By Author & Blogger Tim Challies

There is no source of comfort as true or as good as God’s book, the Bible. For millennia, God’s people have turned to its pages to find solace, to find hope and encouragement. Sometimes comfort is found in unexpected places, in unlikely words. I found it this morning in a simple sentence written by Jesus’s dear friend John: “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13).

Every Christian has endured times when we have been hated, when we have faced the scorn, the fists, or the swords of those opposed to God. We who put our faith in Jesus agree to bear the cross of Jesus. That cross comes with inevitable suffering and shame. We who follow a hated Savior cannot be surprised when we experience a measure of his suffering, when we bear a measure of his shame.

But why? Why are we hated? Why is it that we should be not surprised when the world turns against us?

Because Cain hated Abel. Just one verse earlier John has spoken of these two brothers and asked why one murdered the other. Cain murdered Abel “because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.” Abel’s goodness exposed Cain’s badness. Abel’s righteousness convicted Cain of his unrighteousness. Abel’s love for God silently declared Cain’s disregard. Cain responded with the ultimate manifestation of hatred—he murdered his own brother.

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 Frank Retief was pastor at St James Church Cape Town for 31 years, having planted the church in 1968 with his wife Beulah.  He became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa until he retired in 2010.  Frank remains active in ministry through preaching, teaching, pastoral work & writing, and has authored a number of books.

Truth – Hidden & Revealed

Luke 1- v 21. “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.”

Here we are presented with an amazing truth – one we are apt to forget. Understanding of Jesus and his Salvation is not “attained” by us, but rather is given to us by the Father. He reveals his deep secrets to “little children”. This was a title Jesus used to refer to those ordinary people who are not well schooled or sophisticated.

Notice the reference to the Trinity in v 21 – Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Father!  Let us never forget that our God is truly Father, Son, Spirit. We may be bewildered by this but it is true.

What’s more, we have an illustration here of the great truth that by nature we know nothing of God and His ways. We are born spiritually ignorant, we live like that and we would die in this same ignorance if God did not intervene. And in grace and mercy he does indeed intervene. But notice to whom He reveals his truths.

The “wise and the learned” mentioned here by Jesus does not refer to the ordinary wisdom and true learning available to people, but to those proud and arrogant people who are so full of their own self-righteousness that they make themselves unteachable. They learn nothing from anyone. They have shut themselves off from God because they consider themselves as already possessing a full knowledge of God and they do not want help.

This is a sad and dangerous condition. To be unteachable is to be caught up in one of the saddest mind-sets in the world.  It means an inability to grow or learn.

On the other hand the  “little children” referred to by Jesus does not refer primarily to small children but to those who are naive and unlearned, but recognize their helplessness and welcome somebody coming to instruct them and lead them.

God works in ways that are contrary to the world. The world honours those who are full of confidence and arrogance, but God honours those who are of humble and contrite spirits.

And why does He do this? Because, says Jesus, it was his good pleasure. His Divine Will works for the downfall of pride and for the good of those who accept His Word by faith in Him.

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By Tim Challies

Do you love to read? Do you want to learn to love to read? Do you enjoy reading books that cross the whole spectrum of topics and genres? Then I’ve got something that may be right up your alley—The 2017 Christian Reading Challenge.

Whether you are a light reader or completely obsessed, this 2017 Christian Reading Challenge is designed to help you read more and to broaden the scope of your reading.

How It Works

The 2017 Christian Reading Challenge is composed of 4 lists of books, which you are meant to move through progressively. You will need to determine a reading goal early in the year and set your pace accordingly.

• The Light Reader. This plan has 13 books which sets a pace of 1 book every 4 weeks.
• The Avid Reader. The Avid plan adds another 13 books which increases the pace to 1 book every 2 weeks.
• The Committed Reader. This plan adds a further 26 books, bringing the total to 52, or 1 book every week.
• The Obsessed Reader. The Obsessed plan doubles the total to 104 books which sets a demanding pace of 2 books every week.

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By David Mathis from DesiringGod.org

New Year’s resolutions can be an important first step, but they are a far cry from real, lasting change.

