Author: missionspaul

Micah 1

In the early years of my work as a Pastor I would attend many conferences to become better at what I was trying to do.
During the 90’s I remember sitting listening to one leader suggest that we need to understand what kind of leader we are. Are we a city Pastor or a town Pastor? Should we focus on the agricultural people or the business people? Are we the right people in the right place?
To be honest, I didn’t know what I was. I only knew God had called me to Dewsbury, which at the time was a church of 55,000 people. Not exactly a city.
There were times when I wondered if being a city Pastor you had ‘arrived’ but as a town Pastor well, who wants to hear from a town Pastor?
I knew Pastors who longed to be city Pastors and did everything they could to be one. They got their dream, they had become someone, now people would notice them.
I knew city Pastors who looked at town Pastors and would have done anything to swap.
Why do I mention all this under Micah chapter 1.
Moresheth where Micah came from was about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem on the border lands between Judah and the Philistines. Micah was from the country but was sent to bring the word of The Lord in the city.

There are times when God asks you to move outside of your experience and speak for Him.
Doing so does not guarantee you a greater degree of success.
What the ‘city’ needs may be found in the ‘country’. Micah would prophecy that out of the smallest, Bethlehem, the Messiah would come. Therefore the city is of no greater importance than the country. You haven’t arrived when you arrive in the city.
Don’t let anyone look down on you where you are serving God.
Be ready to return to the place of the unknown after you have done what God has required. That’s what Micah did.
Understand what the application is for what is your ‘country’ and ‘city’ and resist the temptation to be or do what God is not asking of you.

Jonah 4

Be careful where you go when you are angry.
Jonah went out to the place east of the city.
He became detached from what God was doing.

Be careful what becomes your comfort when you are angry.
Jonah fell in love with the vine.
He became a lover of self.

Be careful what justifies your anger.
God continues to ask the same question: Have you the right to be angry?
The answer was YES but it should have been NO.

Jonah 3

The time it took to get through the city of Nineveh is the time taken inside the fish, v3
By the time the third day came inside the dark and smelly prison Jonah must have been thinking he would have nearly completed preaching in the city.
The time, energy and resources you use avoiding certain tasks God asks of you is at times the same if you had gone and done it in the first place.

The third day is completed often because of the impact of the first day. On the first day Jonah started to preach and the message spread like a fire, to the people, then to the king who through a decree then reached the whole city. Today is the first day. What you do today impacts your third day.
Let the first day, today, be all that it can be. Give, think of others, lay down your life and the powerful third day will come.

We are people of the third day, just like Jesus.

Jonah 2

No matter where you find yourself God can be reached if you will simply call.

Trapped in a situation that people will struggle to believe long after you were freed from it. (The fish)
Distressed because many who find themselves in your place never recover, death is the only result, death of relationships, of dreams, of hope, of life, v2
Many describe a sinking feeling but it feels like only you are experiencing one door closing after another until your description of the situation is found in the word ‘impossible’. v6 (message)

If this is you, let me ask you some questions:

Will you look again to God? v4
Will you believe there is no depth that God cannot reach you? v6
Will you accept the only way out is by prayer? v7
Will you say YES with gratefulness for who He is? v9

If you say YES to these questions then maybe God will do something so unusually miraculous with you and save you in such a shocking way that people generations later will read your story and say it cannot be possible, it could not have happened in that way, it was not literal.
God being God can do in you what man being man cannot believe.
If you will simply call.

Jonah 1

Sometimes the only way to still a storm is to offer a sacrifice v15
Jesus and Jonah both fell asleep on a boat during a storm.
Jesus stilled the storm because He has the ultimate power.
Jonah stilled the storm because he let go of his own strength and power.
Both knew sacrifice.

This sacrifice wants the best for your enemies v1-2
Jesus said love your enemies (the Assyrians were a genuine enemy of Gods people), we cannot love from a distance. Jonah GO.
Jesus said pray for those who persecute you (the Assyrians had spread suffering and death to Israel), we cannot pray with barriers of pain in our hearts. Jonah PRAY.

