MONDAY 24TH AUGUST
Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) 2.8-13 John 1: 45-51
Joy unspeakable

Today is St Bartholomew’s Day.  Bartholomew was one of the twelve.  This was really his surname; his other name in the reading for today was Nathanael.  When Philip introduced him to Jesus, he made a decision to follow Him, partly because Jesus could read his mind and told him how sincere he was, but really because he saw how wonderful and fantastic Jesus was.  After the Day of Pentecost, he went out taking the Gospel to India and Armenia and other countries.  He paid the price of his life in martyrdom in Armenia where he was flayed alive. The Song of Songs is a most beautiful love song in the form of a dialogue between a lover and his beloved.  It portrays the absolute beauty and utter joy of the relationship of a couple who have fallen in love with each other.  No doubt as we go through life, its greatest highlights are the times when we fall in love and have that love returned, resulting in the decision to make a life-long commitment in marriage. Sometimes we can fall in love with people who do not respond and this can be very painful.  Then there comes the day when we fall in love with someone and the feeling is mutual. When this happens our lives overflow with much joy.

The best way to use this delightful book of the Bible is to look at it as an expression of the relationship with Jesus the lover and we the beloved. The Bible says we love Him because He first loved us! (1 John 4:19).  As we close our eyes and see the picture of the lover bounding over the hills towards his beloved we see him head over heels in love, coming towards his loved one as fast as he can. This is Jesus. He comes to us with much enthusiasm.  He is head over heels in love with us.  As we respond to His love our hearts are filled with a joy greater than any that we have ever experienced.  We are filled with an ‘inexpressible and glorious joy’ (1Peter 1:8).  In his book on the baptism in the Holy Spirit Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones, a famous English Methodist Preacher, calls it ‘Joy Unspeakable’.

PRAYER: Jesus it’s so wonderful to hear the good news that you are head over heels in love with us.  We now respond to your love.  Help us by your Holy Spirit to experience joy unspeakable.  Amen.

TUESDAY 25TH AUGUST
Psalm 15
Who can have God as a friend

The Psalmist asks the question, “Lord who may dwell in your sanctuary?”  He then gives an answer to this question.  God’s friends need to walk a blameless life and need to be very holy and pure. When we make a resolution to embark on a holy life we soon find how impossible it really is.  However hard we learn the commandments and try to keep them we can never succeed if we try to do so in our own strength.  Jesus desperately wanted us to be His friends.  He wanted us to dwell with Him in His sanctuary more than anything else.  He knew that we could not reach the standards of holiness and perfection which would make it possible for us to dwell with Him, so what did He do?  He came to earth to die on the cross and to sacrifice Himself so that we could achieve sanctity and holiness for the scripture says, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).  It is by faith in the power released when Jesus died on the cross that makes us grow in holiness.  As we go on believing that we were made holy when Jesus died, we go on growing in holiness.  Again this is backed up by Hebrews 10:14 where it says, “by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”  Once we make a decision to want to be holy so we can be Jesus’ friend and once we stop trying and start trusting in the power of the cross to make us holy, we begin to grow into holiness and soon receive that assurance of salvation when we know we will never be shaken.

PRAYER:  Jesus thank you for wanting us to be your friends and sacrificing yourself to make this possible.  Give us faith to believe we have been made holy and begin to grow in holiness.  Amen.

WEDNESDAY 26TH. August
James 1:17-27
Be doers of the word not hearers only

Let’s think about the words of this children’s song:

Read your bible pray every day
And you’ll grow, grow, grow.
Neglect your bible forget to
pray and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink.

In our reading today we are exhorted to curb our anger, get rid of all moral filth and keep a reign over our tongues.  Jesus tells us it’s no use being religious, going to church etc., if we are not living holy lives.  There is only one way in which we can achieve any degree of holiness and right living - we must obey this little children’s song - read our Bibles and pray.  Reading God’s word transforms our lives, when we can learn to do it properly. Our aim is not just to hear God’s word or read God’s word so that it is only in our minds, but to translate it into action in our lives.  We need to be doers of the word, not hearers only.  To get power from the Bible, “humbly accept His word which is planted in you.  It can save you “(vs 21).  It can make you holy.
 
