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MONDAY 28th.SEPTEMBER
Job 1.1, 2.1-10
Accept trouble with the good

In the story of the Book of Job, Job is presented as a very good, upright person. He had an excellent character and could do no wrong. In the courts of Heaven God was telling everyone how good Job was. Satan (who doesn’t want anyone to be good) said Job was only good because everything had gone well for him in his life. “If he were to face severe hardships and have to suffer a lot, would he be so good?” Satan asked. God was sure Job would keep his integrity. He gave Satan permission to cause lots of things to go wrong in Job’s life. This he did and Job remained unmovable. All the trouble Satan caused could not break him.

Later on, three well-meaning friends came along. They accused Job of being very sinful because of all the suffering he was going through. This made Job very angry and he even got angry at God. He was sure he’d done nothing wrong and couldn’t understand why he had to suffer. Another friend, Elihu, came along and he helped Job have faith in God through the power of the Holy Spirit (Job 32.8). Soon Job met God. He had a living experience of the presence of God. This made all his troubles fade away to nothing. He repented of his anger towards God. When he repented of his wrong attitudes to God and to his suffering, he was soon at peace. In the end his sufferings ceased and he was prosperous again.

If we learn to keep on trusting God when things go wrong, if we thank Him for the bad as well as the good, then we will be so happy. Nothing, however bad, will be able to make our happiness go away.

PRAYER: Father, help us to accept the bad with the good. When hard times come our way, even if we lose everything, help us to keep our faith in you. Help us to be thankful in all circumstances and praise the Lord always. Amen.

TUESDAY 29th.SEPTEMBER
ST. MICHAEL & ALLANGELS
Psalm 8
Praise silences Satan

Psalm 8 is a beautiful psalm. It’s a psalm full of praise to Almighty God. We praise Him for the wonderful universe He has made. We especially praise Him for creating us men and women. It was for us that everything is created. God put man in control of the whole created world. Everything is subject to Him. These days there is so much concern for the environment. This is good, but some go too far and make the environment another god. This is a form of pantheism - worshipping nature. It makes God angry, for the environment was made for man and not man for the environment. When Adam and Eve fell, Satan caused them to lose control and everything went wrong. Sin entered with lots of sicknesses, family break-ups and wars. Jesus came to put us back in control. He won the victory over Satan on the cross and was crowned with glory and honour when He ascended back into Heaven. He won the victory for us. He put us back in control.

When we are in control, we control the circumstances, the circumstances don’t control us. This is the way God wants it to be. When Satan is in control, circumstances cause us to fall to pieces, e.g. when someone we love hurts us badly, Satan wants us to hate them. When we are in control of the situation, Jesus gives us the power to love so that however much we are hurt by our loved ones, we will never stop loving them.

The way to get control is easy. It is through praise. Verse 2 of this psalm tells us praise silences Satan. When we praise God in all circumstances, we keep control. God stays in control of us and we control the circumstances.

PRAYER: Father, thank you for ordaining praise to silence the enemy. Help us to keep in control by praising you in all circumstances, so that, with your power, we control the circumstances and don’t let the circumstances control us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

WEDNESDAY 30TH.SEPTEMBER
Hebrews 1.1-4; 2.5-18
Jesus is in control

We saw yesterday that Jesus has taken control of the universe and He has put us back in control of our circumstances. Today we see how much Jesus is in control. In fact, He has always been in control. Jesus is the Son of God. As part of the Blessed Trinity, He is one with God.

Through Him God made the universe. Jesus radiates all the glory of God. He is the exact likeness of God’s own being. Jesus sustains the whole universe by His powerful word. Jesus has absolute superiority. Even though He has all this control and all this power, He hasn’t finished His work yet. That is why we still see many who are not yet subject to Him. To get us all under His control, Jesus had to suffer death on the cross. By God’s grace He went through His death for everyone. He released the power we all need to free us from Satan’s control and the control of our selfish, imperfect human natures. Jesus is the author of salvation. He revealed to the world His perfection as He suffered. He was so holy, so wonderful, so fantastic!

His suffering has made us holy too. As we yield to Jesus and put all our faith and trust in His enormous power, so we become more and more like Him. As we let Him have complete and utter control of our lives, we become God’s children, brothers of Jesus. Jesus completely destroyed Satan’s power on the cross. He had to become like us in every way in order to enable us to become like Him. By identifying Himself with us and becoming one of us, He gently leads us as day by day. He bears all we go through, all the pain and suffering of temptation and sin. He goes through it with us, powerfully changing us into His likeness, making us fit for Heaven.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, I trust in you. I give myself to you. Because you died to make me holy and freed me from all sin, I know that I am yours for ever. Come and take complete control. Amen.

THURSDAY 1ST. OCTOBER
Genesis 2.18-24
A helper suitable for Him

This is a beautiful story of how God created a woman to be Adam’s wife. He saw how lonely Adam was and how much he needed a friend and a helper. When God created a woman for the first man, He made a perfect match. God made men and women completely different from each other in many ways. He made them different so that they could fit in with each other. They were to complement each other and enrich each other’s lives. Eve was taken out from Adam. God made it natural for her to submit to him, but He made them equal. “The woman was made from the rib
out of the side of Adam, not out of his head to rule him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arms to be protected and near his heart to be loved” (Matthew Henry’s Commentary, p.7).