The sacrifice that realises activity is not enough, obedience is everything v3.
Jonah rose up as God asked him to.
He went on a journey, many know where they are going but all this activity is a smoke screen.
Jesus said love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you and you will be known as a child of the Father. Jonah was a child of Amittai v1. Who do you want people to know you by? Whose child do you belong to? A child of a man or a child of the Father?

The answer is in the sacrifice.

Obadiah

The shortest book in the Old Testament is written by a man whose name simply means “servant of Jehovah”. By name by nature. He comes into the story of a bigger picture, serves His God by obediently saying what He was told to say, then leaves. He is not there for the limelight, not there to create a name for himself, it’s not about him but about his God.

Servants do not think they are beyond failure, v3. They realise there is only who is all-powerful and they lean on Him not their own strength.

Servants do not plot against others nor carry out the schemes to harm. They lift up not bring down, v10,

Servants get involved. They do not distance themselves from injustice. They get involved with those who suffer and experience loss, v11.

Servants do not gloat. They do not look down on those less fortunate, those who suffer with the attitude that they deserved it in someway, v12.

Servants are not opportunists waiting to pounce on the misfortune of others in order to better their own lives. They do not live for themselves but for others, v13,14.

Oh that we had more servants of God.

Amos 9

At the end of quite another heavy prophetical book, though smaller in size, we have the most beautiful of images, v11.
God is still doing this today.
He will do it in your life and through your life in the lives of others. If you let Him.
He lifts those who are fallen.
He mends the broken-hearted.
He takes what has been destroyed and recreates.
He brings things into place what should have always been there.
This is our hope today.
Oh but there is more!
The sin that robbed us of all this will no longer be able to do so.
Because of Jesus!
They will never be uprooted.
Just as the land of Israel will be their forever, v15, so will our inheritance of grace be forever ours.
This is our hope and our certainty today.
Amen!

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Amos 8

So we venture near the end of this prophecy and we see the problem:
They loved materialism more than they loved their observance of worship.
When can it be over? The services were packed, but everyone wanted to be out for 12 because they had to go shopping!
They loved profit more than truthfulness. The way they treat others was the main reason God was against them.
They trampled the needy and did away with the poor.
When are we going to stop pointing fingers at the myriad of sins that are related to immoral behaviour and not at the areas that actually are equally as important to God?
We scorn the fornicator and the drunkard but not the person who walks past the Big Issue man with judgment in their heart on a situation they have no clue about.
The poor and needy matter to Him. When will we learn?
Do we need to wait for the fruit to ripe?! It will be too late then.

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Amos 7

Keep it real. That’s what the plumb-line calls for.
The moment you stand for that approach you will either be misunderstood, confronted, tempted or all 3 of those! Just like Amos.

The priest Amaziah misrepresented Amos to the king.
Amos had never said the king would die in battle. He did say Israel would go into exile. This is often what happens to those who are jealous of you. They only say half the story and add other bits which make a complete different story. They then hold a false impression of you.

Through all this, keep it real.

The priest then confronts Amos with a clear message to stop prophesying. If people cannot fit you into their mould they will try and discard you. If they cannot ignore you then they will try and stop your ministry. Will you be silenced? Will you be sidelined? Will you be another casualty just because some do not like the ministry God has given to you?

Through all this, keep it real.

I think the most difficult of challenges is that in the area of temptation. But perhaps not in the way we think of at first. Amos is tempted to preserve himself “Go back” The enemy of our soul constantly wants us to think of our own interests, to save ourselves, to climb down and back away. Amos is then tempted to divert the focus God has given him to another place where the audience would be far more receptive. Judah would love to hear prophecies against the neighbouring nation of Israel. Thirdly Amos was tempted to be someone he wasn’t. He confidently declared he was not a prophet nor from a family of prophets. He is a fruit farmer and a shepherd who is speaking God’s Word to them. That’s it.

Through all this, keep it real. Believe in the plumb-line even though it will bring its challenges to you. But the reality and the true will get you through.

(Only 2 days to go, please help me, find me on http://www.elimmissions.co.uk or Elim missions Facebook)