MONDAY 25th. JANUARY
Jeremiah 1:4-10,17-19
Get yourself ready
Jeremiah was chosen by God for a very special ministry – to be a prophet. A prophet is someone who speaks special messages from God to the people. His special task was to warn the people that because they had gone wrong, they would have to face terrible consequences. He was to “brace himself for action” because his task was not going to be easy and it was not going to make him very popular. People would fight against him, but he was not to be at all afraid. He would not be overcome by his enemies for a very good reason. God promised him, “I am with you and will rescue you.” God promised to make him so strong, like a fortified city with iron pillars and a bronze wall. He would have enough strength to stand against the whole land.
Today, God is calling us, His church, into action. He is giving us a prophetic voice and a powerful message to proclaim. We have come together because God made us and has set us apart for a very special purpose. Each individual who makes up the church has an individual call from God to do a special job for Him. Whetherour task is easy or burdensome, like Jeremiah’s was, it doesn’t matter. It is a very important task and God is saying to us, “get up, get ready; brace yourself for action.” Perhaps we think the task is too great for us, or we are frightened of opposition which arises; nevertheless if we accept God’s call for our lives, we have no reason to be afraid. God speaks to us the same words He spoke to us in Jeremiah’s time and He promises to rescue us. Let’s hear His challenging call and all get moving into action!!
PRAYER: Father, we thank you that when you made us in our mother’s womb you had a special task mapped out for us. As you call us to that task, give us the courage to accept the challenge. Make us so strong and so trusting in your protection that nothing will stop us from getting up and bracing ourselves for action, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
TUESDAY 26th. JANUARY
Psalm 71:1-17
I will sing of your salvation
Yesterday we read about God’s promise to be with us and rescue us from the enemy. Today’s Psalm is a prayer in which we ask God to rescue us and deliver us.
After initially asking God for help, the psalmist goes on to affirm his faith in God’s mighty power. Having asked the Lord to be a mighty stronghold and a rock in which he can take refuge, he proclaims his complete faith and trust in God. Ever since he can remember he has known God to be very dependable. He has been his hope all through the years of his life. Since he was born he has leant on the Lord and has experienced His saving power delivering him from the hand of the wicked. Meditating on God’s power to save and help, leads the author of this psalm into a time of praise. He appreciates what God is doing in his life so much that he is inspired to praise Him and to tell of His splendour all day long. He just can’t keep silent about all that the Lord has done.
PRAYER: Father, as we experience your salvation and the strength of your helping hand in our lives, we, too, praise and thank you for being so good to us. Give us power to be your witnesses, proclaiming to the whole world how great you are and all that you are willing to do for those who put faith in you, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 27TH JANUARY
1 Corinthians 12.31, 13.1-7
Without love I am nothing
In the middle of teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Paul pauses in this chapter to teach about love. He describes love as a way which is better than any of the gifts – the most excellent way. Love is so important that without it whatever we do is worth nothing at all! We can have all those wonderful spiritual gifts like prophecy, knowledge, faith, giving to charities and many others, but if we do not have love, having these gifts does us no good at all. We are like empty vessels that make the most sound but have no use. What is love? Verses 4-7 give us the best definition of love there is in the whole Bible. It defines love by showing the practical attitudes love produces in those who have it. Love is a very practical thing. It is not a sentimental feeling! If we are patient and kind, if we don’t envy, if we do not boast, if we are not proud, if we are not rude, if we are not self-seeking, if we are not easily angered, if we keep no record of wrongs, if we do not delight in evil, if we rejoice in the truth, if we always protect, always trust, always hope and always persevere, then we have love. If we have love we will never fail.
PRAYER: Father, as we look at these definitions of love, we realise how short we fall of being able to love. Empty us of self and fill us with yourself and the loving power your Spirit gives, for we know that it is only when “it’s no longer we who live but Jesus who lives in us,” that we can love effectively. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
THURSDAY 28TH JANUARY
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Real love – a sign of maturity
Selfishness is a sign of immaturity. The younger we are the more selfish we are. Mature people are people who have learnt how to love and are full of concern for other people. As we grow older and more mature, we realise the futility of so many of the selfish things we did when we were young. We realise how temporary were the things we thought were so important. Paul reminds us that the gifts of the Spirit are like this, however important they may seem to us now, they are still only temporary. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. All of them are designed to help us receive more love from God and give more love back to Him and to each other. At the consummation of all things they will all fade away to nothing, but love will always be with us. Tongues, prophecy and knowledge will cease, but love is eternal.