The ringing in of a new year brings with it the possibility of a fresh start, or at least a fresh reminder to turn the page on some (or many) ways we’d like to grow and mature in the next season of life. But haven’t we all tried this enough times by now to know how futile mere resolves are if not accompanied by more?

Whether it’s eating and exercise, or Bible-reading and prayer, the God-created mechanism we call “habit” is vital for seeing our earnest resolutions through to enjoyable realities. If we really are resolved to see our hopes for 2017 become life-enriching habits, we will do well to keep several basic truths in mind at the outset of a new year.

Focus on a Few, Not Many.

Better than big emotional, private resolves about the many things you want to “fix” about your life is dialing in just one or two realistic, and really important, resolves with a concrete plan and specific accountability. The excitement of a new year, and ease with which we can desire change, often leads us to bite off way more than we can chew for a new year.

It’s much better to focus on just a couple new habits — even better, just one. And if you’re going to narrow it to just one (or maybe a couple or three), you might as well make it count. Identify something important that will give your new-habit-forming particular focus, even while this one resolve will reap benefits in other areas of your life. Soul-strengthening “habits of grace” are precisely this. Going deeper in God’s word, prayer, or your local church will produce an invaluable harvest.

Consider a specific focus for the new year, or just the first three months of 2017, or even just January. A year is a long period of time in terms of habit-forming; typically we would do much better to just make one resolve at a time, and do so every few months, than to attempt many things and for so long a period as twelve months.

Make It Specific.

Bible intake, prayer, and Christian community likely are too broad in and of themselves. Give it more specific focus like reading the whole Bible this year, or not just reading but daily meditating on a short passage or verse, or even just a word or phrase (in context). Don’t keep it general at “prayer,” but make it more particular: private prayer each morning, or bedtime prayer with your spouse or family, or punctuating your day with “constant prayer,” or some new prayer initiative as a community group or church.

Perhaps as the old year is coming to a close, you’re realizing how spotty your church commitment has been, and how thin your relationships are as a result. You might resolve to deepen your commitment to not neglect your meeting together “as is the habit of some” (Hebrews 10:25), whether that’s making Sunday mornings more nonnegotiable or prioritizing your midweek investment in life together in community group. Resolve in 2017 not to let silly last-minute excuses keep you from faithfully gathering with the body of Christ, which will be a priceless, long-term means of God’s grace both to you and through you, to others.

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By Marshall Segal from DesiringGod.Org

If we are always concerned with what people think about us, we will always be reluctant to tell them about Jesus.

Perhaps the single most significant hindrance to Christian witness in the world today is our hunger for human approval. By nature, we think more about what people think of us than about what they think of Jesus. We crave acceptance and dread rejection — which inclines us toward whatever might improve others’ perception of us. And that will very rarely, if ever, lead us to call them to repent from their sin and believe the gospel.

The apostle Paul lived differently. Apparently he had been liberated from the need to be liked, or even respected. He moved from town to town, in and out of crowds, anchored in the safety and satisfaction of knowing Jesus (Philippians 3:8). Many adored him, even to the point of worshiping him, and others hated him, even to the point of trying to murder him. But he lived and served above approval ratings. He worked for someone else’s fame, whatever that fame might cost him personally in popular opinion.

He abandoned the haunted hayride of human approval to walk Calvary’s underground road to freedom from the fear of man.

Zeus, Hermes, and Human Approval

Everywhere Paul went, he met dramatically mixed reviews.  During his and Barnabas’s time in a town called Lystra, for instance, they came to a man crippled from birth. He had literally never used his feet (Acts 14:8). Paul saw through the man’s disability, though, into his heart, and he saw faith — a brilliant and strong belief that Jesus could heal him inside and out (Acts 14:9). So Paul healed the man’s legs (Acts 14:10).

The crowds saw the man walking, after sitting for so many years, and they rushed Paul and Barnabas. They treated them like gods (Acts 14:11) — not like governors, or star athletes, or movie stars, but gods. They called them “Zeus” and “Hermes” after familiar figures in the pantheon (Acts 14:12). They even brought oxen to sacrifice to them (Acts 14:13).

Imagine your neighbors trying to worship you by slaughtering their animals.