This is where praying comes in.  First we pray for the Holy Spirit to come and make God’s word a living word which really does speak to us.  We then pray that we will have faith to really believe God’s word.  We then find that “Gods word is living and active, sharper that any double-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12).  It cuts out from us all that is wrong in our thoughts and transforms all our actions. God’s word makes us genuine loving people.

PRAYER: Father as we read our Bibles and pray every day, pour down your Holy Spirit into us.  Plant your word in our hearts that it may truly save us.  May the two-edged sword cut out from us all unholiness and make us fair dinkum loving genuine people, Amen.

THURSDAY 27th. AUGUST
James 1.1-13
Consider it pure joy when you face trials

In the world when trials and tribulations come upon people they fall to pieces.  They suffer what they call “burn out”.  As the world and all its support collapses around them they find themselves suffering from terrible depression.  Some end it all in suicide; others wish they could. In the church God wants it to be different.  He says to us, “consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds”.  Let’s think of these words.  Read them again.  When everything goes wrong, God wants us to be happy. This can’t be so surely?  It must be because God never lies. In the next book of the Bible, 1 Peter, God shows us why we can be happy when life gets difficult.  He says as gold is refined by fire, so God uses the trials of life to purify us (1 Peter 1:7). When everything goes wrong and the whole of our world seems to be collapsing we can, “count it all joy” (vs2) we can “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4) and we can be “thankful in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).  God turns our stumbling blocks into stepping stones.  He uses the difficulties we come across to purify us and make us holy.  The reason for this is that we ourselves are our worst enemies.  Selfishness causes us to be unholy.  Trials help the self to die.  They force us to rely only on God who alone has the power to save us and the power to purify (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).  God’s word to us today can really transform our lives.  If we take it and put it into practise we will never be defeated again by the worst trial the devil can fling at us.

PRAYER:  Father help us to count it all joy when we face trials of many kinds.  Help us to rejoice always and be thankful in the worst circumstances because we know you are using them to purify us and make us holy.   Amen.

FRIDAY 28th. AUGUST
Deuteronomy 4.1-2; 6-9
Our God is so near

Israel was the most blessed of all the nations. Why? Because it had the very best God looking after it.  He gave them the best and most just laws and He was always available and ready to help them whenever they needed Him.  Because the God of Israel is the God who made the whole world, in fact the whole universe, it stands to reason that the laws He gave to his people will be the very best laws, the only laws, which can bring justice to all people. Study the history of all countries; which ones have the best way of life to follow?  The answer is so easy: those who base their justice systems on God’s laws as revealed in the Ten Commandments and all the other laws in the Bible.  Our country was like this once.  As our leaders take us further and further from God’s laws, things will get worse. If they turn back to the Bible, everything will be so much better.

Through Jesus’ death on the cross God has made Himself more available to us than He was to the people in Moses’ day.  He also has revealed His Holy Spirit.  We can call on Him at any time and be sure He can help us. We have the best God and the best laws.  Let’s pray for evangelistic zeal to show the whole world how fantastic God is.

PRAYER: Father thank you for giving us the best laws and the most wisdom.  Through Jesus and the Holy Spirit you always come to our aid when we need you.  Help us to tell the whole world how fantastic you are.  Amen.

SATURDAY 29th.AUGUST
Mark 7: 1-8; 14-23
Pure Hearts

We saw yesterday that God gave the Israelites the best laws and made Himself available to them all the time. The trouble was that this made them very proud.  They drifted away from trusting in God and gradually trusted more in themselves.  Added to God’s rules they made up many more rules. Their rules were more of a ceremonial, religious nature.  They were too hard and complicated for the ordinary people to follow and obey.  This resulted in the people who kept to their rules - the Pharisees - becoming an elite group.  They made everyone else feel inferior. 

These Pharisees became Jesus’ enemies.  They were always accusing Jesus and His followers of not obeying the law.  Jesus had a very strong gift of discernment and He could see right through them.  He could see that although they kept all the religious rules, their hearts were far away from God.