PRAYER: Father, when we were children we talked like children, thought like children and reasoned like children. Help us all to put away childish things and get on with the business of loving, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
FRIDAY 29TH JANUARY
Luke 4:21-27
Familiarity breeds contempt
When Jesus preached in his home church, at first the people were very pleased and spoke well of Him. They were amazed at His gracious words and the way He spoke with such authority. Then they suddenly realised who He was. “It’s only the carpenter’s son,” they said. “What right has He to speak like this,” and soon they were turning against Him. Jesus recognised their mistrust of Him because He was a local and He told them how a prophet is not accepted in his home town.
God gives special gifts to ordinary people. Sometimes when we know these people, we lose faith in the fact they could be used by God to do great things. We know too much about them and know all their faults. We get the mistaken idea that we have to be perfect before God can use us, even though we are very human and make lots of mistakes. As God is calling people into lay ministry, it is important for us to realise this. If we realise that ministry is God working through people, we will find it easy to accept the ministry of people who we know well and who are very familiar to us. The people rejected Jesus’ ministry because they were too familiar with Him. No wonder they sometimes reject ours! If we look, not at the people ministering to us, but look through them to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who is giving them the power to minister, we will be able to accept each other’s ministry more readily.
PRAYER: Father, although we know that familiarity breeds contempt, help us to overcome this and accept each other’s ministry, knowing that their faith and their power come from your Holy Spirit, through Jesus our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
SATURDAY 30TH JANUARY
Luke 4:26-30
Persecuted but protected
After Jesus had spoken in the synagogue, all the people were furious with Him. A fierce persecution broke out against him and they tried to throw him over a cliff. God had promised Jeremiah that He would be with him and would rescue him when he was attacked. Of course, God was not only with Jesus, but Jesus was God, so no wonder He was so protected from their furious attack. He just walked through the crowd and escaped to safety. Later on, when it was His will to suffer and pay the price for our sins on the cross, He allowed himself to be put into the hands of his enemies.
As we take up the challenge of God and are willing to offer ourselves for ministry in any way, there is a great risk that we will be persecuted and ridiculed.
We can be absolutely sure of one thing if we stay close to Jesus: He will be with us and will protect us.
One of our older children said to us once, “I used to leave Jesus at the gate when I went into school, now I take Him in with me.” If we all do this, we will not have anything to fear and can be sure of his strength and protection.
PRAYER: Father, thank you that you promise to protect us when we are persecuted or ridiculed for doing things for you. Help us to be bold enough to minister and witness and to be full of courage and faith, that with you along side us, nothing will go wrong. We ask this through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
SUNDAY 31ST.JANUARY
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
The most wonderful thing that God does for us when we become Christians, born again as his sons and daughters, is that He gives us an incredible power to love.
As the Bible says in Romans 5:5, “God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.”
We can be confused by what God really means when He calls us to love because the English language only has one word for ‘love’. The Greeks had several words for it.
‘Eros’ was the word for the love between a man and a woman. ‘Philios’ was family love, the love brothers and sister and parents and children have for each other. When they came to express the love God and Jesus have for us they couldn’t find a word that fitted so they coined a new word—‘Agape’ Agape is self giving love. Its meaning is summed up in this poem I often recite at weddings.
Love ever gives, forgives, outlives
And ever stands with open hands
And while it lives it gives
For this love’s prerogative
To give and give and give
A fuller definition of agape love is found in our second reading 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it’s not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’
Let’s learn these verses off by heart to remind us of how God wants us to love.
Jesus expressed his agape for us all by going to the cross and dying to take all our sins away. He died for every person whom He has created, from every country, every race and every class. He commands us to love them ALL. The Jews at Nazareth, where Jesus preached, (In today’s Gospel), were badly mistaken.
They thought that God only loved the Israelites, His chosen people. When Jesus pointed out to them how God showed His love for a couple of foreigners they were furious and tried to push Him over a cliff. Let’s make it a resolution for 2010 to obey Jesus and use the power that He has given us to love everyone, especially those who no one else loves. Let’s go out of our way to support organizations which support the destitute, all the poor and needy in the world.
