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MONDAY 15TH FEBRUARY
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Giving God the first fruits

This Wednesday, Ash Wednesday we begin the Season of Lent. Lent is a special time of fasting, self-denial and prayer. It is also a time of self-examination and penitence. It’s a time we specially lay aside to become more like Jesus. It’s a time of surrender. We put ourselves into God’s hands and ask Him and trust Him to make us holy.

It’s a good idea to make a special Lenten rule of life. This should include extra time spent in personal prayer and Bible reading, attendance at the special Lent Bible Study and extra attendance at mid-week activities, Holy Communion and prayer meetings. Giving is another aspect of our Christian life which we look at in Lent. Our reading today reminds us of the enormous importance of giving to God. The Israelites were instructed to give God the first fruits of all they grew. They brought a tenth of their best produce and presented it at the temple, offering it to God. As they gave to God, they showed Him how much they appreciated what He had done for them. Everything we have and our whole life comes from God. Let’s show God this Lent how much we appreciate Him. Let’s make sure we are giving Him a tythe (one tenth of all the money we receive) and see how much extra we can give Him.

Another way of showing God we love Him more than ourselves is to give up something we like for the Lenten period, i.e. alcohol, coffee, sugar in beverages, foods, etc.

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for giving us the period of Lent to help us to get closer to you and more like you. Help us to really show how much we love you by giving you more time in prayer, Bible study and worship. Give us the gift of giving and the faith to tythe and be more generous to you than ever before, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

TUESDAY 16TH FEBRUARY
Psalm 91
Make the Most High your dwelling

God loves each one of us so much. We are all extremely special to Him. He loves us so much that He longs for us all to enter into a deep personal relationship with Him. He wants us to live every day very close to Him, always conscious of His presence with us. He desires the closeness which comes when He dwells in us and we dwell in Him.

Praise be to God for the sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross which cleanses us of all sin and selfishness and enables Jesus to come and live in our hearts and for us to dwell in our Father’s heart.

Today’s Psalm reminds us of the tremendous benefits of having such a close personal relationship with God. God protects us like a mother hen protects her chicks under her wings. God protects us from harm. He takes away our fear. While others live a life full of worry and anxiety we can be set free from them all and live in peace.

He promises to send His angels to protect us. In his book, “Rain on a Dry Land” John Knight tells how an angel was seen hovering over his car as he drove through dangerous guerrilla territory where several ambushes had taken place. This was in Zimbabwe. He also tells of guerrilla forces fleeing from Christian farm houses when they saw lots of soldiers dressed in white (angels). Angels are real. We are being protected by them, even though we are not aware of it. Next time you feel yourself in any kind of danger, remember that you are close to the Lord who promises to protect you. Trust in Him and cry out to Him in prayer. You can be assured He will help you. Because your love is set on God He promises to rescue you and protect you. Call on Him, He will answer!

PRAYER : Father, what fantastic promises of your protection are in this Psalm which we have just read. We give ourselves to you so that you can dwell in us and we in you. We love you so much. Please send your angels to us and protect us in every way, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.

WEDNESDAY 17th. FEBRUARY
Ash Wednesday
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
(Gospel for today)
Keeping Lent the right way

There are three important disciplines we can apply to our Christian lives to help us to get close to God and to depend on Him more: prayer, fasting and giving.

Jesus makes it clear in today’s reading that for us to gain real benefit out of these practices, we need to do them in secret. As much as possible we should keep our Lenten rules to ourselves. If we parade our religious observances for everyone to see, there is a strong danger in our being puffed up with pride. This defeats the whole purpose of what we are trying to achieve. It puts us further away from God, when we’re trying to get closer.

God says in Joel 2:13 “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garment. Return to the Lord for He is gracious and compassionate.”

When we live in families it’s hard to be secretive but we should try to be most unobtrusive in our praying, fasting and giving. Fasting is a very helpful spiritual tool. It means giving up all food for periods of time. As we get hungry we are constantly reminded of our need to depend on God more. Many prayers are answered and much healing takes place when people fast. When we fast we soon find we can depend on God’s supernatural energy. Even when we are weak, we suddenly become strong.

Praying is spending time alone with God. The more you pray the more you link up with our Lord and His Father. His Spirit helps us to pray. God promises to answer prayer. (Luke 11:24) We will see many people saved and healed as we spend time praying.

Money so often separates us from God. As we give more and more of it away we depend on Him more and become so much richer.

PRAYER: Father, help us to follow the example of Jesus. Help us to seek you with all our hearts as we pray, fast and give. Empower us by your Holy Spirit to depend on you more. May others be aware of the fruits of your Spirit and not our observances. Amen.

THURSDAY 18th. FEBRUARY

2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2

God was reconciling the world to Himself through Christ

Lent is a special time for penitence which means being sorry for all our sins and repenting of them. It’s also a time when we can pray for those who have not met their Saviour.

God has a special plan for all of us. As we think about ourselves and all the people we are praying for, we need to be aware of this plan. It is His plan for us to be made into a new creation – a new person. This happens to us when we are “in Christ”, when we make the decision to trust Him to completely forgive us and when we fully accept Him as Lord and Saviour of our lives.

To enable all this to happen God sent His Son Jesus into the world. He had a special mission – to reconcile us to God. In Jesus, God was reconciling the world to Himself.

In the process of reconciliation God does not count men’s sins against them. Instead, Jesus took all our sins into Himself. He paid the penalty which all our sins deserve. He died in our place. He who had no sin became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. On the cross Jesus experienced all the pain of sin and unholiness. Power was released to take away all our sin. The same power, which God later exerted to raise Jesus from the dead, was made available to us to make us into new creations.

