Monthly Archives: July 2020

Life Lessons

Are you a Leader?

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    There is no doubt about it, some people are natural leaders while others prefer to just follow someone else. Perhaps they don’t have the self confidence to take the lead, or perhaps they just can’t be bothered making the effort.

   How do we know we can be a leader if we aren’t sure about these things?  The quickest way is to turn around and see if there is anyone following you! We might feel that we aren’t important enough or have anything to offer….but, what is that in your hand? Moses had every excuse under the sun when God accosted him out in the desert and told him to go and tell the king of Egypt to let His people go.

 “How can I do that? I’m not important enough,” was his first excuse.

Then he said, “The people won’t listen to me. What do I tell them when they ask whose idea this is?”

   God was very patient with Moses, and He said, “Look, I will be with you. Just tell the people that ‘I AM’ has sent you; the One Who spoke to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob years ago. That is My Name. When you tell them that, they will listen.”

“But what if they don’t?” Moses persisted.

“What is that in your hand?” God asked.

Moses looked at his shepherd’s stick, and said, “It’s my rod.”

“Throw it down on the ground,” God said.

   So he did, and immediately it became a wriggling snake, and Moses hastily got away from it.

“Now pick it up by its tail,” God said, and as Moses reached out his hand and grabbed it, suddenly he found he had his stick back! Twice more, God had to show Moses the miraculous things that would happen when he did what he was told.

But he still hung back. “I can’t talk well enough”, was his next excuse.

   God’s patience started to wear thin. “Who made your mouth?” He demanded. “Very well, I know your brother Aaron is a good talker. He is coming to meet you now. Take him with you, and he can do your talking for you and you will tell him from Me what he is to say.”

Moses finally agreed, and did as God had told him, and became one of the greatest leaders there has ever been.

    We can see several things from this story that can apply to us. Firstly, we may think we are only an unimportant person, but if God is calling us to do something for Him, He will give us the strength. Not only that, but He will be with us as we make a start, and will give us others to support us  in the task that He wants us to do. That is on God’s side. On the other hand, we have to respond on our side. We have to be willing to hear His voice and obey what He is saying to us.

As we make the first move, God will step in and open up the doors for us. All we have to do is to use what we have.

   Perhaps you feel you are only a mother with little children, and ask what you could possibly do. Well, you have the most important job in the world, that of shaping the attitudes and manners of the little ones in your charge. All too soon they will grow up and be gone. Be a worthy leader under God’s direction, of your home and family, and He will bless you in it.

Life Lessons

In Fighting

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      Once again, it is that time of the year that we have put a bird feeder outside our dining-room window, and it gives us a lot of pleasure watching the little birds feeding there. But you know, even among the birds there is continual scrapping going on. The small silver-eyes stand on a branch nearest the feeder and fluff their little wings angrily at each other. The bold mynah struts around at the base of the tree and even jumps up on the branch to take a few pecks before he gets chased off. The sparrows take no notice of the others and greedily grab as many beakfuls as they can while the others are scrapping among themselves.

    It reminded me of how we as people often scrap among ourselves, sometimes vying for the better places or positions. This is not how we are meant to behave, especially in church situations. The Lord Jesus told us to be prepared to take the humble place and wait for others to give us a higher position rather than angrily (or sneakily)  try to take it from others.

    It is not smart to behave like this anywhere, and only causes hurtful situations that often can never be remedied. People can forgive, but they very seldom completely forget!

Our politicians as we get near the election time, too, seem to do all they can to take each other down so they can get the place they want. It almost seems that the good of the country is completely forgotten as the candidates each extol the virtues of their campaign hoping to gain that seat!

Let’s make sure that we aren’t like this, but be prepared to take the lower place and support those who have been promoted over us!

Random Devotional Thoughts

What is Life?

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I was watching a young Mum with her newborn baby the other day, and got to thinking how this little life is there for ever. Everything that the child will grow into is already in place except its attitudes, and these are up to the parents to teach and show as the child develops. What an awesome responsibility, and one that so many people take so lightly!

