Category: Devotions

These are two words that every missionary has in the back of their minds. Yet they know they are a missionary because they have already laid their life down.

Acts 13: 40-41 “Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:  “‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.”

Happy Christmas!

Paul using a prophecy from Haggai when God told His people that He was ready to send the Chaldeans (the Babylonians) against them, Paul is saying make sure it doesn’t happen in this generation simply because you are blind and deaf to what God is doing. The fact is that in AD70 Rome demolished the Temple and trampled the Jewish nation. Why? It was because they did not recognise Jesus’ birth!

God will use the enemy to come against even His own people if that is what is needed. The enemy is just a pawn in His hand.

I do not think God is purposely seeking to move the enemy to persecute His people but what I do believe, what I have to hold on to, is that God knows about it. He is sovereignly permitting it.

As we pray for the persecuted today let us also pray that the purposes of God will be done because He is not in a crisis nor is His arm too short to do something about it.

In his Christmas message, Prince Charles reflected on the religious persecution that Christians and other religious minorities face throughout the world, calling it “beyond all belief” that it still continues even after the horrors of the Holocaust were exposed.

“I was born in 1948, just after the end of World War II in which my parents’ generation had fought, and died, in a battle against intolerance, monstrous extremism and an inhuman attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe,” the Prince of Wales said in his message, released on Thursday.

“That, nearly 70 years later, we should still be seeing such evil persecution is, to me, beyond all belief. We owe it to those who suffered and died so horribly not to repeat the horrors of the past,” he added.

Charles said he recently met with a Jesuit priest from Syria who told him that unless major action is taken, it’s possible that there might not be any Christians left in Iraq in five years time.

He pointed to statistics from the United Nations that show the world’s refugees now number close to 65.3 million people, which is close to the entire population of the U.K.

Charles said that Christians think about the birth of Jesus Christ during Christmas, and this year they are reminded of the full story surrounding why Joseph and Mary fled to Bethlehem.

“I wonder, though, if this year we might remember how the story of the Nativity unfolds — with the fleeing of the Holy Family to escape violent persecution. And we might also remember that when the [Islamic] prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina, he did so because he, too, was seeking the freedom for himself and his followers to worship,” he insisted.

Charles suggested that regardless of one’s religion, people should seek to value and respect other people, “accepting their right to live out their peaceful response to the love of God.”

The Prince of Wales attended the consecration of a Syriac Orthodox Church in London in November, where he also spoke about the persecution Christians are facing at the hands of the Islamic State and other terror groups.

“It is surely deeply encouraging, at a time when the members of the Syriac Orthodox Church in their homelands of Syria and Iraq are undergoing such desperate trials and such appalling suffering, that in Britain the Syriac Church is able to expand and gain in strength,” Charles said in a speech during the ceremony at the Cathedral of St Thomas in Acton.

The future king of England has talked about the disappearance of Christians in Syria and Iraq on a number of occasions, and in December 2015 also warned that Christianity might be entirely erased from the land of its birth in the Middle East within five years.

“This affects us all, consequently the greatest challenge we face is how to ensure the spiritual and cultural heritage of Christianity in the Middle East is preserved for future generations,” Charles said.
 Please pray for those who are persecuted today, who may have tried to take care but through the Sovereignty of God are now under the grip of the enemy.

Advent – Not free but very much set free!

Acts 13: 39

“Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.”

Paul is saying that the Law of Moses could never totally free them from the guilty sentence of their sins. It is only through Jesus that people experience true freedom.

Today and tomorrow I want to ask you to pray for those in our world who have been set free by Jesus but are now held in prison, being tortured for this freedom.

 Two days ago the BBC website reported this story, I was so moved by it:

As churches around the country prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, with peace and goodwill toward men, spare a thought for those who must live out their faith in a foreign land.

This will be the seventh consecutive Christmas mother-of-five Asia Bibi will spend in solitary confinement within the Islamic Republic of Pakistan – a country that has what the United Nations describes as “one of the worst situations in the world for religious freedom”.

A member of the Christian minority, just 1.6% of the population, 45-year-old Asia Bibi was jailed after being found guilty of breaching Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws.

