The picture says it all.

I saw this just this morning and it says plenty. Hope it raises a wry smile!

I've said many times at work - if we put a button like this in the corridor and could track the percentage of times it'd get pressed as someone walked passed it would exceed 100%.

Why? Because so many would stop and press it more than just the once. They'd actually stand there and press it over and over again because they'd think there was no consequence to the action and it was 'funny'.

On the other hand this picture (below) has no specific spiritual or theological subtext... unless you consider the exegetical ability of the author!? Tenuous... but it made me laugh alright!

Who is reading this?

I've recently discovered the 'statistics' section for my blog and have been more than a little surprised and pleased. It seems that my blogs are not just getting read by friends and family, or friends of my family... I've gone international!!!

(Countries in green have shown 'hits')
In the last month pages have been viewed by people in the UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Canada, USA, Nigeria and Pakistan. I have also seen in past weeks hits from Luxembourg, Australia, China, Chile and South Africa and others I can't remember off the top of my head.

I realise that some of these hits are 'accidental' following a search engine look for something else. But some at least will have stopped to read something of what I've written.

If you're a regular reader or just passing through I'd love to hear where you're from and any comments on my posts. I'd love to hear about your own walk with the Lord and would love to pray for you wherever you are!

Either post a comment here or email me - da_ig_bear@yahoo.co.uk

God bless you and the whole Church worldwide!

Who have you told about Jesus?

For any of you reading my blog who don’t know I am still a baby as a Christian. I was baptised last year (nearly a year ago) at the age of 35, having been converted in the early part of 2009. So in many respects I am toddling around at 19 spiritual months old. Until this last few days I hadn’t really looked at Ezekiel... and in many respects still haven’t. I have read only a few chapters over the last couple of mornings as I have followed Peter Jeffrey’s study notes in 'Enjoying God Always'.


Anyway, I have thus far read only 4 selected chapters and they have given me so many things to consider. I’m in the habit of scrutinising books little by little when I can as you may have seen in my Romans blogs... but Ezekiel... Wow. Where do I start!?

So many things have crossed my mind reading Ezekiel about the nature of God’s judgement, the attributes of God, the UK and World Church today and its growing apostasy, Idolatry, the sheer power of the Lord, but mostly the liberties the church takes with an Almighty, omnipotent God!

I’ll try and summarise my thoughts or else I’ll end up doing what I’ve done with Romans.

I started in Ezekiel 9 and the vision of God’s Holy judgement and the idolaters killed. Those without the mark on their foreheads, put there by the ‘man clothed in linen’ (Jesus) were killed – men, women and children. The men with 'weapons for slaughter' told to do the killing were instructed to ‘not spare’ and to ‘show no pity’. But also not to touch those with the mark on their forehead (the redeemed).

Peter Jeffrey’s comment was that many people may read this and say ‘how cruel!’ but should rather read it and say ‘how righteous!’. Thinking otherwise makes God indifferent to sin. He also continues to mention that maybe people may feel the God of hellfire and judgement is old fashioned and that now God is more ‘modern’ and that this Old Testament message belongs in the past. But this cannot be. God is immutable, unchanging and faithful to His word. The same God that judged Egypt in Exodus, the same God who the prophets spoke of, the same God who sent His Son to die that we might live. That same God will one day judge YOU. And me. And everyone, ever. His wrath will be poured out on sin and those without Jesus will be condemned and separated from Him. And He is utterly just and Holy in doing this.

Now what really struck me about this was not so much the judgement of God or even His immutability, but this:

That person who sat next to you on the bus today, your best mate at work, a relative or close friend, your next door neighbours... if they don’t have Jesus they will die. They will be dead to God in their sin and forever condemned. I don’t want that for any of my unconverted friends or family... I don’t want it for the guy who swore at me the other week or even the boy who bullied me at school.

I’m sure you don’t either... but ask yourself this.

What did you actually do about it today?

Not in general over time, not last week or next week, not at some unspecified time somewhere somehow.

Today.

Because they could’ve been killed driving home never knowing Jesus.

Sobering thought eh? I hope I’m brave enough to tell someone tomorrow about Jesus.

They must know, their life depends on it.

The Holy Spirit - Comforter, Cousellor, Helper.

I was just reading CH Spurgeon's 'Morning and Evening' for today (if you don't have a copy I'd highly recommend one or click here.)The passage was based on John 14: 26 and made reference to the 'comforter that is the Holy Spirit. The verse reads:

"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."

Now clearly the context here is of the Holy Spirit being a teacher, a guide if you like. So why use the word 'comforter'? Spurgeon explains it thus:

"It is His (The Holy Spirit's) office to console the hearts of God's people. He convinces of sin; He illuminates and instructs; but still the main part of His work lies in making glad the hearts of the renewed, in confirming the weak, and lifting up all those that he bowed down... The Holy Spirit consoles, but Christ is the consolation.... The Holy Spirit is the physician, but Jesus is the medicine... If one be the Comforter, the other is the Comfort." Read the whole thing here.

