invincible hero

“Superhero movies...can become box-office gold” a national newspaper said recently. BBC news reported that there are now some 30 superheroes in films and comics. What is it within us that finds so compelling the idea of someone endowed with amazing powers being on hand to overcome evil?

As a kid I was enthralled by superman: bullets bouncing off his chest overcoming every villain.

Now I follow a greater truly invincible hero: Jesus of Nazareth. Weapons did not bounce off of him. Mere nails penetrated his flesh as he was pinned to a cross and died. But 3 days later he rose bodily from the dead and he did it for real in history, not in comic fiction. Isaiah, foreseeing hundreds of years before it happened, the coming of Jesus as our saviour called him “Mighty God” which can be translated “Hero God”.

1 John 5:1-5

Take a listen to my son's sermon on 1John 5:1-5


http://emmanuelchurchlondon.org/gg/portfolio/latest-podcasts/

God makes a way

     

                         

Mario Costeja González has gained immortality by insisting on being forgotten. Whenever he googled his name a 1998 report would appear about his home being auctioned to pay his debts. The European Court of Justice has ruled that Google should remove the link and that there was a “right to be forgotten”. Whether that judgment can be enforced is another matter. But can wrong be forgotten? The Bible says our wrong doing “is engraved with an iron tool” (Jeremiah 17:1). That suggests it cannot be simply forgotten. The good news is that God has made away for our wrong doing to be wiped from the record. Not by Google or anyone else juggling a bit of computer code or by any court but God himself wipes out the charges against us by taking them away and nailing them to the cross (Col 2:14) when we admit our faults to him and ask for forgiveness. Great news!

Blessings,

Ron.

Believing God

Someone recommended the author Beth Moore to me, if you have a kindle or the app on your ipad go to Amazon and download some of her free kindle books. 

I am reading the book in the photo above. It is an easy to read book full of God's Word and His promises. 

As we begin this new year 2014, chapter three 

'Preparing for Wars and Wonders' is particularly interesting....

'Just like the children of Israel, we will always have an enemy that wants to keep us out of our promised lands. In our previous chapter we discussed a few reasons why. Nothing does more damage to the power of darkness in this world system than a present-active-participle believer. If we are going to win our battles, however, were going to have to wise up to some of Satan's schemes and prepare in advance for victory. Our warfare is complicated by opposition that is much harder to identify than human Hittites, Perrizites and Amorites. In Ephesians 6:12-13, the apostle Paul tells us that our "struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities. against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full amour of God"

Among the strategically prescribed pieces of amour, the King James version tells us, "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked" Why 'above all' do we need to learn to use our shield of faith? Because the shield of faith is the amour's amour. The ancient warrior hoped the fiery dart never reached the helmet or the breastplate. A direct hit on any of the other defensive covers could still stun and bruise even if it didn't wound. The warriors goal was to extinguish any oncoming dart with his shield in order to diffuse all potential damage. When the warriors shield was down, the other pieces of amour were vastly more vulnerable. The same is true in our warfare. Our toughest battles will invariably concern matters of faith - times when we're tempted to think God's Word and His ways wont work for us, that He has abandoned us, let us down, or failed to come through for us. If Satan can get us to drop our shield of faith, he knows we cant remain standing for very long'

So I encourage you as we go into 2014 to use whatever means you can to build your faith in a God who is who He says He is. 

A God who can do what He says He can do.

Knowing that I am who He says I am

I can do all things through Christ

And Gods Word is alive and active in me.

I pray that God will bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you and give you His peace

May 2014 be a year of many blessings

Lindsey Toms

Inheritance

Who would throw £4millions away? James Howell did-inadvertently. He recently threw away his computer which disappeared irretrievably into a land fill before he realised the hard disc contained his 7,500 bitcoins. Bitcoins are a computer generated digital currency that has soared in value from $15 last January to over $1,000 this week. 

Bitcoins have long been favoured by libertarians, gold bugs and drug dealers. They escape government controls and can be used, almost anonymously, anywhere they are accepted.

 While feeling sorry for James, I “praise... God [who]...in his great mercy... has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead... into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you”. 

Have you made that inheritance yours yet? I have-the best thing I ever did!

Ron White

Can Google Solve Death?

“Can Google solve death?” ran a headline in the current issue of Time. It added that “the search giant is launching a venture to extend the human life span. That would be crazy-if it weren't Google”. With a world view that believes “everything is solvable if you reduce it to data and then throw enough processing power at it. The project “might one day defeat death itself”. Don`t you think that we should tell the geeks of Silicon Valley that the problem has already been solved. Two thousand years ago the man, Jesus, was publicly executed; certified dead (they speared him through his ribs just to make sure); buried and on the third day after being killed he rose bodily from the dead to be seen alive in public by many people over several weeks. Death has indeed been solved: it has been “swallowed up in victory”. 

