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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Written by David Mathis from DesiringGod.org

Halloween is not too haunted for true saints. This is no night for God’s “holy ones” to run and hide, but rise up and revel in the power of our sovereign Christ. This is not the devil’s day, but ours. No concessions, no treaties, no retreat. No call to fear, but an invitation to feast.

Originally “All Hallows’ Eve” may have been an annual commemoration of the seemingly super-holy, the Roman “saints” (Latin hallows, “holy ones”). But under God’s kind providence, a monk named Martin came to our rescue when he went trick-or-treating on October 31, 1517, at the church door in Wittenberg. Eventually Luther labored with a horde of others to liberate God’s people from a host of medieval misconceptions – including the assumption that only some, not all, of Christ’s people are “saints” (Romans 1:7;1 Corinthians 1:2; and 2 Corinthians 1:1).

Claiming All Hallows’ Eve truly belongs to believers does not mean we celebrate death or darkness. Far from it. We celebrate our Savior’s victory over death and over everything demonic. We mark Christ’s triumph, through death, over sin and Satan. “Through death he . . . destroy[ed] the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).

As Christians, with open Bibles, we have a theology tall enough and thick enough for every ounce of Halloween, and every other day of the year. This is not a night to moan and fret, but to rejoice with confident smiles and treats in hand. And with open ears because the harvest festival is a ripe opportunity to rehearse precious truths — or teach them for the first time — about the undaunted dominion of Christ and what it means for us as his people.

So, Christian neighbors, join me in leading our homes and churches out of fear and into joy. The harvest is great, and Halloween is a striking foil — for teaching our kids, and reminding ourselves — of who we are in Christ.  Read more…

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By Author & Blogger Tim Challies

It happens to all of us at one time or another. There are times when we wake up eager to get into God’s Word, when our times in the Bible are an absolute joy and thrill. We hope, we wish, we pray that these times will never end. But they do. At times we wake up with no desire to open the Word. We find to our sorrow that the joy and thrill have given way to cold duty. I know this all too well. With September here and fall and winter laid out before us, perhaps this is the time to spark that lukewarm devotional life. Here are a few suggestions.

Ditch Your Plan

Bible-reading plans can be a tremendous aid in telling us what to read each day and in keeping us on track in actually reading it. The desire to finish the plan combined with the sense of personal failure that comes with abandoning it can be enough to keep us going. Yet often we fall behind in those plans and the discouragement of being a day, then a week, then a month behind paralyzes us into inaction. If that’s the case for you, why don’t you ditch your plan? Ditch it without shame, without that sense of failure, and do something different instead. Why not begin to read a Psalm a day, or a chapter of one of the gospels? Find a list of 100 key Scripture passages and focus on them. Pick a short book like Colossians or Titus and read it every day for a month. What and how much you read matters a lot less than the simple fact that you read something and meditate on it.

Start a Plan

Sometimes a plan is the problem and sometimes a plan is the solution. If your reading is infrequent and unstructured, why don’t you think about finding and following a plan? While we typically think of annual plans that begin in January, there are also great plans that run for weeks or months. A three- or four-month plan may be just the thing to get you through to the end of the year. If Bible-reading is an especially big struggle for you, try a 5-day-per-week plan that allows you a couple of catch-up days each week. Bible.com can get you started with a whole list of options. The ReadingPlan app has been my companion all year long and I’ve grown to love it!

 Read more..

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Written by John Bloom from DesiringGod.org

One of the most merciful gifts God can give us is a deep, keen awareness of our dependence on him for everything.

Living the Christian life relies on our full dependence upon the grace of God we receive through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it this way:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Every professing Christian agrees we must abide in Christ. But our agreement is only important to the degree we feel it to be true. The less we feel our need for Christ, the less we will abide in him.

If We Don’t Feel Hungry, We Won’t Eat

I say “feel” because in English this gets closer to the kind of knowledge of our need for Jesus he means us to have. It’s not merely cerebral but experiential knowledge, like knowing we need food.

But it’s one thing to know we need nutrients for our body when we haven’t eaten in 24 hours; it’s another thing to know we need nutrients for our body after we’ve just washed down a bag of potato chips with a 32 oz. soda. We’re not likely to eat food we really need after sating our appetite with junk. If we don’t feel hungry, we won’t eat, especially the kind of food we most need.

The same thing is true of spiritual nutrition. If we don’t feel hunger for God because we’ve been eating spiritual junk, we are not likely to want to eat the food we need most — the food from the Vine.

Read More…

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