Jesus taught that you could not attain spiritual purity or holiness by keeping a set of rules.  Holiness had to come from the inside.  People’s hearts had to be made right for them to be holy. When we invite Jesus into our hearts He gets us right.  First He purifies us and by the power of the blood He shed for us He washes out all sin and evil and filth.  Then He fills our hearts with His love.  He makes them fountains of love and joy and peace.

PRAYER: Jesus, thank you for the power you released when you died on the cross.  Pour that power into my heart and make me clean from all sin.  Come in and dwell in my heart; make it a fountain of love and joy and peace.  Amen.

SUNDAY 30th.AUGUST
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE

Over the past few weeks we have been talking about opening our lives so much to Jesus that we are totally identified with Him.  So much so that we know that He dwells in us and we dwell in Him.

Our lives are very unholy but Jesus is 100% pure and absolutely holy.   For Him to dwell in us and for us to dwell in him, one of two things has to happen:  either He has to become sinful and unclean or we have to become as pure and holy as He is. The first of these two options is absolutely and utterly impossible. Jesus is GOD.   God’s character is perfect.  He can never sin!  That means that we have to change and become pure and holy.  For this to be a miracle has to take place.  How ever hard we try we can’t make ourselves holy enough. Jesus has to do it for us.

The very good news of the Bible is that Jesus has already done it for us.  He has made us Holy.   God says to us in Hebrews 10:10:  “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of  the body of Jesus Christ once for all!!!!”  Actually our being made holy is an on going process as God also says: “By one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy!!!!!” (Hebrews 10:14)

Although Jesus never sinned he was willing to identify himself with our sins by bearing the punishment our sins deserve.   Paul puts it like this: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2Corinthians 5:21)     When Jesus died for us he released tremendous power.   When we receive this power through repentance and faith He makes us Holy.   He creates a pure heart with in us.   He gives us a spiritual heart transplant.

The more we believe Jesus has made us holy by faith the more we will experience holiness in our lives.  So let’s stop trying in our own strength to make ourselves pure and holy.   Let’s all totally surrender to God and put all our faith and trust in what Jesus has already done for us. This will make our joy complete and we will be the happiest people on earth!!!!!

 

MONDAY 24TH AUGUST
Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) 2.8-13 John 1: 45-51
Joy unspeakable

Today is St Bartholomew’s Day.  Bartholomew was one of the twelve.  This was really his surname; his other name in the reading for today was Nathanael.  When Philip introduced him to Jesus, he made a decision to follow Him, partly because Jesus could read his mind and told him how sincere he was, but really because he saw how wonderful and fantastic Jesus was.  After the Day of Pentecost, he went out taking the Gospel to India and Armenia and other countries.  He paid the price of his life in martyrdom in Armenia where he was flayed alive. The Song of Songs is a most beautiful love song in the form of a dialogue between a lover and his beloved.  It portrays the absolute beauty and utter joy of the relationship of a couple who have fallen in love with each other.  No doubt as we go through life, its greatest highlights are the times when we fall in love and have that love returned, resulting in the decision to make a life-long commitment in marriage. Sometimes we can fall in love with people who do not respond and this can be very painful.  Then there comes the day when we fall in love with someone and the feeling is mutual. When this happens our lives overflow with much joy.

The best way to use this delightful book of the Bible is to look at it as an expression of the relationship with Jesus the lover and we the beloved. The Bible says we love Him because He first loved us! (1 John 4:19).  As we close our eyes and see the picture of the lover bounding over the hills towards his beloved we see him head over heels in love, coming towards his loved one as fast as he can. This is Jesus. He comes to us with much enthusiasm.  He is head over heels in love with us.  As we respond to His love our hearts are filled with a joy greater than any that we have ever experienced.  We are filled with an ‘inexpressible and glorious joy’ (1Peter 1:8).  In his book on the baptism in the Holy Spirit Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones, a famous English Methodist Preacher, calls it ‘Joy Unspeakable’.

PRAYER: Jesus it’s so wonderful to hear the good news that you are head over heels in love with us.  We now respond to your love.  Help us by your Holy Spirit to experience joy unspeakable.  Amen.