Now I'm glad Spurgeon was so enlightened as to the traits of the Holy Spirit and could put it as eloquently and succinctly as that. He also manages so well to convey the unity of the trinity by wording it like this, the interwoven traits of each triune part.

It may seem so obvious to you now reading this but I was mightily confused. Why?

Because I skim read Spurgeon's words first time round. Then I looked up the verse his writing was based on and saw that in the NIV it used the word 'counsellor' where the KJV used 'comforter'... to make matters more puzzling I then checked in the ESV, only to find that it used 'helper' and the footnotes read "Or advocate, or counsellor".

So I was confronted with the Holy Spirit as a Comforter, Cousellor, Helper and Advocate. In light of Spurgeon's words I think he managed to convey each of those traits admirably! And he didn't have 2 of those 3 versions to compare!

Re-read the quote I put in from Spurgeon and see if you can see where each trait is referenced. It makes an interesting study to compare words in different versions. In this case I enjoyed seeing the attributes of God summarised so neatly.

"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name..." (ESV)

Father, Son and Holy Spirit working as one and fulfilling every promise, comforting every soul, loving, teaching, guiding, protecting, chastising, redeeming, justifying, sanctifying and one day glorifying.

Triune, Sovereign God!

Good works... for the Lord, or for yourself?

I wrote this a while back, not for this blog but for another reason. I came across it in the last week and thought it'd go well on here and offer food for thought for some of you out there in cyberspace.

Matthew 5: 16 “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Well that sounds easy doesn’t it? Do something good. Help an old lady across the street, carry someone’s shopping, maybe even give some money to a charity? Let’s look at good works in the church also. Put a big cheque in the offering plate, run the Sunday school, work as a Deacon, preach even. Surely all good works? Guaranteed to let your light shine before men no doubt, they will see your good works and praise you for them too. But ‘glorify your Father in heaven’? Well maybe that’d have to be a ‘perhaps’, or a ‘possibly’.

The most important, the most vital words in that verse are “...glorify your Father...” Not “your light” or “your good works”. There is a trap here, into which we all fall, have fallen previously and will doubtless fall again and that trap is laid by our own foolish, sinful ego and consequent self righteous pride. Our motivations get muddled and cloudy without us even realising. Are we motivated to do what we term ‘The Lord’s work’ to purely, solely glorify God. Do we only ever aim to please Him with our contributions in church or our professions of faith in public? Or are we trying to win the approval of men?

Consider this analogy. A man professes to love his wife dearly and one day brings her flowers as a surprise present. He may even buy flowers and gifts for her regularly. He hands them over with the pronunciation that he “loves her dearly”. But what is his motivation? Outwardly it is an act of love. All who witness this or hear of it would say that he must surely love his wife to have done so. However if we look behind the act and the verbal profession of love was the ‘good work’ motivated by pure love? Was he offering the flowers as a peace offering following an argument perhaps? Was he giving the flowers because he enjoys the intrinsic sense of satisfaction from giving her the gift? Was he even carrying out the act of offering the gift and saying ‘I love you’ to counter or to cover some guilt of an indiscretion on his part?

The point is this. Unless those flowers were offered out of love and nothing more it is a self motivated act. In doing it in love the man must not expect anything in return, or else he is ‘working for a payoff’. True love is not self serving, but self-less. This is not to say he cannot enjoy and revel in the subsequent returned love, the satisfaction of the act or the reconciliation it may offer. But for it to be an act of love the motivation must be just that and that alone. Love and nothing else. No anticipation or expectation of a ‘payoff’. The motivation that prompted the act is so very important.

In context we must consider how our good works glorify God. Firstly all our good works must be done out of love for the Lord. They must then also be motivated to solely bring glory to His name, with no other purpose in mind. If our motivation is elsewhere the offering is sullied, dirtied and unacceptable. If the wife knew that the husband’s motivation was to win her over with a gift, or to cover an indiscretion, or to please himself, what value would she hold in the offering? None. She would most likely throw the flowers back at her husband and not speak to him for a week! Thankfully the Lord is more gracious and understanding of us as sinners and the ease in which we are influenced by our worldly, self serving natures.

Another aspect to consider of course is God’s will. It is perfect, it is right. We should never second guess his will. So all our good works should “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God “ (Romans 12:2) In our good works, our offerings, our teaching, administration and preaching we must exercise caution in carrying out God’s will and not replacing it with our own. He is right we are wrong. We are too swift too often to imply, suggest, influence or force our ideas and opinions as being right. This is not to say they cannot be right, but we must at all times endeavour to ensure we are performing our good works according to His perfect will.

Good works should start in the hearts and spring forth in obedient acts of love for our Saviour and loving, gracious, heavenly Father. To offer good works as a sacrifice of love to God in any other way is an affront.

“...love Him, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)