Ron White

Forgiveness

Forgiving him “frees us. It keeps us from going to prison with Conor” said Andy and Kate Grosmaire about Conor McBride who admitted murdering their daughter Ann. 

Could I have forgiven like that? I don`t know. 

But I do know that I need forgiveness and that Jesus told a parable about a man who had been forgiven a huge debt, refused to forgive his debtor a trifling sum. The man who did not forgive was told `“I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”  In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he paid back all he owed` (Matt 18:32-34).   

Jesus died on the cross to pay my penalty for me so that I might be forgiven. In view of what Jesus has done for me, surely the only proper response is for me to forgive others?

 If I find that difficult, I can count on His grace to help me.

Ron

How do you lead?

What is leadership?
What is good leadership?
How is my leadership?

LEADERS MUST UNDERSTAND WHAT LEADERSHIP IS.
Colossians 3:12  
‘Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

 Nicky Gumble says  “Leadership is taking people where they want to go. Good Leadership takes people to a place where they do not know where they should be but taking them there.”

Leadership is the act of influencing/serving others out of Christ's interest in their lives so they accomplish God's purposes in for and through them.

Never judge someone without knowing the whole story, you may think you understand but you may not.

As a teenager I was rebellious, I came from a line of rebellious men whose hearts were not towards God but very much distant from Him. I had a negative style of leadership, I could lead people but towards the negative rather than a positive goal.

My heart was not right. I had influemce over my peers but I led people towards war not peace.

The KJV Bible mentions the heart 833 times. What is going on within us is far more important that what is going on externally.  You might present very well to those around you but who are you kidding?

In Matthew 23 Jesus is speaking to the religious whose hearts have been overtaken with the power of their position. Rather than correcting their hearts before God they present well to the world but it a sham.

v23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”

Colossians 3:12 ‘Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.’

Influence comes from serving by Instructing, Encouraging, Evaluating, Confronting, Training, Releasing,
Influence does not come by
Overbearing, Criticising,   Manipulating,   Threatening, Competing, Controlling.

Jesus said “If you love me you will obey my Commandments”—a radical commitment to Christ in every Christians life that propels them to act in love with truth no matter what it costs that leader

 Matthew 20:26–27  “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—“
John 13:16 -16 “Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him”. ; Phil. 2:5-11  “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:  Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;  rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”

Love has to be your primary motivation to lead, everything else must be secondary, your God given gifts abilities will amount to nothing if your heart is not right.
As leaders our focus is first on God and His purposes for our lives and for those following us.
God’s purpose in using you is to equip and mature those you are leading them into Christ-likeness, and the leaders prime instrument in guiding the followers to become more and more like Christ in their own relationship with God. If you are not living right yourself how can you lead others into anything other than your own hang ups and sins, if there are unresolved issues within us, we will pass them on to others around us.
God’s purpose through the followers is to participate with Him in accomplishing the Great Commission in accordance with their gifts and opportunities.
The leader focuses on both the functional and the foundational in the followers’ lives.
It refers to the followers’ competencies.
The foundational refers to the followers’ character, the core essence of their being on which all they do rests.

The foundational determines how well the leader and the followers function.

Influence comes from serving by Instructing, Encouraging, Evaluating, Confronting, Training, Releasing.Influence does not come by Overbearing, Criticising, Manipulating, Threatening, Competing, Controlling

Blessings. Ray

How do you steer: by the stars or the wake?

How do you steer: by the stars or the wake? A ship`s captain does not lean over the stern of his ship and set his course by looking at the wake; he stands on the bridge and sets his route by the stars; to do anything else would court disaster. God has a plan and purpose for our lives, which are not discerned by looking to our past, however bad or good. Our job is to look up and to trust and obey him. Does anyone love us more than our heavenly father? Is anyone wiser, or more knowledgeable, or more powerful than the creator of the heavens and the earth? It is, therefore, plain daft to rely on our understanding and to do anything other than to trust and obey him.
Ron.

Blessings,

-More people trust Google than God!

 

-More people trust Google than God!  So found one recent survey. “I saw that. I was very grumpy about it. Google always gives me the wrong answer. They`re out to make money out of us” said Archbishop Justin Welby when this finding was put to him in an interview. But surely the finding is unsurprising. People have always tried to make a god in their own image. At one time people made idols. More recently it was a “Pik `n` Mix” god, now it`s cut and paste: only technology has changed not the human heart. When God made his masterpiece-us before we turned against him and went our own way- he made us in his image. God`s intention was that we should be like him. A likeness that includes being morally aware, able to communicate and free to choose. But we chose to ruin it. However God did not leave us to stew in our own juice, instead he sent his only son Jesus who is “the exact representation of his being” and ”the image of the invisible God”. Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life; a claim God validated when he raised Jesus bodily from the dead. Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for our wrong doing. If we admit to God that we are in the wrong, thank Jesus for dying for us and become his disciples, then he puts his Spirit within us and begins to remake us in his image and we discover how trustworthy God is. 