TUESDAY 25TH AUGUST
Psalm 15
Who can have God as a friend

The Psalmist asks the question, “Lord who may dwell in your sanctuary?”  He then gives an answer to this question.  God’s friends need to walk a blameless life and need to be very holy and pure. When we make a resolution to embark on a holy life we soon find how impossible it really is.  However hard we learn the commandments and try to keep them we can never succeed if we try to do so in our own strength.  Jesus desperately wanted us to be His friends.  He wanted us to dwell with Him in His sanctuary more than anything else.  He knew that we could not reach the standards of holiness and perfection which would make it possible for us to dwell with Him, so what did He do?  He came to earth to die on the cross and to sacrifice Himself so that we could achieve sanctity and holiness for the scripture says, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).  It is by faith in the power released when Jesus died on the cross that makes us grow in holiness.  As we go on believing that we were made holy when Jesus died, we go on growing in holiness.  Again this is backed up by Hebrews 10:14 where it says, “by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”  Once we make a decision to want to be holy so we can be Jesus’ friend and once we stop trying and start trusting in the power of the cross to make us holy, we begin to grow into holiness and soon receive that assurance of salvation when we know we will never be shaken.

PRAYER:  Jesus thank you for wanting us to be your friends and sacrificing yourself to make this possible.  Give us faith to believe we have been made holy and begin to grow in holiness.  Amen.

WEDNESDAY 26TH. August
James 1:17-27
Be doers of the word not hearers only

Let’s think about the words of this children’s song:

Read your bible pray every day
And you’ll grow, grow, grow.
Neglect your bible forget to
pray and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink.

In our reading today we are exhorted to curb our anger, get rid of all moral filth and keep a reign over our tongues.  Jesus tells us it’s no use being religious, going to church etc., if we are not living holy lives.  There is only one way in which we can achieve any degree of holiness and right living - we must obey this little children’s song - read our Bibles and pray.  Reading God’s word transforms our lives, when we can learn to do it properly. Our aim is not just to hear God’s word or read God’s word so that it is only in our minds, but to translate it into action in our lives.  We need to be doers of the word, not hearers only.  To get power from the Bible, “humbly accept His word which is planted in you.  It can save you “(vs 21).  It can make you holy.
 
This is where praying comes in.  First we pray for the Holy Spirit to come and make God’s word a living word which really does speak to us.  We then pray that we will have faith to really believe God’s word.  We then find that “Gods word is living and active, sharper that any double-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12).  It cuts out from us all that is wrong in our thoughts and transforms all our actions. God’s word makes us genuine loving people.

PRAYER: Father as we read our Bibles and pray every day, pour down your Holy Spirit into us.  Plant your word in our hearts that it may truly save us.  May the two-edged sword cut out from us all unholiness and make us fair dinkum loving genuine people, Amen.

THURSDAY 27th. AUGUST
James 1.1-13
Consider it pure joy when you face trials

In the world when trials and tribulations come upon people they fall to pieces.  They suffer what they call “burn out”.  As the world and all its support collapses around them they find themselves suffering from terrible depression.  Some end it all in suicide; others wish they could. In the church God wants it to be different.  He says to us, “consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds”.  Let’s think of these words.  Read them again.  When everything goes wrong, God wants us to be happy. This can’t be so surely?  It must be because God never lies. In the next book of the Bible, 1 Peter, God shows us why we can be happy when life gets difficult.  He says as gold is refined by fire, so God uses the trials of life to purify us (1 Peter 1:7). When everything goes wrong and the whole of our world seems to be collapsing we can, “count it all joy” (vs2) we can “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4) and we can be “thankful in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).  God turns our stumbling blocks into stepping stones.  He uses the difficulties we come across to purify us and make us holy.  The reason for this is that we ourselves are our worst enemies.  Selfishness causes us to be unholy.  Trials help the self to die.  They force us to rely only on God who alone has the power to save us and the power to purify (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).  God’s word to us today can really transform our lives.  If we take it and put it into practise we will never be defeated again by the worst trial the devil can fling at us.

PRAYER:  Father help us to count it all joy when we face trials of many kinds.  Help us to rejoice always and be thankful in the worst circumstances because we know you are using them to purify us and make us holy.   Amen.