God has reconciled Himself to us but we must receive what He has done for us. We must be reconciled to God. We do not have to wait. Today is the day of salvation; right now, the time of God’s favour. We can decide to accept, by faith, all that Jesus has done for us. If we repent and trust in His power, we immediately become new creations.

PRAYER: Father, thank you that when we were still sinners you sent Jesus to die for us, to release power to take all our sins away. We repent of our sins and trust completely in your power to make us into new people, completely reconciled to you, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

FRIDAY 19TH.FEBRUARY

Romans 10:5-13

How to receive Salvation

Salvation is a free gift given to us by God. It cannot be worked for or earned in any way. We don’t qualify for heaven by being good, being religious or believing creeds. Our righteousness does not come from keeping the law, but by faith in Jesus and all that He has done for us.

Jesus is very close to us. We do not have to go anywhere else to find Him. When He was on the cross He won our salvation. He completely forgave us all our sins. He reconciled us to God.

To receive what Jesus has already paid for we have to proclaim a word of faith with our lips. Before we confess it with our lips we have to believe it with our hearts. We put our faith and trust in Jesus. We believe in our hearts that Jesus died on the cross for us and God raised Him from the dead, and then proclaim with our lips that we have surrendered completely to Him and accepted Him as the Lord of our lives. If we speak out this word of faith like this, then we are saved.

With our hearts we completely trust in Jesus’ power to transform our lives by His death and resurrection. Then we are justified which means we are put right by God. With our mouths we proclaim our faith in Jesus. Then we have no doubt that our salvation has been secured. We are born again. We are promised eternal life. The Bible says that when we trust in God like this we will never be put to shame.

PRAYER: Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross to pay the price for us and take the penalty of our sins. Help us to be sure of our eternal salvation in our hearts and tell others with our lips that we have decided to trust in you and accept you as Lord of our lives. Amen.

SATURDAY 20TH FEBRUARY

Luke 4:1-15

Jesus fasted forty days

After Jesus was baptised in the Jordan and filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit led Him into the wilderness for a 40 day fast. During this whole period He ate no food. He spent the whole time in prayer. The purpose of the fast was to prepare Him for His ministry.

When we fast and pray, God fills us with power. We become weak until our own strength gives out. Then we really start to depend on the power and strength that only God can give.

Although Jesus was God He was also fully human. He had to use the same methods to get power from God as we do. He still had to be filled with the Spirit. He had to pray and He had to fast.

When we fast and pray we draw the attention of the enemy Satan. He comes to attack us and prevent us from receiving power from God. So when Jesus was fasting and praying, Satan came to try to destroy His ministry. He tried to lure Him into doing three things that would take away God’s power; to use the power for Himself (turn stones into bread) to use His power to show off (jump from the temple) and to use His power to gain political control (worship Satan). Jesus trusted in God and His word so strongly that the devil was pushed aside. So too, Jesus who was tested is able to help those being tested (Hebrews 2:18). He in us (Jesus) is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4) and if we resist the devil he will flee from us (James 4:7).

PRAYER: Jesus, show us the importance of fasting and praying that we may be given power to do all that you want us to, to witness to people and help them in many ways. As the devil attacks us, remind us that you are in us and are stronger than the devil, so when we resist him in your name, he will always flee from us. Amen.

SUNDAY 21ST.FEBRUARY

Message from Father Tom

Last Wednesday we began the Season Of Lent. Lent is a very important time. It’s time we put aside time to draw closer to Jesus. The closer we get to Him by spending more time with Him the more like Him we become!

If we put God first in our lives it means we must think of Him more than anyone else and our thoughts should constantly go back to Jesus. WE love God because He first loved us. This lent let us put aside more time than ever to meditate on all that Jesus has done for us. Every Friday, in Father Tom’s Notes, for the next few weeks, we will be looking at Saint Luke’s account of the Passion of Jesus in chapters 22 and 23 of His Gospel. Think deeply about what you read. May the scriptures deeply imprint in your mind the enormous Love He has for YOU. You are so very special to Jesus. If you were the only sinner in the world Jesus would have gone through all that suffering JUST for you.

Before Jesus began His ministry, He went out into the bush and spent six weeks fasting and Praying. During this time He was very close to God his Father and depended on His miraculous power to stay alive. He didn’t eat or drink anything all that time and God gave him the power for his ministry. Power to Heal, power to Cast out evil, and power to love us all so much to be willing to take the punishment our sins deserve and to die in our place.

The devil tried to rob Him of this power and came to tempt him. He tried to get Him to use the power for his own needs by turning stones into bread, to use the power to draw attention to himself by jumping of the temple and calling on the angels to catch him. and to use his power to use the devils methods to gain political control of the world. Jesus power was so much stronger than the Devil’s power because He was Depending 100% on God. He easily resited the devil who was forced to flee from Him.

When we spend time alone with Jesus, the devil will also try to tempt us. Because we have accepted Jesus as the Saviour and Lord of our lives, God gives us power which is much stronger than Satan’s. The Bible says: “The one who is in you (Jesus) is greater than the one who is in the world (Satan).” And it also says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you”. (1John 4:4 & James 4:7NIV)

Lets all open ourselves fully to receive this power from Jesus and use it to love everyone in the same way that Jesus loves us. In this way we can help all those people we show love to, to love Jesus and be saved. They will know we are Christians by our love, and we can lead them to the one who gives them the power to love.