PRAYER OF THE WEEK
O Lord, You have taught us that all our doings without love are worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted dead before you; Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. AMEN
MONDAY 25th. JANUARY
Jeremiah 1:4-10,17-19
Get yourself ready
Jeremiah was chosen by God for a very special ministry – to be a prophet. A prophet is someone who speaks special messages from God to the people. His special task was to warn the people that because they had gone wrong, they would have to face terrible consequences. He was to “brace himself for action” because his task was not going to be easy and it was not going to make him very popular. People would fight against him, but he was not to be at all afraid. He would not be overcome by his enemies for a very good reason. God promised him, “I am with you and will rescue you.” God promised to make him so strong, like a fortified city with iron pillars and a bronze wall. He would have enough strength to stand against the whole land.
Today, God is calling us, His church, into action. He is giving us a prophetic voice and a powerful message to proclaim. We have come together because God made us and has set us apart for a very special purpose. Each individual who makes up the church has an individual call from God to do a special job for Him. Whetherour task is easy or burdensome, like Jeremiah’s was, it doesn’t matter. It is a very important task and God is saying to us, “get up, get ready; brace yourself for action.” Perhaps we think the task is too great for us, or we are frightened of opposition which arises; nevertheless if we accept God’s call for our lives, we have no reason to be afraid. God speaks to us the same words He spoke to us in Jeremiah’s time and He promises to rescue us. Let’s hear His challenging call and all get moving into action!!
PRAYER: Father, we thank you that when you made us in our mother’s womb you had a special task mapped out for us. As you call us to that task, give us the courage to accept the challenge. Make us so strong and so trusting in your protection that nothing will stop us from getting up and bracing ourselves for action, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
TUESDAY 26th. JANUARY
Psalm 71:1-17
I will sing of your salvation
Yesterday we read about God’s promise to be with us and rescue us from the enemy. Today’s Psalm is a prayer in which we ask God to rescue us and deliver us.
After initially asking God for help, the psalmist goes on to affirm his faith in God’s mighty power. Having asked the Lord to be a mighty stronghold and a rock in which he can take refuge, he proclaims his complete faith and trust in God. Ever since he can remember he has known God to be very dependable. He has been his hope all through the years of his life. Since he was born he has leant on the Lord and has experienced His saving power delivering him from the hand of the wicked. Meditating on God’s power to save and help, leads the author of this psalm into a time of praise. He appreciates what God is doing in his life so much that he is inspired to praise Him and to tell of His splendour all day long. He just can’t keep silent about all that the Lord has done.
PRAYER: Father, as we experience your salvation and the strength of your helping hand in our lives, we, too, praise and thank you for being so good to us. Give us power to be your witnesses, proclaiming to the whole world how great you are and all that you are willing to do for those who put faith in you, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 27TH JANUARY
1 Corinthians 12.31, 13.1-7
Without love I am nothing
In the middle of teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Paul pauses in this chapter to teach about love. He describes love as a way which is better than any of the gifts – the most excellent way. Love is so important that without it whatever we do is worth nothing at all! We can have all those wonderful spiritual gifts like prophecy, knowledge, faith, giving to charities and many others, but if we do not have love, having these gifts does us no good at all. We are like empty vessels that make the most sound but have no use. What is love? Verses 4-7 give us the best definition of love there is in the whole Bible. It defines love by showing the practical attitudes love produces in those who have it. Love is a very practical thing. It is not a sentimental feeling! If we are patient and kind, if we don’t envy, if we do not boast, if we are not proud, if we are not rude, if we are not self-seeking, if we are not easily angered, if we keep no record of wrongs, if we do not delight in evil, if we rejoice in the truth, if we always protect, always trust, always hope and always persevere, then we have love. If we have love we will never fail.
PRAYER: Father, as we look at these definitions of love, we realise how short we fall of being able to love. Empty us of self and fill us with yourself and the loving power your Spirit gives, for we know that it is only when “it’s no longer we who live but Jesus who lives in us,” that we can love effectively. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
THURSDAY 28TH JANUARY
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Real love – a sign of maturity
Selfishness is a sign of immaturity. The younger we are the more selfish we are. Mature people are people who have learnt how to love and are full of concern for other people. As we grow older and more mature, we realise the futility of so many of the selfish things we did when we were young. We realise how temporary were the things we thought were so important. Paul reminds us that the gifts of the Spirit are like this, however important they may seem to us now, they are still only temporary. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. All of them are designed to help us receive more love from God and give more love back to Him and to each other. At the consummation of all things they will all fade away to nothing, but love will always be with us. Tongues, prophecy and knowledge will cease, but love is eternal.
