Town and Around

Is it Really Dirty?

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    We had come back from a trip in the motor home where some of the way was down a dusty, rough gravel road. You might wonder why we put up with the jiggles and rattles of that road, but the end result was well worth it….a beautiful, mostly deserted sandy beach, where the fishing was remarkably good!

   We stayed there for several days before rattling our way back to the tarsealed main highway. As usual after several days away, and having unpacked all the perishables, the next job was to wash the bus down. As hubby went around with the long handled broom, I asked if the front had been washed to which he replied yes. So I then asked if the back had needed doing, as it look alright from a distance.

“You’d be surprised how dirty it was,”  he said. “When I put the hose on it, the dust just poured off it!”

“Oh,” I said, “It didn’t look too bad to me!”

“Well, it was, “ he replied, “It certainly needed doing!”

       This just reminded me of how we view ourselves, We look at others and think that we are doing quite a good job of things, that we aren’t as bad as So and So down the street or our neighbours next door. But if we put ourselves under the spotlight of God’s Word, it is surprising how much dirt we find is lurking in the hidden corners or above the window ledges of our minds. It is no use measuring ourselves against others, thinking that you are better than they are. The only measuring stick that is valid for us to see ourselves as we really are, is the measuring stick of Jesus Christ. He is the only perfect human being to ever walk this planet….the rest of us have all been born with the taint of sin on us. This is what has to be dealt with and cleansed out of our lives.

Even if we didn’t do anything really very “wrong”, there is still the fact that we were born with that stigma on us! That is what has to be got rid of, and there is only one way to do that, through humbling ourselves to call out to God, “Be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Daily Devotionals

What’s a Word?

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PROVERBS  Ten…. (v. 18-22)

Verses 18-22                                                                       James 3:5-6

This passage begins and ends with the wisdom of holding one’s tongue! It contrasts those who talk sensibly and wisely with those who just talk rubbish! We all know the person who thinks they are smart, and makes senseless jokes at others’ expense.  The trouble is that it tends to make us try to match comment for comment, with us overdoing it!

     It is well if we remember the advice of the old timers…..  “is it true? Is it kind? Do you HAVE  to repeat it?” before passing on gossip or news. So many times we get carried away with what we hear and then speak without thinking! James tells us that what is said can never be retracted.….great fires are started from a small match!   Do we want our  speech to build up or to tear down? To feed others or leave them  feeling empty? To be like choice silver or of little worth? To tease others or to make them feel good? It is very true that those who make others feel good are remembered long after others are forgotten!

     Let us take notice of verse 22….God’s blessings make us rich and keep us from sorrow….and then try to follow this in our contacts and speech with other people!

To always say things that make others feel good, Are our speech and actions be all that they should? To show our love and concern for each other, In loving our God, our sister and brother!

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Life Lessons

Useless Bits of Junk!

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       I went into the kitchen and turned the electric jug on to make morning tea. Nothing happened. The jug stayed dead. “Bother!” I said, and turned to try the light switch. Nothing there either. “That’s funny!” I thought and then went into where the computer was. Well, that was going.

 “That’s even more funny,” I said out loud this time. “Hubby,”  I called out, “Some of the power plugs aren’t working, “We’ll have to see if a fuse is blown!”

 So we went around all of the power plugs, one by one, and checked them all out. Nothing stopped the main switch flicking up each time it was pushed down. We got in touch with son-in-law and told him what was happening.

“Hmm,” he said, “It could be out on the pole if you have three phase power. You’d better ring the power company.”

So we did this, and got a very obliging man on the other end. “No,” he said, “If that were the case, nothing would be going anywhere, and  yet you say half the house is going. Go through everything again, and pull the plug of each appliance right out of the socket, and see what happens.”

By this time we were getting quite weary, but thought we had better do what we were told. We were standing out in the garage at the time, so we started there, and pulled the plug of the freezer out of the wall socket, and hubby flicked the main switch down. Cheers! It stayed down this time.

“Well, that might have solved the problem,” he said. And so it proved to be. All the power plugs were going again and the lights that wouldn’t go before were now all on. So the problem was in the freezer.