God made men and women different so that when they come together in marriage, they become one flesh. They are so much one with each other that they are inseparable. For this unity to be complete, it’s important to realize the enormous differences between males and females. We look differently, feel differently, act differently and think differently. When we do realize this, we can understand each other and adjust our attitudes to each other. When we gain this understanding, our relationships get so very much stronger and our unity complete.

PRAYER: Father, thank you for the wonderful way you created male and female. Help us to understand each other’s differences, give ourselves to each other, and love each other so that we will always be one with each other, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.

FRIDAY 2ND. OCTOBER
Mark 10.2-12
Jesus’ teaching on marriage

Jesus changed the Law of Marriage for all His followers. The Jews had easy divorce laws. Any Jew could write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away. The Pharisees wanted to find out what Jesus thought about divorce. They asked Him straight out if it were lawful for a man to divorce his wife. In His reply, Jesus said that it was not lawful to divorce. He said that if a man divorces his wife and marries another woman, he commits adultery against her. Also, if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.

Jesus gave the reason why God permitted divorce. It was because of the hardness of people’s hearts. Hard hearts are hearts that cannot forgive. Hard hearts are hearts that cannot love. Hard hearts cause others to suffer without caring. Jesus died on the cross to transform our hard hearts into soft hearts. When we make a decision to accept Him as Lord and Saviour of our lives, when we put all our faith and trust in what He did for us on the cross, the power from the cross floods into our hearts. It changes hard hearts into soft hearts. He enables us to forgive, however bad the offence. He enables us to love each other when we are hurting each other. He makes us to hate hurting each other. He gives us so much compassion for each other.

Jesus changed the law of marriage and He gave us the power to keep it! Now when a man and woman leave their parents and get married, they truly become one. Jesus makes them one and no-one can separate them.

PRAYER: Jesus, as a church and society, we have strayed away from this law of marriage. We repent of this. Give all married couples soft hearts by the power of the cross, so that they can be truly one and remain one for ever. Amen.

SATURDAY 3RD. OCTOBER
Mark 10.13-16
Let the children come to me

Jesus loves children very much. How annoyed He became when the disciples tried to keep the children away from Him. Jesus could see that children have a quality about them that we all need if we are to receive all that Jesus has to offer. We need faith. We need the power to believe and trust in Jesus, power to surrender to Him. Children have this power quite naturally. They find it so much easier to trust and believe. They surrender much easier than adults do.

When my eldest daughter, Helena, was 5 years old, she once prayed for her mother and saw mummy instantly healed of a very bad headache. Later, when she became an adult, Helena would often say, “I wish I still had that simple faith I had when I was 5!”

All of us need to become more humble and believe and trust everything Jesus says to us in the Bible. We have no need to doubt His word. How can we? - Jesus can never lie!

As Jesus gave children a lot of attention, so we, too, need to give our children lots of love and attention. Children cannot love unless they are loved. All children love their parents, both of them. For the sake of the children, it’s very, very important that each mother and father draws on the power Jesus released on the cross to love each other. When parents stop loving each other, they do enormous harm to their children. Parents hating each other and separating from each other is probably the worst form of child abuse. It does so much harm.

PRAYER: Jesus, help us all to love our children and all children as much as you do. Help parents to love their children by loving each other. May we all humble ourselves and become like children to receive from you that power to enable us to love children more. Amen.

SUNDAY 4TH.OCTOBER 2009
This week’s Message

Family life is so important. Families are the building blocks of society.When families are strong there is a stable society. When family life breaks down society breaks down. One of the great miracles Jesus did was to establish the Christian family. He made it very clear that a man should leave his mother and father and be united to his wife, so much so that the two become one flesh. He said, “What God has joined together let man not separate.” Jesus was able to Change the laws of marriage because he Gave us the incredible power to love. This power was released when Jesus died on the cross. Because while we were still sinners Jesus forgave us and died for us ,paying the price for our sins, so He gives us the power to forgive each other and love each other. The way to love each other to keep our marriages intact is to become each other’s servants. We are told to submit to one another.

Jesus made Himself to be our servant. (See Matthew 20;28) We have to follow His example. Husbands have to love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself to Her. Wives respond to that love as they submit to their husbands in the same way as we all submit to Jesus. Recognising the differences between male and female and the different ways we love and respond to each other enables us to love each other more and stay together. I have seen several broken marriages comeback together as couples have become aware of these differences and seen how Jesus can give them to amazing power to love. If you find yourself in a situation where your marriage has broken up or you are divorced and have a new partner and are in a situation that cannot be changed, draw on the wonderful forgiving love of Jesus. Remember it is while we were still sinners that Jesus died for us. Forgive all those who have hurt you as Jesus forgives you. Let us all use the power Jesus has given us. What I call the incredible power to love. Let’s truly become each other’s servants as we follow Jesus example and submit to one another.