Solid Ground

Posted on by korgrocker

“Don’t let me suffer the fate of sinners. Don’t condemn me along with murderers. Their hands are dirty with evil schemes, and they constantly take bribes. But I am not like that; I live with integrity. So redeem me and show me mercy. Now I stand on solid ground, and I will publicly praise the Lord.”
Psalm 26:9-12 NLT

David was sure of his footing in God when he wrote the final verse to Psalm 26. Of course, he was referring to his spiritual standing, but I’m sure he felt it extended into his natural world as well. David was going through an euphoric state of mind at that time and all was lovely. His glasses, if he had any in those days, would have been tinted with a wonderful shade of rose. He felt so good about things that he wrote that he would “publicly praise the Lord”. David wrote other Psalms, and the first two verses of one of them read, “I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along” (Psalm 40:1-2). Another time, another place, perhaps, but another occasion when God came through for him. God was always there for David, regardless of his circumstances, and his relationship with the Lord was strong and vibrant, every minute of his days. 

Solid ground is something we humans take for granted. There is no obvious first hand experience of hurtling around a star we call the sun, other than the periods of light and darkness, sunrise and sunset. We build our houses on ground that we assume will be solid and immovable for the years ahead. We compare old photos with those taken today and the same landscape features are still in place. We walk in places with rocks and packed earth and our senses tell us that we are in the presence of “solid ground”. But that is all in line with our local natural world. Things get a bit wobblier, however, when we consider the state of the world and news reports of wars and famines, earthquakes and fires. In these circumstances we become a bit less sure. There is a tendency to stick our heads in the sand and hope things will blow over, and that is a human trait also present in the Old Testament times. In the days of Amos, one of the Minor Prophets, the Israelites were ignoring the political situation of the world immediately around them. Amos 6: 1, 3, 7, “What sorrow awaits you who lounge in luxury in Jerusalem, and you who feel secure in Samaria! You are famous and popular in Israel, and people go to you for help. … You push away every thought of coming disaster, but your actions only bring the day of judgment closer. … Therefore, you will be the first to be led away as captives. Suddenly, all your parties will end“. The people in Israel denied anything bad was going to happen and continued to behave in the sinful and evil way that was their norm. Yes, the ground wasn’t literally shaking but their society was, and soon after Amos’ prophetic messages, God allowed them to be led away into exile. 

Jesus told the parable of a rich and successful businessman farmer, who had enjoyed a bumper crop that year and had to build new barns to hold it all. His conclusion was that this gave him “solid ground” for his retirement and he was going to spend it all partying. He said to himself, “ … My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!” (Luke 12:19). Unfortunately for him, though, something was about to happen that would disrupt his plans. The next verse in Jesus’ story is, “But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’” The “solid ground” underpinning his retirement plans suddenly imploded and he found himself in a place in Sheol where he could not access the fruits of his labours. 

In our natural world we know statistically that the ground we assume is solid is most likely going to still be solid tomorrow and the next day. Yes, there may be an impact from an asteroid, or something else may fall from the sky disrupting our assumptions, but these are unlikely events, not to be considered by even the most paranoid amongst us. We have enough to worry about in our daily lives. What we should be concerned about, though, is the ground we are standing on in the spiritual world we live in. Regardless of what will happen to this planet, our souls will survive and go on living for all eternity. So we need to ensure that we are standing on the ground God has supplied for us. The Bible talks about God being our Rock. David wrote, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my saviour; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety” (Psalm 18:2). He repeats this theme in Psalm 62:2, “He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken“, referring of course to the Lord, His God. 

Jesus also taught about having a solid foundation to our faith. Matthew 7:24-25, “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock“. We pilgrims are believers with a faith founded on Jesus’ teaching, a faith that will survive everything and anything that comes against us. There is plenty of troubles in human lives but through God and His promises we will survive all of them. Regardless of what we are going through, God is there with us, step by step. Sharing our pain. Feeling our sorrows. Empathising with our needs. We are like the Israelite slaves, fearing the pursuing Egyptian army, but listening to Moses as he said, “ .. Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again” (Exodus 14:13). Paul referred to Moses and the Israelites’ miraculous journey through the wilderness when he wrote, “All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that travelled with them, and that rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:3-4).