Her case has provoked global protests, with supporters accusing the judiciary of fabricating the charge to persecute a Christian. There have been no fewer than three attempts at appealing against the verdict.

There’s also been a direct intervention by Pope Francis, who received a delegation of family and friends at the Vatican. But still she languishes in a small cell as the world awaits a final decision from the Supreme Court in Lahore.

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“The case of Asia Bibi is precisely the reason why I continue to fight for religious minorities around the world,” says crossbench peer Baroness Cox, who recently returned from visiting oppressed Christians in Nigeria.

“Only those of us in open and free societies can be a voice to the voiceless and Christmas is the perfect season for us to renew our appeal for humanity and tolerance.”

The original incident, which occurred in June 2009, centred around Asia Bibi sharing a bowl of water with fellow workers in a field, about 30 miles (48km) from Lahore, where they were working as farm labourers.

It’s alleged that an argument erupted after some of the women felt it was sacrilegious for Muslims to share the cup with a Christian. Within weeks, the allegations had escalated to the charge of blasphemy, with some fellow workers accusing her of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. She was arrested and imprisoned.

Despite reports of inconsistent witness testimony and fragmentary evidence, she was found guilty in November 2010. Large crowds gathered to celebrate her sentencing, and there soon followed a trail of death and destruction.

A month after sentencing, Asia Bibi was visited by the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer. He emerged from jail and stated that the blasphemy laws had been misused and wrongly applied in her case. Within days, he was murdered by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri.

Two months later, in March 2011, the Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti – the only Christian in the Pakistan cabinet – criticised the country’s blasphemy laws as being open to abuse and manipulation.

After leaving his mother’s house, his car was sprayed with bullets: a second assassination in a matter of weeks and both apparently linked to the case of Asia Bibi.

Beyond the application of blasphemy laws, 2016 has also witnessed the continued targeting of Christian minorities by militant groups in Pakistan.

The most severe attack was launched on Easter Sunday in Lahore. A large number of the Christians had chosen to visit a neighbourhood park following morning worship. Spirits were naturally high.

“Things were going well,” said the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lahore, the Most Reverend Sebastian Shaw, “but it was very cautious. A priest called us and told us that we must be alert all the time.”

As parents pushed their children on swings and enjoyed the company of friends, two suicide bombers entered the park. Within minutes, the hum of children’s voices was overwhelmed by the sound of tragedy. More than 340 people were injured and 75 died. The vast majority were women and children.

“It was very difficult,” said Archbishop Shaw, who rushed to several medical facilities where the injured had been taken. “Even in the corridors of the hospital, at the entrance [there were] so many people. It was very difficult to console people.

“I visited a lady. She came from Hyderabad. Her husband and two children were killed and another cousin was also killed. So the lady was totally out of her senses and didn’t know what had happened.”

Within hours a group affiliated to the Pakistan Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, said it had carried out the bombing and was reported to have deliberately targeted Christians.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, condemned the attack and urged the Pakistan government “to do its utmost to put in place protective measures to ensure the personal security of all individuals, including religious minority communities living in the country”.

But Pakistan is not alone.

Earlier this month, an individual wearing a suicide vest attacked a Coptic Christian church in Cairo, during Sunday morning prayers. There are conflicting reports about whether this was a man or a woman.

But the effect was unequivocal: at least 25 people were killed and a further 45 injured. Orthodox Copts comprise just 10% of Egypt’s 90 million people but are the Middle East’s largest Christian community.

The latest attack followed complaints by Christians in the town of Minya, about 140 miles (225km) south of Cairo, where several buildings were burned after they were suspected of hosting prayer meetings.

Christian worship in countries such as Pakistan and Egypt remains the most dangerous practice and this year of horrifying attacks could yet end with further bloodshed.

If Asia Bibi’s appeal is rejected by the Supreme Court, she will become the first woman in Pakistan to be executed for blasphemy. Christians throughout Pakistan are praying for a miracle this Christmas.

Please pray for those who are free but who are not free this Christmas Eve

Advent – forgiveness is here.

Acts 13: 38

“Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.”