The Seduction of Attention

How do Paul and Barnabas respond to these acts of worship? Do they bask in the attention? Do they relish the over-the-top affirmation and support? Do they change their handles to @Zeus and @Hermes, and retweet a few lines of the people’s praise?

Read more….

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Frank Retief was pastor at St James Church Cape Town for 31 years, having planted the church in 1968 with his wife Beulah.  He became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa until he retired in 2010.  Frank remains active in ministry through preaching, teaching, pastoral work & writing, and has authored a number of books.

An uncommon King (Part 3)

Matthew 1 v 18. This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

We are still grappling with the mystery of the Person of Jesus, our King. Continuing from where we left off yesterday we should note that the miraculous conception of Jesus is not the reason why He was sinless.

It is sometimes thought that original sin is transferred through the male line. But this is not true because women share in the sinfulness of the human race. This fallenness would have encompassed Mary too. In fact Mary herself was conscious of being a sinner and in Luke 1:47 she said: “My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour”.

This does not suggest that there was any special or carnal sin about Mary. The book titled “The Da Vinci Code” and many liberal scholars have done enough of that. There is nothing to suggest that Mary was anything but a pure and upright Jewish teenager, who was chosen by God to bear the Saviour into the world. However that in itself does not make her sinless or above the rest of the human race. So if we want to trace the sinlessness of Jesus we must look elsewhere.

It is far more likely that God who can do anything, when He caused Mary to conceive also in a divine way preserved the special child who was to be born, from inheriting human sinfulness which Mary otherwise would have transmitted to her firstborn child. We do not use the word “begot” anymore today, but in this divine “begetting”, God preserved the new foetus from any sinful influence in a supernatural manner.

Incredible? Yes! But why should we not believe it? Our whole body of faith is based on God’s sovereign ability to provide us with a Saviour who was without sin Himself. And this seems to be the way He chose to do it. Jesus is truly an uncommon King.

Meditation:  Read Hebrews 4:15 and ask yourself whether Jesus could have been any help to us if He himself was a sinner. Then read Hebrews 4:16 and lift your heart to God.

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Written by John Bloom from DesiringGod.org

For many, the last few days before Christmas are rarely peaceful. This is especially true for parents and pastors. These days are packed with final (and often pressured) preparations of presents and programs and celebrations and sermons. “All is calm” is not our experience. This can leave us wondering if we are nothing more than Christmas “Martha’s,” “distracted with much serving . . . anxious and troubled about many things” and missing the “Mary” moment in all the merry (Luke 10:40–42).

While such distractions are, of course, a year-round ever-present danger, let me encourage you with some brief Christmas perspective on busy-ness.

Remember Joseph and Mary

First, we must keep in mind that the original Christmas was not peaceful, not for Joseph and Mary. They were the first parents who had to prepare for Christmas and the pressure they felt dwarfs what most of us are experiencing right now. Bethlehem was overcrowded with census registrants. Things did not go as they likely envisioned. Joseph was desperately searching for lodging for his wife who was in labor. All he could secure was a stable.

If an unforeseen crisis emerges in the midst of your already challenging Christmas labors, remember Joseph and Mary. That place of desperation is often where the grace of God breaks in with the greatest power.

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Frank Retief was pastor at St James Church Cape Town for 31 years, having planted the church in 1968 with his wife Beulah.  He became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa until he retired in 2010.  Frank remains active in ministry through preaching, teaching, pastoral work & writing, and has authored a number of books.

An uncommon King (Part 2)

Matthew 1 v 18. This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.  

We will not dwell for the moment on what this event must have meant to Mary and to Joseph as two human beings. Rather I would like you to focus on the sheer miraculousness of this conception.

Notice, in the first place that the great Creator of the universe who can do anything, miraculously plants a conceptual seed in Mary’s womb. There have been many critics of the virginal conception over the years, mainly because man in his arrogance thinks he knows everything and decided that miracles do not happen. Well, it happened here with Mary. Remember, it was not the birth of Jesus that was miraculous. That happened very naturally. Rather, it was the conception of the Christ child that was an utterly miraculous event.