The Lord is our Rock because we can trust in Him. He is also our strength (Ephesians 6:10), and we who believe in Him find a place of safety in Him, just as David did all those years ago. Can I ask a question, dear fellow pilgrims? What ground are you standing on today? Let us not be complacent and instead continue our journey in fear of the Lord, trusting in Him and His promises.

Dear Father God. Only You are the Rock worth standing on. All other ground is nothing more than quicksand. Thank You for Your strength and presence. Amen.

All Have Become Corrupt

Posted on by korgrocker

“Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good! The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one!”
Psalm 14:13 NLT

A damning indictment of the human race from David. He equates those who say “There is no God”, or fail to seek Him, with people who lack wisdom and are corrupt. The corrupt, he writes, also fail to do good. He wrote that “The Lord looked down from Heaven” to make this observation, but does the word “entire” include righteous people as well? But then, who of us is really righteous? Imagine the grief that God must have felt, as sin entered the human race and made everyone “corrupt”. We remember Paul’s words in Romans 3:23, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard”. 

The dictionary defines “corrupt” with references to dishonest dealings with money, but it is more than that. Any object can be corrupted by a malign action. Imagine a perfect mirror corrupted by a scratch. Or a sculpture or other work of art desecrated, corrupted by a deliberate act of vandalism. But here’s the thing, imagine a perfect human being, created in the image of God, but then corrupted by sin, the consequence of a devious thought introduced by the devil in a conversation that has had lasting connotations. What a tragedy! 

Corruption started in the Garden with the introduction of sickness and death, moral contamination and spiritual decay. The sin that blighted humanity caused spiritual death – Ephesians 2:1, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins“. In Genesis 6:11-12 we read what Noah’s generation was like, “Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt” and God decided that he would start again with Noah and his family, eliminating the corrupt from the earth. 

And so it would have continued, with every person deemed “corrupt” before spending eternity in hell, because there can be no corruption in Heaven. The Jews were given the Law to help them escape the consequences of corruption, but God’s intention to save His people was rejected by many of them. So God finally provided the ultimate solution to sin’s corruption by sending His Son, Jesus, to save the world. 2 Peter 1:3-4 summed up God’s amazing grace, “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires“. Jesus was and still is the “great and precious promise” allowing all who believe in Him to live a Godly life.

But before we pilgrims start to feel a bit smug because we think we have escaped the consequences of corruption, be aware that such thoughts are sinful and are in danger of relegating us back into the company of the corrupt. We need to keep short accounts with our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus. They paid the ultimate price for our freedom, remember that!

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for coming to this world to save us from the corruption of sin. Amen.

Christmas 2024

Posted on by korgrocker

“All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).”
Isaiah 7:14
“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 9:6 NLT

Two well-known verses from the prophet Isaiah, fore-telling an event yet to come many years hence. A Son was to come, born of a virgin mother, to be called Immanuel, or “God with us”. We of course know about that Son, called Jesus, and the meaning of His name was not far from the Isaiah promise. “Jesus” means Saviour and the name is derived from the Hebrew Yeshua, meaning to deliver or to rescue. And we celebrate the virgin birth of Jesus once again, experiencing the excitement around seeing the Saviour of the world starting His journey. We read again the Scriptures, about Simeon and Anna, the journey to Bethlehem, the manger, shepherds and angels. And the Magi from the East appear on the scene, with valuable gifts, God’s provision for a young couple entrusted with the care of His Son. This year, Christmas is a time indeed of celebration, becoming a ray of light in a dark and evil world, riven by wars and strife. The only Hope for a depressed world convinced that things are getting worse, with people worrying about the future for their children and grandchildren. Light and Hope. That is what the coming of Jesus was all about, but, amazingly, He comes again each Christmas. His presence is always with us, and His message of salvation, foreseen by Isaiah, and accomplished by Jesus, is still hanging in the air before us today.