Paul was leading to this point. He is saying, ‘everything points to this one thing: Jesus has authority to forgive sins, this is why he came.’

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

Jesus did not stay a baby in the manger. We celebrate His birth this advent because of who he is and what He came to do, that is the Son of God came to save people from their sins. In saving them He forgave them.

If sin is to be forgiven, it must be covered by an adequate sacrifice. The carols we sing at Christmas remind us that Jesus Christ was born to be that perfect sacrifice. In other words, He came to die.

God wants you home again, to the place where you belong.

A Father had 5 sons. The eldest was obedient, 4 rebellious.

They were told never to go near the river, but each day the 4 brothers would get closer and closer. Till one day one of them stepped in and said ‘hold my hand so I won’t fall in’ – but the currents swirled and pulled them all in.

They were swept away to a strange land, a place they were never born for, a place they could not escape from.

Each evening they built a fire and told stories of their father and the elder brother, the Firstborn.

One night one brother failed to come to the fire. “I’ve grown tired of our talks. I will build a great house and settle here.”

The next night a 2nd brother failed to appear at the fire. He sat on the hill staring at the house his brother was building, “I’ll stay here and keep a record of wrongs our brother is making.”

The next night a 3rd brother failed to appear. He was found stacking rocks in the river. ‘I’ve failed – I will build a way back.’

The last brother returned to the fire.

Then one morning came the voice of the Firstborn “The Father has sent me to bring you home.”

The first brother said, “I’ve made a home here. Go away stranger. I have no Father.”

The 2nd brother said, “It’s great that you are here to see the sins of our brother”.

The 3rd brother said, ‘I cannot stop to talk I must work. I have sinned. I need to work.”

The 4th brother by the fire said “will he forgive me?”

The firstborn replied, “Would he have sent me if he wouldn’t?” and the younger brother climbed on the back of the firstborn and began the journey home.

What best describes you: pleasure seeker; bitter talker; work-driven or are you being carried back to the Father’s house.

On November 26, 2008, a gang of terrorists stormed the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, India. After the carnage had left 200 people dead, a reporter interviewed a guest who had been at the hotel for dinner that night. The guest described how he and his friends were eating dinner when they heard gunshots. Someone grabbed him and pulled him under the table. The assassins came striding through the restaurant, shooting at will, until everyone (or so they thought) had been killed. Miraculously, this man survived. When the interviewer asked the guest how he lived when everyone else at his table had been killed, he replied, “I suppose because I was covered in someone else’s blood, and they took me for dead.”

The Christ-child came to cover His blood over your life. That is why he came.

Acts 13:37

“But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay”.

David lived, died and decayed. But there is One who didn’t!

Abraham was born in Ur of the Chaldeans, modern day Iraq. He died at the age of 175 in Hebron, which is now a Palestinian city in Israel, approximately 30km south of Jerusalem. Here there is a huge tomb called ‘Cave of the Patriarchs’.

King David is one of the most important figures in Jewish history. Born in Bethlehem in 907 BCE, he reigns as king of Israel for 40 years, dying at age 70 in 837 BCE. On Mount Zion in Jerusalem a 1000 year old building houses the tomb of King David.

Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born in Mecca on June 8, 570 ( a fairly precise date I agree!) He died in 632 BC in Medina, Saudi Arabia. His tomb is called ‘Al-Masjid al-Nabawī or “Mosque of the Prophet”.

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, was born around 563 BC in Lumbini, an area within Nepal but near the Indian border. He died in 483 BC at 80 years of age in the city of Kushinagar. He was cremated and yet a tomb was created for him near the Hiranyavati River.

The exact dates of Jesus birth in Bethlehem is not known, some say 6-4BC. However, Jesus said that before Abraham was born, ‘I AM’. He died outside the city wall of Jerusalem on a cross around 29-30 AD. There is a garden tomb, but there isn’t anything in it. In fact Jesus said “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” and also, “For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.”

Everybody that ever lived, died, decayed and the famous have elaborate tombs of worship.

There is One who lived before he lived and was not dead after he died!

Gathering at the manger scene of this baby demands our worship. It is all we can do. So come today and worship Christ the new born King!