Now in the second place, we must not fall into the mistake of thinking that because He was born of a virgin that that was the source of his deity. He was not divine simply because He had no human father. One theologian put it like this: “Neither sinful nor holy parents could produce an offspring who was God. That is beyond their humanity. And neither could a virgin mother do this.” Rather we are to remember as God the Son, the second person in the Trinity, Jesus was fully and truly God prior to and apart from the virginal conception. That means that God the Son who exists with God from eternity, did not come into existence because the Virgin Mary conceived and gave birth.

All this is a great mystery. But then we are dealing with a great God, who sent a great Saviour into our world to effect a great salvation for us.

Meditation:  The birth of Jesus is usually celebrated without being fully understood. Of course the mystery of this event is beyond our understanding. But surely we need to appreciate it more? Although we cannot understand all, that does not mean we can understand nothing. Do you ever ponder these things?

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By Author & Blogger Tim Challies

Gospel weariness. It’s a little phrase I picked up from a friend when he preached at our church not too long ago. His text was James 1, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…” As he began to preach he told of some of the difficulties his church had encountered in recent days. Most recently and most painfully, dear friends who had only one opportunity to have a child had experienced stillbirth at eight and a half months, just two weeks from delivery. What tragedy. What sorrow.

He and his friends are Christians so they know that suffering is not empty, it is not purposeless, it is not meaningless. But that doesn’t make it any less painful.

Why? Why do we experience such suffering? Why does God allow it? Just from these early verses in James we see something unexpected—trials do us good. Trials do us good by developing spiritual maturity, by developing the most precious character traits. “Trials don’t come about because of what you’ve done but because of who God wants you to be.” Trials generate humility, leveling the field as small and great alike experience pain, miscarriage, death. Trials develop compassion and dependence, teaching us to sympathize with others and be dependent upon God. Trials give us courage in forcing us to handle what we were sure we could never deal with. The couple that lost their child displayed all of this when they said, “We have nowhere to go. All we have is God and his character to lean on.” At the funeral they declared, “Though the fog will not lift and the pain will not go, we hold on.” That’s faith.

Trials do us good in at least one more way: Trials develop a gospel weariness, a weariness with this world. Reflecting on all he had seen and experienced my friend said, “I hate this world right now. All it has done is break my heart.” It had broken his heart and the hearts of the people he loves. “None of us want to stay here. We want to rise in the resurrection and be done with the pain. All this world does is fool you and fail you. It over-promises and under-delivers.”  

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By Stephen Witmer from DesiringGod.org

Gossip is tasty to its speakers and hearers. “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts” (Proverbs 18:8 NIV).  A choice morsel is exciting and enticing, swallowed greedily, like potato chips or onion rings. But gossipy words aren’t just a burst of flavor on the tongue; they “go down to the inmost parts,” promising to meet the deep desires of our hearts.

Why does gossip taste so good? Ironically, while gossip’s content usually focuses on other people, at its core, gossip is really about me. It promises to make me feel a certain way about myself. We gossip because of what gossip promises to do for us. Therefore, when we gossip, we’re serving and worshiping ourselves (perhaps that’s why Paul lists gossip as a sin of idolatrous people in Romans 1:29).

Jonathan Dodson’s articles have helped me identify gossip’s false promises. Let’s consider four of them it makes to us.

1. “You Are Interesting.”

We all like to feel accepted, and interesting gossip can serve as our entrance badge into a conversation or group. All the more so if the gossip is negative and leads to mutual complaining. Gossiping and griping can be a bonding experience (“Did you hear the latest about our boss?”).

But gossip offers what it can’t deliver. When gossip says, “You’re interesting,” or, “You belong,” it’s lying. To people who thrive on gossip, you’re only interesting as long as your gossip is interesting. When we use gossip to gain access into a community (a church, a workplace, a friendship circle), our words tear apart the very community we want to join.

Jesus gives us a true community, the church. Our entrance badge into that community is his own blood, which unites the church in love. We don’t get into the church based on what we say about others. We get in based on what God says about us in Christ.

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Frank Retief was pastor at St James Church Cape Town for 31 years, having planted the church in 1968 with his wife Beulah.  He became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa until he retired in 2010.  Frank remains active in ministry through preaching, teaching, pastoral work & writing, and has authored a number of books.