    We didn’t bother to try it again as it was obvious to us that was where the problem was. Fortunately we had a smaller spare freezer, so we pulled it around and swapped the frozen goods into it, taking the other one to the back wall. Problem solved!

    I couldn’t help thinking what a lot of useless junk our appliances were without the power to make them go. The washing machine had no life in it, either did the drier. The microwave wasn’t any good for anything at all without the power going, and the frig was just getting warmer by the minute, and not doing its job. It didn’t bear thinking about having no lights in half the house when it got dark!

   It reminded me of what we as people are like if we don’t have the power of God connected to us. We aren’t capable of having fellowship with Him, in fact we don’t WANT to have fellowship with Him as we were made to do. An iron won’t work unless it is connected to the power, and a toaster won’t go at all but remains dead. That is how the Bible describes people who don’t know God as being dead in trespasses and sins, and it is only Jesus Christ who can give us life and connect us to the power of God to bring the light on in our lives. What a difference it makes in every way!

    It pays to think seriously about these things. After all, if this way of looking at things is wrong, then we have nothing to lose, but if it is right, we have everything to lose, and that is very sad indeed!

Life Lessons

Near Enough!!

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    We were working on a project together, and I was thinking it  was time we were finished. “Well, that’s near enough”, I said as I put my gear down. My brother looked at it, and said, “Near enough is not good enough, Gwenyth, you’ll have to spend a bit more time on it!” Those words have stuck with me for over forty years, and whenever I am tempted to think “Near enough”, they come back to haunt me.

    King Solomon was one who chose what was good, but it was not the best. We would normally think that the fact that he asked for wisdom to rule his people well was a good thing to ask for, but in spite of that, in his older age he stopped trusting the Lord for safety, and used his human reasoning instead. He figured that if he married princesses from the surrounding nations, that their fathers would not attack the land their daughter was in! He trusted these ideas more than he trusted God to keep him safe from an enemy attack.

But there seemed to be more and more of these princesses, and he ended up with “seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. (1 Kings 11:3,4,8)”.

    What a warning this is for us! No-one could have had a better start than Solomon did and yet he allowed himself to be swayed by the opinions of others rather than what God had told him. We have to be so careful that we continue to read what God’s Word has to say to us, and to follow what it tells us rather than what others tell us. Those who we associate with closely, have a greater influence over us than we think.

    We all know the dangers there are in our teenagers keeping company with the wrong crowd, but here was a mature man, and supposedly a very wise man, being swayed by the opinions of his many wives. Instead of him being the leader of his household, he was being led by the women of his household. He could have said his thoughts and actions were “near enough” as far as God was concerned, but they weren’t enough to keep him safe from turning away from the things of God. So you can see that we need to be so awake to the dangers around us and not allow ourselves to be swayed by anything that will take all our thoughts….any game, club, or interest that takes all our time or thoughts needs to be pruned out of our minds!

Life Lessons

Looking Back.

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   We are coming to the end of another year. What a year it has been! A year like no other anyone has ever experienced. If we had been told this time last year all the events that were going to come upon us in the year 2020, we would not have believed it!

     To think that the whole world has been affected by what has been called Covid19. It has spread so far and so wide, that most people have forgotten the beginning of it all….just one little virus getting loose that eventually brought the whole world to a standstill!

    For some, there have been other traumatic things happening….perhaps the loss of a loved one or some accident that has turned their world upside down. No matter how smart mankind becomes, we cannot foretell the future. All we can do is to hope that 2021 will be a better year.

    But Christians have more than that to fall back on….we can say that although we don’t know what the future holds, at least we know the One Who holds the future! This makes all the difference as we move on into another new year. If we do not have this confidence, there is nothing to stop us getting it. It doesn’t cost us any money to get it, but it does cost us the experience of having to humble ourselves before a God who we don’t yet know, but Who is calling all people everywhere to come to Him.

   This is one of the reasons we are here on earth so that we can come to know Him while here and learn His ways. He will set us free of our addictions and bad habits, and fellowship with us every day.

   The thing that surprises me most, is that  people say they want to go to heaven when they die, and they speak at funeral services as though their loved ones have gone “up there”, but yet they feel most uncomfortable in a church building, let alone in  a church service! How do they think they are going to be able to stand being in a place that is holy, clean and righteous, singing praises to a God they have never met!!! This is something that we all need to think about here and now, even before this uncomfortable year has finished!!