Christianity is different to all the rest because Christ is different, the One and Only Son of God is here today to the “end of the age”.

Advent – the purpose

Acts 13:36

Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed

 Paul continued to show how David could not have been speaking about himself because he died, was buried and his body decayed. This is the evidence that David was prophesying about another and that person is Jesus, that’s what Paul was saying.

God had a purpose for that generation and David served it. Then he died.

Today I am giving a tribute at a funeral of a family friend. I have been reflecting on his life, preparing for something to say, realising that it is only in death that life is known. His great-grandchild is ready to be born. The baby will come at any time. Hope is found in birth but the purpose for that hope is only truly realised in death.

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven”. Ecclesiastes 3:1

 Advent shouts out the imminent coming of the Messiah. This is a new season, a time for the purpose from Heaven:

“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Luke 1:32-33

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

During his time on earth Jesus would often speak of the purpose of God for him being here.

”For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” Luke 19:10

How would Jesus save the lost? The answer was not through his birth, but by his death.

“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour” John 12:27

Mary was soon to learn that this unusual birth would be bittersweet. A sword would pierce her own soul too (Lk 2:35).

Advents call waits for Easters call. They are calling at each other.

‘Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you’ hangs in the air and echoes throughout a shortened life to a victorious shout that shakes heaven and earth, ‘It is finished!’

Unlike David and unlike my family friend and all of us, the purpose of Jesus life, the reason for him being born was not realised at his death. The purpose of him being born was his death.

So doesn’t that mean if we have been to the cross then we kneel with a greater sense of worship at the manger scene this year? It must do.

And what can we say as we kneel there, but “O come let us adore him” and in that place of worship “what can I give him?”, it has to be “Give my heart”.

Advent – He is in the elsewhere!

Acts 13:35: “So it is stated elsewhere:” ‘You will not let your Holy One see decay.”

Paul is able to support all that he is saying through the use of the Old Testament scriptures.

He is using Psalm 16:10 here in this verse. They knew the sentence, he didn’t need to quote the Psalm and verse. He could say it is stated elsewhere. They knew.

What we need to remind ourselves this Advent is that Jesus is stated elsewhere not just in the nativity passages.

Genesis: Jesus who will bless the nations.

Exodus: Jesus the ‘I AM’ (bread, light, gate, good shepherd, resurrection and the life, way and the truth and the life, true vine).

Leviticus: Jesus is the Atonement

Numbers: Jesus is the High Priest.

Deuteronomy: Jesus the curse for the world

Joshua: Jesus the Captain of the army of the Lord

Judges: Jesus the just One

Ruth: Jesus our Kinsman-Redeemer

1 Samuel: Jesus the Prophet/Priest/King

2 Samuel: Jesus full of grace

1 Kings: Jesus the ruler

2 Kings: Jesus the Prophet

1 Chronicles: Jesus the Son of David

2 Chronicles: Jesus the Eternal King

Ezra: Jesus the Priest

Nehemiah: Jesus the repairer of the broken.

Esther: Jesus the Protector.

Job: Jesus the Mediator.

Psalms: Jesus the focus of praise and worship

Proverbs: Jesus is wisdom

Ecclesiastes: Jesus is the reason for life.

Song of Solomon: Jesus is love

Isaiah: Jesus the servant

Jeremiah: Jesus moved to tears

Lamentations: Jesus carrying the anger of God

Ezekiel: Jesus the Son of Man

Daniel: Jesus the 4th man in the fire.

Hosea: Jesus the faithful

Joel: Jesus the sender of the Spirit

Amos: Jesus the defender of the oppressed.

Obadiah: Jesus the Judge

Jonah: Jesus loves the lost

Micah: Jesus who forgets sin.

Nahum: Jesus our future peace

Habakkuk: Jesus who holds on to us.

Zephaniah: Jesus our sacrifice

Haggai: Jesus the desire of all nations

Zechariah: Jesus in the middle of His people

Malachi: Jesus the sun of righteousness.

Jesus is all over the Bible. He is the Word in the Word. He is elsewhere and everywhere. Paul could have spent the whole day quoting every book showing how the Messiah was portrayed and how that Messiah is Jesus.