An uncommon King – Part 1
Matthew Chapter 1 v 7 – 11

We now begin a series of reflections on the Christmas story, and we start with the few verses referred to above as a start. These bible verses are part of the introduction Matthew gives us to Jesus’ birth. He and Luke both give us a genealogy of Jesus.Genealogies were important in ancient times to prove where people came from to validate their claims to certain privileges.  It was important for Jesus to be born of the line of David, so that all ancient prophecies about the Messiah could be fulfilled, and indeed both Matthew and Luke proved exactly that.Christians claim that Jesus Christ is God’s king of all creation and that the glory of His kingship will finally be seen by all when He returns. It was imperative in those days for kings to have water-tight pedigrees to go with their status and privilege. But our king, the Christian’s king was an uncommon king. He was different in so many ways and some of those ways may be observed in the genealogy referred to above.Four of the ancient kings of Israel are mentioned above, cause us to pause and reflect. They are:

Rehoboam:  1 Kings 12 – 14
Joram:  2 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 21
Amon:  2 Chronicles 33 v 21 – 25
Jechoniah (also called Jehoiachim):  2 Chronicles 36 v 9 – 10

What was unusual about them?  They were all extremely wicked people.  They were evil kings yet here they appear in our Lord’s genealogy.  This teaches us amongst other things how sinful and corrupt the human heart is.  Grace does not always run in families.  In spite of godly forebears and the presence of prophets to guide them, those kings behaved sinfully and brought great trouble upon the nation.

It also teaches us how great the mercy and grace of Jesus is, to condescend to be born of a woman, who like all of us was a sinner. Reckoned to be the son of Joseph he came from the kingly line of David, but some of his forebears were total failures.

Godly and privileged though Mary was, she would herself, need her Son to be her Saviour. She was merely the instrument God used, so that the Word could become flesh.

This is amazing. Think about these things.

Meditation: The God who made the heavens, in Mary’s womb?  The coming king of Israel, with such wicked forbears?  Unthinkable, but it happened.  Do not marginalize Jesus!  He condescended greatly to save you.

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Written by Trevor Bradley

Paul, nearing the end of his journey, decides to write to Timothy, his “spiritual son”.  2 Timothy 4 vs 6-8 is his heart.  What would you say, if you were asked by a younger person to share some of word of advice, about this journey called “life” ?  Paul says/does 3 things here:-

• He LOOKS AROUND;
• He LOOKS BACK;
• He LOOKS AHEAD;

When Paul looks around, even though things are going “pear-shaped”, he has no fear.

When looking back, Paul has no regrets about past disappointments or failures.

Then looking ahead, Paul has no doubt.

It is easy for us to allow the devil to fill our hearts with fear as we look at the here and now. With the #feesmustfall violent protests, the fear that our country will be downgraded to junk status, concerns about the leadership capabilities of our government, it is easy to be fearful and concerned for our future.  One of the biggest tools the evil one uses to immobilize us and to render us ineffective, is to get us to look back.  Based on what we see, the devil tells us that GOD cannot and will not use us.  Read the life story of Peter and many others in the Bible and you can argue with him on that one.

Fear …Regrets… Doubt…  These are tools he uses against us often.  How do we overcome this?  Read Revelation 12 vs 11 and 1 John 5 vs 4.  These people overcame because of the Blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.  They declared that God is who is says He is.  He is doing what He said He would do, and He is in control of everything that He said He would be in control of in our lives.

So yet again I ask – If asked as you looked around, looked back, looked ahead, would you be able to encourage the younger generation, that the God we serve and have served is Faithful?  That the work set out for you to do, you have done?  That the course that was set before you, you have run?

Paul encourages us in Philippians 3 vs 13 & 14 ” forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I PRESS ON”.  That’s someone that is not scared of what is going down.  This is a person which says I know that soon I will receive a crown in glory, as all of us will (2 Timothy 4 vs 6-8), therefore I will give it my “best” to the end.

That’s the kind of person the younger generation are looking for as role models.  I want to be one, do you?

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