Missions Paul

Proverbs 3

If you can help then help.….v27,28.

In 1901 a seven-year-old Indian girl named Preena escaped from a Hindu temple and sought refuge with a Christian named Amy Carmichael, a young woman who had come from Ireland to share the gospel in India. According to Preena’s story, her widowed mother had dedicated her as a child to be “married to the gods,” which ultimately meant a life of prostitution. The traumatised child, whose hands had been branded with hot irons as punishment for a previous escape, had heard Carmichael talking about a God who loves everyone. After checking into the details behind Preena’s story of alleged abused, Amy Carmichael concluded, “Investigations not only confirmed [the child’s story], but unveiled an evil greater in its extent and more grievously unholy in its character than ever imagined.”
On the spot, Amy Carmichael made up her mind. “Since these things are so,” she said, “I must do something about it!” Later she wrote, “I mean it with an intensity I know not how to express, that … such unutterable wrongs … in the name of all that is just and all that is merciful should be swept out of the land without a day’s delay.”
For Carmichael, Preena’s escape launched a 50-year career in intercepting and retrieving girls and babies from a “life” worse than death and giving them a home. (Adapted from Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church)
The heart of the missionary is for a better now. When the missionary becomes incarnate they not only see and hear the pain of others, they feel it. Tomorrow is never quick enough. People need God now. The field is white unto harvest. The needs are endless, the cries are constant and if there is anything we can do then we must, we just have to. If there is money we can give we must give. If there are hands to hold we must reach out. If there are invitations to respond to we must go. So the missionaries ask us today: can you help, now?

Proverbs 2
Discretion will protect you, v11

I am not sure if pretending to be dead on the battlefield makes for a good soldier. But this is what cowardly Falstaff does in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Prince Hal assumes Falstaff is dead and leaves the stage. If only Shakespeare had written that Falstaff turned to the audience and winked then it would have helped us seen what he said as surely a joke: “The better part of Valour, is Discretion …” He was saying for him, the best part of courage is caution.
However, I am also not sure throwing caution to the wind is the best policy either. Though every Saturday I try and watch the football highlights and invariably some pundit is encouraging a team to do just that if they are going to win the game. What I do remember is 1995 when Frank Bruno was battered and bruised by Mike Tyson in his last ever boxing fight. What went wrong? Afterwards Bruno said this, “I just threw caution to the wind, I just wanted to throw punches, to knock him out.” Not the best of policies! As our famous English poet, John Milton wrote in 1667: On my experience, Adam, freely taste; And fear of death deliver to the winds. Milton refers to the temptation of Adam and Eve in that they acted with such carelessness that fear of the consequence was not present. Still today, all around our cities and towns we see the lack of fear causing trouble and heartache.
Maybe today we should do both?
Improve our discretion. Be careful with our words, decisions and plans. To try and understand what is right, just and fair in a situation. To slow down for a moment before we jump.
But also, to throw our discretion on to the wind of God, to what the Holy Spirit is doing. Looking to Him for the guidance over our decisions. To let Him live through us.
Discretion within the Spirit is your defence. Let Wisdom/God “enter your heart.” v10.

Proverbs 1
Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the lives of those who get it. v19

Chun Doo-hwan, South Korea’s last dictator now lives in a mansion protected by 15 foot stone walls and a plainclothes security team. Having being convicted in the 1990s for mutiny, insurrection and bribery he is now living out his days trapped and his family are still being pursued for the $200million their father took in bribes whilst in office.
Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentina’s former dictator who once said, “I am above everyone,” died May 2013 unrepentant behind bars.
Charles Taylor, ruler of Liberia from 1997 to 2003 was tried at The Hague for aiding and abetting war crimes against humanity. In 2012 he began his 50 year prison sentence.
You may know all these 3 leaders from the media or none. However, you do know people who have gone after ill-gotten gain. You also know what the Message translates of these people, “the more you get, the less you are.”
In the end it is the dictator that will suffer and their family. It is the erroneous leader who will face an end to their life they had never wanted. Those who grab at things that are not theirs will have it taken from them. Those who cut corners to advance themselves will face the longest journey. Those who cause others to suffer will embrace suffering into their own family.
Just because someone appears to have it all doesn’t make them the person of value. Just because someone appears untouchable doesn’t mean they are not already imprisoned. Just because someone has the public respect of many doesn’t mean they will be standing with them in the end.
Friends, the end will sort it. Life is about what glitters and shines in the end. The journey of life polishes your heart for the end verdict. The decisions you have made, the paths you have taken, how you gained and what you did with that gain. These are what make you.