Here in the UK, most families will be sitting down together to a Christmas meal, enjoying an opportunity to laugh with each other, perhaps reminiscing about things that have gone before. In some family gatherings there will be sadness because a loved one passed away in the time since the previous Christmas. In others there will be happiness at the birth of a new child, bringing pleasure and hope to the family. But how many will stop, pause for a while, thinking about the first Christmas? Saviour? Prince of Peace? Immanuel? God with us? Such thoughts, even if they happened, dissipate quickly, crowded out by the meal being shared.

But the coming of Jesus brought a message far beyond the turkey and tinsel. In a dark and evil world it brings the only message of hope worth considering today. We pilgrims know about how the story ends. Our journeys coincide at the doors of Heaven where we will find the Saviour of the World waiting for us. The invitation in Revelation 22:17 is still with us. “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let anyone who hears this say, “Come.” Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life”. In Jesus we remember His birth, life and death, and we have felt the refreshing of the “water of life”. In the darkness we turn to the Light Himself, reaching out for the refreshing that our thirsty souls so desperately need. Wars and rumours of wars? We know that they are just the birth pangs of the End Times, not the end themselves. We turn away from the darkness and gaze intently at the Source of Light. There is no better way to spend Christmas.

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for coming to this world, bringing Your Light and Hope. Amen.

No Broken Bones

Posted on by korgrocker

“It was the day of preparation, and the Jewish leaders didn’t want the bodies hanging there the next day, which was the Sabbath (and a very special Sabbath, because it was Passover week). So they asked Pilate to hasten their deaths by ordering that their legs be broken. Then their dead bodies could be taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs. One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out. (This report is from an eyewitness giving an accurate account. He speaks the truth so that you also may continue to believe.) These things happened in fulfilment of the Scriptures that say, “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and “They will look on the one they pierced.””
John 19:31-37 NLT

A factual account from John, providing an insight into Jewish religious culture. The Jewish leaders wanted to avoid having the gruesome sight of men, still alive, but in the process of death by crucifixion, hanging on crosses on the Sabbath, the following day. So the custom in those days was to hasten death by breaking the legs of the people involved, so that they could only hang by their arms, which would accelerate death from asphyxiation. The unfortunate two thieves were dealt with in this way, but John’s account records that Jesus was already dead. To make sure, the Roman soldier speared Jesus, and blood and water flowed out of the wound, something that has been confirmed as being medically accurate for a recently deceased person. Once again, John then reminds his readers that Scripture has been fulfilled, with prophecies from Psalm 34:20, “For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous; not one of them is broken!” and Zechariah 12:10, “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died“. 

As an aside, modern communion services often allude to Jesus’ sacrifice and His body broken at Calvary. But this isn’t factually correct because none of Jesus’ bones were broken. A better way is to thank God for how Jesus gave Himself for sinners. 

We pilgrims always stay close to Jesus on the Cross, reminding ourselves of the time when He selflessly and deliberately chose to die, taking on Himself the punishment for the sins of mankind, so that through Him we will receive forgiveness. Before the Cross, the ground is level, with no one able to claim better treatment than anyone else. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And we can only marvel at the audacity and success of God’s gracious salvation plan. The devil was defeated that day and he can never prevent a sinner saved by grace from entering God’s presence. He can never anymore wield control over those who believe in Jesus. 

Dear Heavenly Father. We fall on our knees and worship the Saviour of the World, Your Son Jesus. Amen.

The Will of God

Posted on by korgrocker

“For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.”
John 6:38-40 NLT

Jesus couldn’t have been clearer about His mission. He left His Heavenly home to “do the will of God who sent [Him]”  here on Planet Earth. And twice He said that all those who come to Him, those given Him by God, believing in Him, would be resurrected “at the last day”. The resurrected ones will then enjoy eternal life.