    Life has a beginning at conception and then grows as the child is born and takes its first breath. This life does not end at death, it just begins! What we have been on earth lays the foundation for what we will be in the next life…just as Jesus said, “What we bind on earth will be bound in heaven.”(Matthew 18:18)

 This life is just the beginning of eternity. Every baby that takes a breath exists for ever, for eternity….life on earth is just a dot, and what we do with it is up to us! It is crucial in the extreme, and is something that must not be pushed to one side…we have no option but to examine the matter thoroughly if we would be true to ourselves. Our eternal destiny depends on it.

    We went to a friend’s funeral service the other day, and those who were Christians were rejoicing in the fact that we will see him again one day and that there is an eternal confidence of  this. Those of his relatives who did not know the Lord had no such confidence…for them he was gone for ever. They wanted to think that he was finished, ended, and that the same fate would one day be theirs, but this is not what the Bible teaches.

Death is not the end for any human being, it is only the beginning of eternity, an eternity to be spent either with God in His presence or an eternity without Him in the depths of despair, and we have the answer to this in our hands. As one Old Testament leader said to his ;people….”Choose this day who you will serve…whether the gods of the nations around you, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15)

Jesus said….”I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly!”  ( John 10:10)  and…

“This is life eternal…that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ  Who You sent.” (John 17:3)

Random Devotional Thoughts

God’s Word is Like….

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    I was reading the verse from Hebrews 4:12 where it describes God’s Word as being ” quick (living) , and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”.

     There is nothing so convicting and convincing as God’s Word if we allow it to sink into our minds. It IS possible to shut one’s mind to it, but if we do that, it won’t be long before its influence on our ways and thinking will disappear and we will become hard and unyielding.

    This verse shows that it is like an extremely sharp two edged sword, cutting both ways, as it goes in and as it comes out…there is a story that illustrates this point perfectly….

   There was a man once who had didn’t believe in all this God rubbish (as he put it). One of the old time evangelists came to his district and was holding meetings several times a week. One of our man’s friends persuaded him to go to one of these meetings.

“You know I don’t believe in all that stuff”, he said complainingly to his friend, “I’ll go just the once, but no more, mind!”

He sat through the meeting, working out all his arguments against the preacher in his mind. His chance came when the preacher offered to take him home.

“Well, Sir,” our man said, “I don’t believe all that stuff you told us tonight. What about…..?” and he presented his first argument.

The preacher was silent a moment and then he said, “I don’t know about that, all I know is that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleans us from all sin.”

Our friend was a bit taken aback. He hadn’t expected a reply like that. But he rallied and then put out his next argument which was guaranteed (he thought) to get the preacher’s hackles up.

    Again the preacher was silent a moment, and then he said, “Well, I haven’t heard that one before, but all I know is that the blood of Jesus Christ cleans us from all sin.”

Our friend wasn’t going to be deterred, and he thought of several more arguments that he felt sure the preacher had no answers for.

    But each time the preacher just quietly said, “Well, I don’t know about that…..all I know is that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleans us from all sin!”

     By this time they had reached our friend’s house and the preacher pulled up to let him out. Our friend gave one more parting shot as he left the car…”Well, I’m not coming back any more to hear that stuff!”

“That’s fine friend,” the preacher said, “But just remember,” as our friend went off into the darkness, “the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleans us from all sin!”

   The preacher went home, prayed for our friend and didn’t expect to see him again. But God’s Word which had been used as a sword, and as a strong hammer which can break rocks, began to work in his mind. A couple of nights later, the preacher heard a knock on his door just he had gone to bed. He opened the door, and there stood our friend looking rather distraught and haggard.

“I haven’t been able to sleep a wink since that meeting the other night,”  he said, “All I can hear in my mind are those words, the blood of Jesus Christ cleans us from all sin….I can’t get rid of them. What do I have to do to put my mind at rest?”

“Come on in,”  the preacher said, “It’s never too late to talk about the things of God”. He was able to explain to our friend that the way to have peace in his mind, was simply to tell the Lord that he realised he was a sinner and needed to be made clean from all the bad thoughts and habits he had formed over the years.

   He gladly did this and became a different man as a result. He had different aims now, and went to different places. The old ways didn’t attract him any more. Now he could say, and mean it with all his heart….. “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleans me from ALL sin!”