Jesus is not restricted to a manger nor to the prophecies of Isaiah or Micah that are read at the usual Christmas services. He is elsewhere and everywhere.

Friends, we have a big Jesus!

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And gives to nations proof

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love;

And wonders of His love;

And wonders, wonders of His love.

Advent – good news of great joy!

Acts 13: 32

“We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors”

I have been waiting for this verse to come. You can guess why?!! GOOD NEWS!

The angel said to the Shepherds, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”

• Sometimes joy is given

They were impacted by an unexplainable event. It was an out of this world experience, a God-thing. This year you will probably not have had the angelic host sing to you, but maybe one day you were going about your normal business and by the end of that day your life had turned around, why? God had come to you. He had revealed Himself to you. From that moment on you knew your life would never be the same again.

This might seem strange to you, but God does want you to be happy! In Ecclesiastes 2:6 God gives happiness!

• Sometimes joy has to be found

He wants you to be willing to have what He wants to give you. He wants your partnership.

Mary had a visit by the angel, but she had to be willing, “May it be to me as you have said.” The shepherds weren’t presented with Jesus nor were they picked up and placed into the manger scene. God won’t force you to have good things for your life. He won’t deliver them without your full participation and He won’t drag you into them either. Do not think they ran into Bethlehem with an A-Z map and all they had to do was find Manger Street. Maybe they tried every cowshed in Bethlehem before they found the one with a baby in it, for that is the meaning of the word ‘search’.

• Sometimes we have to fight for our joy

I am reflecting this morning on what was told me last night about a Church of Pentecost Pastor who is in prison today on false charges of speaking against the government. He has been in prison for 4 months and has had visitors refused. He is in a country that if I told you then you would know how horribly difficult this must be for him. His wife is going to have a very stressful Christmas this year as she prays for the release of her husband.

Sometimes we have to fight for that joy. The enemy wants to steal it. Maybe this year there have been so many battles for that joy.

Mother Theresa commanded her workers to smile every day.

Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote: “Have you realised that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”

Maybe the greatest battle of faith is the struggle within.

Advent – I was there!

Acts 13:31

“and for many days he was seen by those who had travelled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.”

The fourth part of the gospel message for the early church: death, tomb, resurrection and now witnesses!

That first century saw many witnesses able to communicate their experiences of a risen Jesus. Luke who is writing the book of Acts keeps coming back to the same thing: witnesses. Since his first sentence, “In my former book Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach” Luke has been referring continually to the fact that there were witnesses.

At the first advent there were many witnesses and we can name every character in the nativity scene and the journey towards it and from it. We even know some characters that somehow have appeared in there but the Bible doesn’t mention them!

What good is a dead witness? All these characters are gone now. It must have been great to live in the days when you can hear the story from one of the witnesses: Listen, I was there, this is what happened!

However there is one witness who was there and who is still very much alive and Luke is the one who writes of Him. Luke likes his witnesses as we now know!

Let me embolden the person so you can spot Him:

Luke 1: ³⁴ “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” …³⁹ At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, ⁴⁰ where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit….⁵⁹ On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, ⁶⁰ but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.” … ⁶⁷ His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:⁶⁸ “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,     because he has come to his people and redeemed them.

Luke 2: ²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷ Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, ²⁸ Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: ²⁹ “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. ³⁰ For my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹ which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:”

We can be so grateful that the one witness who is still alive is alive in us!

If there is one thing that the Spirit would want to say to you as you journey through advent it is this: “I was there! I was at work. I made things happen. I directed the journeys of the witnesses. In fact I was more involved then has been recorded! (That’s just my imaginative thinking!)”

“I was the power that conceived Christ within Mary. I was filling lives. I was revealing messages. I was moving people into the right places. I was there.”

Just slow everything down now. Before you do another thing. Pause. Breathe. God who is in you, the Holy Spirit, witnessed the whole story of the coming of Christ.

The Holy Spirt witnesses not by reminding you of the story rather He works the story of Christmas into your life so that you are continually changed by it. May He work that story in you again and again and as He does you will live your life in such a way that it will appear you were a witness to the event.