There are those who experience a miserable life riven by illness, deprivation, drugs, or similar, people who say that to go on experiencing such an existence for ever is the last thing that they want. But when God comes to live with His people on the new earth (Revelation 21) we read that “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:4). Eternal life with God will be a wonderful, fulsome and amazing experience never to be compared with our human natural lives. The Bible clearly states that we will either spend eternity in Heaven or hell, so, at least for me, the choice is a “no-brainer”. The assurance of eternal life is, however, not a choice that can be made when people stand before God on that final and terrible day of judgement. The decision to believe in Jesus, with all that that entails, has to be made while we continue to enjoy God’s season of grace. 

Jesus’ mission was to do the will of His Father. He had no doubts as to what this was, and He set His face steadfastly towards His goal at Calvary, the culmination of His mission. And in the process He would set aside His own will, heavily influenced though it was by His humanity. The degree to which He refused to deviate from those final days in Jerusalem can be found in those moments in the Garden of Gethsemane, which we can read in Matthew 26, “He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine”” (Matthew 26:39). Such was His dilemma, that we read in Luke 22:44, “He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood”. We pilgrims can never even start to imagine what Jesus went through that day, but we bow before Him in worshipful gratitude. What a Saviour!

Are we pilgrims clear about our mission in life? Do we know what God wants us to do? Some believers are called to mission in far off places, and we can read the accounts of many who faithfully laboured for many years amongst needy people. But for most of us the will of God is worked out within our families and communities, schools and workplaces where we are beacons of light in otherwise dark places. So we make the most of every opportunity to share the love of God, and the eternal life that will be the reward for faithful believers. 

Dear Lord Jesus. Again we say before You, What a Saviour! We give You all the glory today. Amen.

Three Things

Posted on by korgrocker

“One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath,”
John 5:5-9 NLT

I wonder what that man did every day, just lying there by the pool? Was his mind in neutral, in a living but comatose state? Or had he made friends with those around him, conversing with them every day? But without any meaningful stimulation, what was his mental state? And who fed him and tended to his personal needs? But the man at the Pool was obviously mentally alert and open to the possibility that he could be healed if he could only get to the water in time. What a tragedy – thirty eight years wasted. 

Jesus asked the man, “Would you like to get well?”, but the man’s response was one describing the practical difficulties caused by his disability. Imagine his limited efforts to crawl or squirm his way to the pool edge to reach the bubbling water before anyone else could get there. Imagine his despair when, once again, someone got there before him. Imagine the constant strain of having to look for the tell-tale stirring of the waters. But along comes the Saviour, compassionate and caring, with three instructions that transformed the man’s life. “Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”” 

There is so much to see behind these words. It wasn’t just the physical healing that made a difference. Once again we see that it is the whole person that Jesus heals. The man’s legs and other parts of his body suddenly had all the muscles, flesh, nerve tissues, and bones restored to them. He would have felt the new surge of energy and the lack of pain, but there was still his mental state that needed to be healed. After thirty eight years his mind would have needed time to adjust to the new situation. But we are told in John’s account that the man was instantly healed. And in accordance with Jesus’ instructions he stood up, rolled up his sleeping mat and started to walk.

People even today sometimes get caught in a rut. It needn’t be a physical disability, like the man at the Pool. It could be one of self pity, or feelings of helplessness through a relationship that has gone sour, or a job that has become full of drudgery or hardship. But Jesus has the words we need to enable us to stand up and move on. He always has a way for us to follow, to get us out of a situation. He always has the words we need to hear in times of stress and anxiety. These words may be difficult to hear and our response may well be one of fear, but through faith we know that God can heal us just as well as He healed the man at the Pool. 

In Romans 8:11, Paul wrote, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you“. We pilgrims, have the Holy Spirit living within us, giving us life and all the resources we need. After all, if the Holy Spirit was powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead, He will have no problems with whatever ails us. So in faith we bring our problem to the Saviour and respond in obedience to whatever He tells us to do. 

Dear Father God. Thank Your for Your Son, Jesus, who came to this world for our benefit, for our salvation. Your grace and love is endless. Thank You. Amen.

