “For He fordained us to be adopted as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will” Ephesians 1:5

God loves us because of who He is, not because of who we are. God loves us as we are …… but He loves us too much to leave us that way!

Thankfulness

This was the very first time I ever delivered a contribution in my church. Looks very unformed and childish now, but it was a big step at the time.

Listening to our Elder  speak last week, and her reference to the teaspoon (Thanks, Sorry & Please) reminded me of a thought that occurred during my recovery from knee surgery.

Thriving

Are we? We all know we have sets of instructions for Chrisitan living; duties to spread the good news and bring others to Christ. Instructions are helpful becuase they take the guesswork out of our lives – we know exactly what we need to do, As well as our instructions for living day-to-day, we also have a duty to grow in our own faith, as well as bringing others, and we can only do that if we thrive in our walk with The Lord – as individuals we are supposed to grow and develop – because only if we do that can we fulfill the set of instructions!

The Perseverance of Job

When I returned to faith “full time”, as it were, last year, I made a firm decision that I needed to become more familiar with Gods Word – The Bible.

To this end and in this spirit, I asked family & friends for their favourite books of the Bible, why they were the favourite and then resolved to read them myself.

My Mum (who many of you know) told me that her favourite was Job, because he was so patient and suffered so much, so, I read Job.

Now, most of us (even non-church goers) are familiar with the phrase “the patience of Job”, but here’s the spanner in the works, the fly in the ointment – after reading Job, I didnt think he was patient at all!