PRAYER: Father, when we were children we talked like children, thought like children and reasoned like children. Help us all to put away childish things and get on with the business of loving, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
FRIDAY 29TH JANUARY
Luke 4:21-27
Familiarity breeds contempt
When Jesus preached in his home church, at first the people were very pleased and spoke well of Him. They were amazed at His gracious words and the way He spoke with such authority. Then they suddenly realised who He was. “It’s only the carpenter’s son,” they said. “What right has He to speak like this,” and soon they were turning against Him. Jesus recognised their mistrust of Him because He was a local and He told them how a prophet is not accepted in his home town.
God gives special gifts to ordinary people. Sometimes when we know these people, we lose faith in the fact they could be used by God to do great things. We know too much about them and know all their faults. We get the mistaken idea that we have to be perfect before God can use us, even though we are very human and make lots of mistakes. As God is calling people into lay ministry, it is important for us to realise this. If we realise that ministry is God working through people, we will find it easy to accept the ministry of people who we know well and who are very familiar to us. The people rejected Jesus’ ministry because they were too familiar with Him. No wonder they sometimes reject ours! If we look, not at the people ministering to us, but look through them to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who is giving them the power to minister, we will be able to accept each other’s ministry more readily.
PRAYER: Father, although we know that familiarity breeds contempt, help us to overcome this and accept each other’s ministry, knowing that their faith and their power come from your Holy Spirit, through Jesus our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
SATURDAY 30TH JANUARY
Luke 4:26-30
Persecuted but protected
After Jesus had spoken in the synagogue, all the people were furious with Him. A fierce persecution broke out against him and they tried to throw him over a cliff. God had promised Jeremiah that He would be with him and would rescue him when he was attacked. Of course, God was not only with Jesus, but Jesus was God, so no wonder He was so protected from their furious attack. He just walked through the crowd and escaped to safety. Later on, when it was His will to suffer and pay the price for our sins on the cross, He allowed himself to be put into the hands of his enemies.
As we take up the challenge of God and are willing to offer ourselves for ministry in any way, there is a great risk that we will be persecuted and ridiculed.
We can be absolutely sure of one thing if we stay close to Jesus: He will be with us and will protect us.
One of our older children said to us once, “I used to leave Jesus at the gate when I went into school, now I take Him in with me.” If we all do this, we will not have anything to fear and can be sure of his strength and protection.
PRAYER: Father, thank you that you promise to protect us when we are persecuted or ridiculed for doing things for you. Help us to be bold enough to minister and witness and to be full of courage and faith, that with you along side us, nothing will go wrong. We ask this through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
SUNDAY 31ST.JANUARY
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
The most wonderful thing that God does for us when we become Christians, born again as his sons and daughters, is that He gives us an incredible power to love.
As the Bible says in Romans 5:5, “God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.”
We can be confused by what God really means when He calls us to love because the English language only has one word for ‘love’. The Greeks had several words for it.
‘Eros’ was the word for the love between a man and a woman. ‘Philios’ was family love, the love brothers and sister and parents and children have for each other. When they came to express the love God and Jesus have for us they couldn’t find a word that fitted so they coined a new word—‘Agape’ Agape is self giving love. Its meaning is summed up in this poem I often recite at weddings.
Love ever gives, forgives, outlives
And ever stands with open hands
And while it lives it gives
For this love’s prerogative
To give and give and give
A fuller definition of agape love is found in our second reading 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it’s not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’
Let’s learn these verses off by heart to remind us of how God wants us to love.
Jesus expressed his agape for us all by going to the cross and dying to take all our sins away. He died for every person whom He has created, from every country, every race and every class. He commands us to love them ALL. The Jews at Nazareth, where Jesus preached, (In today’s Gospel), were badly mistaken.
They thought that God only loved the Israelites, His chosen people. When Jesus pointed out to them how God showed His love for a couple of foreigners they were furious and tried to push Him over a cliff. Let’s make it a resolution for 2010 to obey Jesus and use the power that He has given us to love everyone, especially those who no one else loves. Let’s go out of our way to support organizations which support the destitute, all the poor and needy in the world.
PRAYER OF THE WEEK
O Lord, You have taught us that all our doings without love are worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted dead before you; Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. AMEN