The Galilean Welcome

Posted on by korgrocker

“At the end of the two days, Jesus went on to Galilee. He himself had said that a prophet is not honoured in his own hometown. Yet the Galileans welcomed him, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen everything he did there.”
John 4:43-45 NLT

After a couple of days spent amongst the inhabitants of Sychar in Samaria, Jesus continued with His journey to Galilee. Amazing things had happened in Sychar, and the Samarians were left with the knowledge that they had met with God’s own Son, Jesus, the Messiah they had been waiting for. Perhaps Sychar was an oasis of revival in an otherwise neglected people. 

John wrote that Jesus’ ministry didn’t start very well in Galilee. We can read about that occasion in Matthew 13. John wrote that Jesus ” … returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?”” (Matthew 13:54). But to the people amongst whom Jesus grew up and worked, in His home town of Nazareth, there was a disconnect. The account continues in Matthew, “Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?”” (Matthew 13:55-56). At first sight, it is incredible to think that the miracles Jesus had committed and the words of the Kingdom of God that He had preached, were all rejected just because they had known Him differently. And in Matthew 13:57 we read, “And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honoured everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.”” A really sad state of affairs.

But before we pilgrims take the moral high ground and claim that we would never have behaved in such a way, we should pause and think. Who in the workplace has not resented the promotion of a colleague, thinking that he or she is no better than they are and unworthy of the promotion? Who has had trouble receiving a message from a Christian brother or sister, because they perhaps have known them from another time? Who has become a Christian only to find that their family has rejected them? If Jesus was rejected by His own people, we should expect the same. We read in John 1:10-11, “He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him“. We sometimes expect that the deliverer of God’s messages, a prophet, should be someone who has perhaps been raised in God’s presence by a family of angels. But it is so different – Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians 1:26-28, “Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important“. So we pilgrims should always welcome what a brother or sister, whatever their pedigree, says to us, because for all we know, God may be speaking a message for us just through them.

In our verses from John 4 today, we read that in spite of all the contempt and rejection Jesus had suffered in Nazareth, the Galileans welcomed Him anyway. They had seen the miracles He had committed in Judea, because many of them had journeyed there for the Jewish Feast. When we make that transition from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light, we are transformed. We become a new creation and we have access to all God’s resources. And through His grace and mercy He will use us obedient believers to deliver His message to those around us. That is, if we let Him. And we can expect opposition, particularly if the message is to our families and those who know us. To preach the message of salvation to our friends and family can be difficult, but we must persevere and pray. I know a man who is now a pastor of a church in a deprived area of Glasgow. He planted the church in the same community that he grew up in, and where he became involved with drugs, even becoming a dealer at one point. The police caught up with him eventually and he ended up serving a prison sentence. But in prison he was encouraged by the prison chaplain to consider spending time with Teen Challenge after he was released. But to cut a long story short, he came to know Jesus as his personal Saviour, went to Bible college, married a Christian girl in Dublin, and returned to Glasgow where he is now preaching the Gospel to his friends and family.

But Jesus was welcomed back into Galilee because He had credibility with the people there. They had seen at first hand the powerful miracles, and heard the gracious words about God’s Kingdom. It will take time for us pilgrims to achieve credibility as Christians with our friends and family, but persevere we must. And when they hear our testimonies, perhaps they too will welcome us as children of God.

Dear Heavenly Father. Through Your grace and mercy, we have a story to tell of our wonderful Saviour. Grant us the words to say, we pray, so that we can introduce others to Jesus. Amen.

Saviour of the World

Posted on by korgrocker

“Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Saviour of the world.””
John 4:39-42 NLT

Why should people believe in Jesus because of what this woman, someone with perhaps a rather questionable lifestyle, said? Why should exposing her rather sordid past lead to many of the Sychar inhabitants believing in Jesus? In fact the simple statement “He told me everything I ever did!” resulted in Jesus being invited to stay in the village for a further two days. In fact, it was not just a casual invitation – they “begged Him to stay”. And we are told that “many more” heard His message and believed. The short stay however resulted in many believing in Jesus because they got to know Him, and His saving love and grace, for themselves. They were not depending on someone else’s testimony. 