Stories for Teens

What’s the Point?

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Sarah came in from school and threw her bag on the couch before slouching down on it herself.

“Oh, hullo Uncle Jeff! I didn’t see you there!”, she said as she saw him sitting there already. “I haven’t seen you for a while!”

“No, I’ve just come back from Australia,” he said as he reached for his cup of tea. “How are things going anyway?”

“Oh, alright I suppose,” she said, “but I sometimes wonder what the point is in it all!”

“What do you mean by that?” Uncle Jeff asked.

 “Aw, you know,” she said, “It’s the same old thing every day, and you never seem to get ahead!”

“You know, I think you are missing the point,” Uncle Jeff said, “You know, God has given everyone a purpose while we go through life, and that is to do the very best we can. Even if other people don’t seem to appreciate our efforts, at least later on we won’t have any regrets that we could have done better!”

“You know,”  Sarah said, taking a totally different tack, “our Bible Study leader said last week that we are all made in the image of God. How come?”

Uncle Jeff thought for a minute and then said, “Well. it does say that in the Bible, and that is our guide-line for what we believe.  It’s like this….we are all made by God’s hand and with some of His attributes. What does the Bible tell us the first things that God did were?”

“Well,” Sarah said thoughtfully, “He made the world and everything that is in it.”

“That’s right,” Uncle Jeff said, “And do you remember what He thought of the things He had made?”

“It says that God saw what He had made and that it was good,” Sarah said.

“What was the last thing God made?” Uncle Jeff went on “What did He say about that?”

Sarah thought for a minute and then said slowly, “It was a man, and it says that when He looked at everything then, it was VERY good!”

“You know,” Uncle Jeff went on, “God had great satisfaction out of all His creating power and looking at the birds, bees and flowers that he had made as well as the animals and then finally the man. Do you remember what God said when he saw that the man had no-one else for company? He said, ‘It’s not good for man to be alone! I’ll make someone else to be his helper!!’  And you know that those are the two things that God has put into the heart and mind of every single human being since that first day….satisfaction in creating things, and the need for a relationship.”

“Ye-e-s, I suppose so, “ Sarah said, “I know I enjoy seeing something I’ve made when it’s finished, and I like to show it to my friends”.

“That’s right,” said Uncle Jeff, “Even doing the simple things like baking a cake, or getting a meal ready gives us satisfaction, and even more so when we can share it with our friends and family.”

“Yes, I see that now,” Sarah said, cheering up somewhat, “I suppose we can say that that is what the point of doing things is!”

“That’s the girl!,” Uncle Jeff said, “ now let’s go outside and you show me those roses that Mum has been growing for the show!”

Life Lessons

Why is this Happening?

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I’ve been trimming and tying up my young rose plants to keep them as standard roses. They are two years old now, and if left, will become just a tangled head with branches out in all directions. They will not grow any taller if left like that either. I have a couple that are a year older than the ones I am now working on, and I had just left them to do their own thing. How I wish I had started earlier on training them! When the time came last winter to cut them hard back, one decided it had had enough, and just died on me. If we aren’t being constantly trimmed by the Master Gardener, when the time finally comes and we go through some fiery trial, we can’t take it, and give up altogether. It is sad indeed to see a person who once ran well, being used by God, and then some years later to see them become disillusioned and bitter older people!

    We too, are like these young rose plants, with each one of us needing to be tied strongly to the stake of Jesus Christ! If we aren’t rooted in Him and tied firmly to Him, we will just blow from side to side and our spiritual life will maybe get damaged beyond repair. Nor will we be able to be a thing of beauty to those who see us

    Another thing is, I look ahead to see how I want the finished rose plant to look like. If one shoot looks strong and healthy and is growing out from the main stem in a suitable place, I will tie it upright to the existing main stem, thinking I will let it grow in its new position and then when it is strong enough I will cut off all the other heads when they have finished flowering. Yes, what we are doing now may be useful and being involved in the Lord’s work, but He can see ahead to a better task for us to do, one which will take the main head even higher. It may hurt the plant to have one stem fastened upright in such a fashion, and it may hurt us to be tied in some way that gives us pain and restricts us now, but the end result will enable our character to be a thing of beauty and us be even more help to those around us.