FRIDAY 28th. AUGUST
Deuteronomy 4.1-2; 6-9
Our God is so near

Israel was the most blessed of all the nations. Why? Because it had the very best God looking after it.  He gave them the best and most just laws and He was always available and ready to help them whenever they needed Him.  Because the God of Israel is the God who made the whole world, in fact the whole universe, it stands to reason that the laws He gave to his people will be the very best laws, the only laws, which can bring justice to all people. Study the history of all countries; which ones have the best way of life to follow?  The answer is so easy: those who base their justice systems on God’s laws as revealed in the Ten Commandments and all the other laws in the Bible.  Our country was like this once.  As our leaders take us further and further from God’s laws, things will get worse. If they turn back to the Bible, everything will be so much better.

Through Jesus’ death on the cross God has made Himself more available to us than He was to the people in Moses’ day.  He also has revealed His Holy Spirit.  We can call on Him at any time and be sure He can help us. We have the best God and the best laws.  Let’s pray for evangelistic zeal to show the whole world how fantastic God is.

PRAYER: Father thank you for giving us the best laws and the most wisdom.  Through Jesus and the Holy Spirit you always come to our aid when we need you.  Help us to tell the whole world how fantastic you are.  Amen.

SATURDAY 29th.AUGUST
Mark 7: 1-8; 14-23
Pure Hearts

We saw yesterday that God gave the Israelites the best laws and made Himself available to them all the time. The trouble was that this made them very proud.  They drifted away from trusting in God and gradually trusted more in themselves.  Added to God’s rules they made up many more rules. Their rules were more of a ceremonial, religious nature.  They were too hard and complicated for the ordinary people to follow and obey.  This resulted in the people who kept to their rules - the Pharisees - becoming an elite group.  They made everyone else feel inferior. 

These Pharisees became Jesus’ enemies.  They were always accusing Jesus and His followers of not obeying the law.  Jesus had a very strong gift of discernment and He could see right through them.  He could see that although they kept all the religious rules, their hearts were far away from God.

Jesus taught that you could not attain spiritual purity or holiness by keeping a set of rules.  Holiness had to come from the inside.  People’s hearts had to be made right for them to be holy. When we invite Jesus into our hearts He gets us right.  First He purifies us and by the power of the blood He shed for us He washes out all sin and evil and filth.  Then He fills our hearts with His love.  He makes them fountains of love and joy and peace.

PRAYER: Jesus, thank you for the power you released when you died on the cross.  Pour that power into my heart and make me clean from all sin.  Come in and dwell in my heart; make it a fountain of love and joy and peace.  Amen.

SUNDAY 30th.AUGUST
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE

Over the past few weeks we have been talking about opening our lives so much to Jesus that we are totally identified with Him.  So much so that we know that He dwells in us and we dwell in Him.

Our lives are very unholy but Jesus is 100% pure and absolutely holy.   For Him to dwell in us and for us to dwell in him, one of two things has to happen:  either He has to become sinful and unclean or we have to become as pure and holy as He is. The first of these two options is absolutely and utterly impossible. Jesus is GOD.   God’s character is perfect.  He can never sin!  That means that we have to change and become pure and holy.  For this to be a miracle has to take place.  How ever hard we try we can’t make ourselves holy enough. Jesus has to do it for us.

The very good news of the Bible is that Jesus has already done it for us.  He has made us Holy.   God says to us in Hebrews 10:10:  “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of  the body of Jesus Christ once for all!!!!”  Actually our being made holy is an on going process as God also says: “By one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy!!!!!” (Hebrews 10:14)

Although Jesus never sinned he was willing to identify himself with our sins by bearing the punishment our sins deserve.   Paul puts it like this: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2Corinthians 5:21)     When Jesus died for us he released tremendous power.   When we receive this power through repentance and faith He makes us Holy.   He creates a pure heart with in us.   He gives us a spiritual heart transplant.

The more we believe Jesus has made us holy by faith the more we will experience holiness in our lives.  So let’s stop trying in our own strength to make ourselves pure and holy.   Let’s all totally surrender to God and put all our faith and trust in what Jesus has already done for us. This will make our joy complete and we will be the happiest people on earth!!!!!