Perhaps the personalities and relational dynamics in the village community were suddenly overturned by the testimony of the woman by the well. They knew of course about her reputation, and she was obviously shunned by the other village women, being forced to draw water from the well when there was no-one else around. So there would have been no surprises in the woman’s message to her fellow villagers – we can perhaps visualise the nods and winks, and comments behind her back. But the fact that a stranger knew, a passer by who stopped at the well for a drink, added impact to the testimony. And we know from a previous verse that she added weight to what she had to say by including, “Could He possibly be the Messiah”? 

But the important message to the Sychar inhabitants is the same today – we introduce people to Jesus by the power of our testimonies. This power was recorded in the Acts account of the early believers, as we read in Acts 4:33, “The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all“. For us pilgrims today, our conversion experiences, articulated in our testimonies, may be the only opportunity people have to hear the Gospel. It is of course possible for people to become Christians by reading the Bible, but the real power emerges when we introduce them to Jesus personally. 

Jesus was, and is, the Saviour of the world. Only He can introduce us to God, and only we can introduce people to Jesus. Our testimonies must be full of the excitement we first experienced when we found that Jesus loved us and died in our place for our sins. The woman at the well was so excited about her encounter with Jesus that she left her water pot behind and rushed into the village to tell someone. Do we communicate the same excitement and conviction when we share with others what the Saviour of the world, Jesus, has done for us? However, if we have lost our first love, then we must do what Jesus said to the church in Ephesus. “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches” (Revelation 2:4-5). 

We pilgrims have a message so important that we must tell everyone at every opportunity. Our testimonies of what Jesus as done for us must be communicated, by what we say and what we do, to the people around us, because Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, is the Saviour of the world. By introducing people to Jesus we show them the way to eternal life. They may not have another opportunity.

Dear Lord Jesus. You said to Your disciples, “ … I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me”. There is no other way into Heaven. We are so grateful for Your grace and mercy. Amen.

A Father’s Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“The Father loves his Son and has put everything into his hands. And anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgment.”
John 3:35-36 NLT

John wrote that Father God had placed everything into Jesus’ hands, and all through His love for Him. What a relationship they had! Ultimate and perfect trust. We already know that through the Word, the universe was created. John 1:1-3, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him“. And now Jesus was entrusted with the salvation of all those living in the world, even to the point that the Son would bring into Heaven all those who believed in Him. Jesus was, and is, the gateway into eternal life, because John ends chapter 3 with the truth that all those who don’t believe in Jesus “will never experience eternal life”. Then follows the thought that all these unbelievers, by default, remain “under God’s angry judgment”. 

Why is it that the majority of people in today’s world just don’t seem worried about their future? Why is it they have rejected the Gospel and all that it means? This is not a new phenomenon – Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God“. John wrote that if people don’t make a decision to follow Jesus, then they continue in a state of suspended judgement. God is still angry today that people have rejected His Son, by not believing His testimony and what He has seen and heard. Perhaps they are like someone who has accidentally consumed a deadly but slow acting poison, for which there is a very good antidote. But they refuse to drink it, even if it means saving their life. That is the course of action that an unbeliever has taken. Their lives are poisoned by sin, and even though there is an antidote through repentance and belief in Jesus, they choose not to embrace it, and die of the poison anyway.

John wrote that God’s judgement was angry. But are we surprised? Imagine if the son we natural father’s have was abused, physically and emotionally. Accused of demon possession. Whipped, tormented, found guilty by a kangaroo court on trumped up false charges, and then crucified. I think I would be more than angry. In fact, a natural reaction would have been to send a legion of angels to annihilate the abusers. No wonder God was angry. Jesus spoke a parable about the wicked farmers, as recorded in Matthew 21. We read, “Finally, the owner sent his son, thinking, ‘Surely they will respect my son.’ “But when the tenant farmers saw his son coming, they said to one another, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate. Come on, let’s kill him and get the estate for ourselves!’ So they grabbed him, dragged him out of the vineyard, and murdered him”” (Matthew 21:37-39). 