It’s amazing how many lessons there are to be found in the garden, from weeding, to pruning, to spraying….all these things having to be attended to constantly.

 No wonder our Lord said, :” I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abides not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciple. (John 15:1-8)

Adult Testimonies

Bob’s “If only…”

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     As Bob came to in the darkness, he wondered where he was. There were unfamiliar sounds going on around him, and a distinct disinfectant smell. He  realised he was in a bed, but he was sure it wasn’t his own one. He tried to turn over and nothing seemed to be working. Whatever had happened to him?

   Ah, he remembered now. He had left the local pub at closing time and found his way to his car. He remembered driving towards home and over the bridge that spanned quite a sizeable river on the way, but nothing more after that. Bob had indeed driven over the bridge, but he had failed to see the corner immediately after it, and continued straight ahead up the bank where the car had flipped over. Bob had not been wearing his seat belt and he was thrown out. As a result his spinal cord was badly damaged leaving him a paraplegic. He was in hospital for a long time, and it took him several months before he admitted that his situation was actually his own fault.

   First of all he railed against the fact that his seat belt wasn’t on, but he was the one who had not buckled up. It never occurred to him that if he hadn’t been drinking until closing time, he would have been capable of driving safely, so that was another nail in his coffin of blame, as it were.  

   No-one knew when it finally dawned on him that perhaps God was speaking to him through this accident. It wasn‘t that he was a stranger to the things of God. There had been a time when he had made his decision to follow the Lord, and was enthusiastic in his attendance at his small local church. But the older men tended to curb his youthful enthusiasm and he became discouraged. There came a day when he heard some more criticism, and that was it as far as he was concerned. He had had enough, he said. If that was how they felt, then he was finished.

    Bob never attended a church service on a regular basis again, and in time, no-one would have recognized him as being a Christian. Years passed by, and his family arrived and grew up. In his time of reflection now in his hospital bed, he remembered different times when he felt that God was perhaps speaking to him.

     There was that time that he had been feeding hay out to his cattle and carelessly thrown the loose bailing twine into the cab of his ute. As he drove onto the road, he got out to shut the gate behind him, and as his feet became tangled in the twine he fell onto the road. A car came around the corner and nearly caught him before he got up. Bob wondered at the time if the Lord was speaking to him, but he mentally shrugged it off as coincidence, and let the opportunity go by.

     Then there was another time not long before this, when a visiting evangelist had come to the district. Bob attended one of the meetings, and was strongly moved to respond to the appeal when it was given at the end, but he thought of his drinking mates and what they would say to him. Just the same, he had to hold tightly to his seat with both hands to keep from making the move along the aisle when others were going down to the front.

“There’s still plenty of time”, he told himself.

Now he wondered if things would have been different if he had made that move back then. It began to dawn on him that perhaps all this was his own fault, and all because he kept shutting the thought of God out of his mind. “Perhaps God IS speaking me” he said to himself, “If I had taken the step when that preacher was asking people to come forward, perhaps none of this would have happened!” How right he was! He wouldn’t have been at the pub this particular night if he had done that!

   By the time Bob was discharged from the hospital and able to go home, he had confessed his willfulness  and disobedience to the Lord and received full forgiveness for it all. Bob was full of joy in his mind and heart now….not for the position he found himself in, but in the fact that now he had made his peace with God once more.  He was able to pray again, picking up where he had left off when a young man. But in spite of that, nothing could give back the years he had wasted, and this was a constant regret to him.

   He enjoyed the visits he had from other Christians who knew him, and to talk about the things of God was one of his greatest joys.   He now spent his days in his wheelchair looking out of the large windows of his living room across the town to the harbour in the distance. He had once served on the local harbour board, and was particularly interested in watching the container ships and tankers moving in and out of the harbour.

   He lived for a few more years, and told one of his visitors not long before he passed into the Lord’s presence, “You know, I would sooner be like I am now, and able to enjoy these times with the Lord, than to be what I was once, able to walk but still running away from God. It doesn’t pay!”

          The Apostle Paul wrote….. In case I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.       And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness”

       . Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.       (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

See what God has to say to YOU.