Psalm 150
Final day of a 150 days journey for the blessed.

If you’re going to do it.
Do it with everything.

Psalm 149
Day. 149: Be blessed

Where are you today?
In v5 the Psalmist calls for the faithful to sing for joy on their beds.
Where are you laying today?
Are you on a bed of suffering today? Are you in the failed place, the disappointed place? The message translates the verse as: “Let true lovers break out in praise, sing out from wherever they’re sitting”.
Maybe there is no lover for you? Or perhaps you are sitting in a God-defying country where trouble and persecution are all around you, where kings and leaders really do need permanently dealing with by God.
Where are you today?
If in the hard place don’t let your mouth be that of complaint, of slander and accusation, of bitter words, criticism and judgment. Fill your mouth with praise to God. For here lies the miracle, if we only believed it:-
Praise to God changes your environment.

Psalm 148
Day 148: Be blessed

Today take hold of a different perspective. See through a different filter.
A heavenly, higher one, an angelic one, from that of the constellation, think of creation, think of the people all over the world, think big, wide, high, deep and as you do, praise.
Praise from a different perspective for praising God affects you more than it affects God.
The blessed always praise for all things.

Psalm 147
Day 147: Be blessed

Some days call for big, loud and bold statements of faith.
Days like today perhaps. So here goes:-
God can build me up
He can bring me back from a distant place (v2)
He can heal my broken heart
He can bind up my wounds (v3)
He can understand all my complexities (v5)
He can sustain me (v6)
He can cover me
He can supply my every need
He can make me grow (v8)
He can provide for me (v9)
He can strengthen me
He can bless me (v13)
He can give me peace
He can satisfy me (v14)
He can command me (v15)
God can do all these things for me!

Psalm 146
Day 146: Be blessed

Who do you turn to?
When you are wronged, emptied of resource, held back, not able to see what to do and when you have fallen, who do you turn to? (v7-8)
Is it some expert? Even those who know it all don’t have all the answers.
Who do you turn to?

Where is your hope?
When you are not where you should be, when you have no mentor and when there is no one to love, where is your hope? (v9)
Is it with man whose own dreams die with them? (v4)
Where is your hope?

The blessed are those whose help and hope comes from the Lord!

Psalm 145
Day 145: Be blessed

To all who call on him …
To Ignatius Kattey, Nigerian Archbishop kidnapped by armed men …
To Shahin, Iranian Christian musician, in Adel-Abad Prison in Shiraz right now …
To the Christian villagers of Maaloula in Syria being terrorised by the rebels who are insisting they convert to Islam or die …
To Ms Doddamma and her daughter in Chikkamalaguru district, India, brutally beaten and their home destroyed …
To the many missionaries facing persecution, ill-health, financial difficulty…
To the many, the silent, the unknowns…
To you …
To all who call on him …
He is Great, Worthy, Mighty, Majestic, Wonderful, Awesome, Abundant, Good, Righteous, Gracious, Compassionate, Slow to Anger, Rich in Love, Glorious, Ruling, Enduring, Faithful, Upholding, Lifting, Giving, Satisfying, Fulfilling, Hearing, Saving, Watching, Destroying…
Describing Him there is no end …
But right now, all over the world, in the forgotten place, in the unspoken place and in the famous place. Here, now, with you and to all who call on Him ….
This hard to describe God …
… is near!

Psalm 144
Day 144: Be blessed

Yesterday one journalist wrote of the latest trend to hit social media websites. She focused on a 19 year old who posts up to 20 snaps of herself online a day. It has been given the name ‘selfie’. This self-confessed selfie addict often spends hours posing for up to 60 shots and constantly checks her smartphone to see what others think of the pictures she uploads. In what is so concerning to read the girl says, “I get such a rush when I see people’s comments, hearing what they think and reading their thoughts. If I get a positive reaction I feel great. If I don’t get many likes or I get negative comments on a picture I start feeling really down. I keep taking and uploading more selfies until I get the likes and comments I want.”
Before you say what I’m sure you’re thinking, “the world’s gone mad!”, the fact is so many wake up and spend the whole day wondering what people think of them.
But maybe you are with the blessed? For the blessed are people whose “God” is not man and what man thinks but the “Lord”, v15.
He loves you and protects you, v2
He incredibly cares for you, v3
He comes to you, v5-8
He gives you victory, v10-11
He blesses you, v12-14
Five huge thumbs up from God, He sees every photo shot of you, He likes you, He comments on you. How blessed are the people who have all this!