It is a miracle that the Father’s love for His Son was not vindicated at the time. But God’s plan was to allow His Son to be sacrificed so that all those who believed in Him would benefit with eternal life. What a Saviour!

Dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We worship You today with deeply thankful hearts. Amen.

Child of God

Posted on by korgrocker

“He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.”
John 1:11-13 NLT

It has always been a puzzle to me, that the expression “born again” causes so much controversy. A dictionary definition of being “born again” is “A Christian who has experienced a distinct, dramatic conversion to faith in Jesus, especially a member of certain Protestant groups that stress this experience“. So the implication is that someone who has not been “born again” into a spiritual relationship with God can still be a Christian. Some view such people, the “born again” ones, as being “the unpleasant sanctimonious ones who keep flaunting their beliefs“. They are negatively viewed as being fundamentalists; Bible-believing followers of Christ who set themselves apart from your normal pew warmers.

I have a friend who considers himself to be a “Christian” purely because he is always helping other people, living what he considers to be a decent and “good” life, and having had a grandfather who was an elder in the Church of Scotland. A neighbour of mine considers herself a “Christian” because her name is on the membership role of a church somewhere, but she hasn’t attended that church for many years. Other people will tick the “Christian” box on a census or other similar form, because they were perhaps christened in a church as a baby. Or they go to a church sometimes on Christmas Eve. And that is where the confusion arises. The label “Christian” has become confused and corrupted, and refers to anyone who nominally or vaguely believes that there was someone called Jesus and they will somehow end up in Heaven when they die. So to them, the terms “born again Christian”, or “true Christian”, or “proper Christian” are offensive and to be treated with contempt. 

The reality is that a “Christian” is a follower of Christ. Someone “who believed him and accepted him” and who is reborn in “a birth that comes from God”. John’s Gospel, right here in the first chapter, is very clear about who a “Christian” really is. Being “born again” gives such believers the right to become “children of God”, John writes. The whole Bible hinges on the relationship between God and mankind, and clearly sets out what that entails. There are three verses in the New Testament that, in my opinion, are key to a “born again” experience. The first is in Romans 3:23. Paul wrote, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard”. There has to come that realisation that we are sinners, accepting that in God’s sight we fall far short of His requirement  for righteousness and holiness. The second Scripture that matters to me is from Ephesians 2:8-9, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it“. There is nothing that we can do to earn our salvation – we cannot become a child of God by doing good works, or living what we might consider a good life, or even having our names on the role of church members. The third verse that I refer to is Acts 2:38, “Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit“. These are just a few words that Peter preached but the repercussions of them are life changing. There are many other verses that constitute the Gospel, the good news about Jesus and His gracious saving commitment for mankind. 

A human baby is born physically, through a process we are all familiar with. That baby is a child of its parents. To become a child of God, though, we have to be born spiritually. The process is different in that it happens spiritually, not physically, but happen it must. I became a “born again” Christian on a day when I finally realised that I was a sinner, and looked to Jesus as my Saviour. I found out who Jesus was and what He had done for me and everyone else on this planet. And there then started a long journey. There have been easy stretches, and hard times. But journey I must, always keeping in sight that increasing glow on the horizon, the Heavenly promised land. I invite you, my readers, to join me, wherever you are. You will never regret it. We can journey on together.

But what about those people who consider themselves to be “Christian” but have never come to that point in their lives when they have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour? Those people who have rejected the relationship with God that John wrote about? The people who have never become children of God? Their future is something that is up to God and His grace – something I can never judge or take for granted – but why take the risk of ending up in a lost eternity when there is a wonderful opportunity to become a child of God? Now. Today. This very minute.

Dear Father God. I pray today for all my readers, that they too will embrace Your saving grace and become the children of God that John wrote about. In Jesus’ name. Amen.