Blessings,

Ron.

are we hiding in the wine press?

God wants us to experience encounters with Him, through these encounters God comforts, challenges, heals and forgives us. 

He changes us. 

We cannot manipulate these encounters but we can make ourselves available, to be attentive to His voice and to follow His guidance.

We need to set aside time to meet with Him daily, to commune with Him and seek His plan for our lives.

We read about many encounters with God throughout the Bible, many men and women who have had their lives changed through these confrontations with their heavenly Father.

The Israelites were being oppressed by the Midianites, they cried out to God and He demonstrated His mercy by raising up a man named Gideon. 

The Israelites had disobeyed God and this was the reason they had fallen into a dangerous place. Gideon was hiding in a wine press threshing his wheat when he encountered God. This encounter left him a different person, he had gone from hiding from his enemies to being called a 'Mighty man of valour'. 
He had been transformed.
Are we hiding in the wine press or do we want to experience an encounter with God? 

We need to be attentive to His voice and follow His commands

Lindsey Toms

-The `undo` button on my laptop! Ron White

The `undo` button on my laptop!   

This is my favourite button. It is the most used and necessary of my laptop`s features. Edith Piaf used to belt out a stirring song 

“Non, Je ne regrette rien”(“No, I regret nothing”). 

I don`t know if she lived by it, but the morphine and alcohol addiction of her later years and an early death when only 48 years old suggests all was not what it might have been. When I look back I can think of many occasions when I wish life had an undo button. But it has not. What has been said and done cannot now be unsaid or undone. But God has provided something better, at huge cost to himself, because he loved us he has provided a way that can put us right with him. The Bible says if we admit the wrongs we have done, God is faithful and just and will forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). This is real because Christ died on the cross to take the penalty for all the wrong things we have done.  More than that if we trust in Christ then God will make us a new creation! Wow! Not an “undo” but a “make new” feature: that is grace.

Do you worship the Work? by Oswald Chambers

'We are Gods fellow workers...' 1 Corinthians 3:9

Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child;  a worshipping child not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind and heart are so overwhelmed that God's blessing cannot rest on him.

But the opposite case is equally true - once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone. There is no longer any responsibility on you for the work. The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him.The freedom that comes after sanctification is the freedom of a child, and the things that used to hold your life down are gone. But be careful to remember that you have been freed for only one thing - to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.

We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work.

'Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might....' Ecclesiastes 9:10

The Cross of Christ

Colossians 2:11-15   

 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. Having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Because of the work of the cross our legal standing before God is complete at the moment we are born again.It can have nothing added to it, no matter how obedient or committed to Jesus we become after we are converted. This is because it is given to us purely on the basis of God’s undeserved grace and mercy. It is not something we can earn or deserve. It is received by faith. It involves the total cancellation of our previous legal standing of guilt and condemnation before God the Supreme Ruler and Judge John Stott wrote  'The Christian community is a community of the cross, for it has been brought into being by the cross, and the focus of its worship is the Lamb once slain, now glorified. The Christian life is an unending festival. And the festival we keep, now that our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us, is a joyful celebration of his sacrifice, together with a spiritual feasting upon it.' 

God Is Love

God is love and the Christian is to show Love.... But first... you must love Jesus.

You cannot truly love your brother or sister if you do not truly love Jesus.

He died for you and freed you from sin.  He showed his love for you by dying for you.

Do you love Jesus?

How is it manifested in your life?

Do you hide from Him or seek Him?

Do you wait for Him in prayer or only on Sundays?

What does it mean to Love Jesus?

It means to put Him first.

It means to obey Him.

It means to love one another.

It means to love God.

The great question which all rational beings must answer is this: "Do you love Jesus Christ?"   As Christians we must ask it often. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments"

Refiners Fire

Malachi 3:2-3

Who can endure the day of His coming 

And who can stand the day He appears?

For He is like a refiners fire and like a launderers soap

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; 

He will purge the sons of Levi

And purge them as gold and silver

That they may offer to the Lord

An offering in righteousness

The refiner’s fire that Jesus takes us through, He went through Himself. He went through it and suffered and died for our sake so that we would not have to deal with the flames ourselves. Jesus took that fire upon Himself, though He did not have to, and Jesus offers us salvation from our sins because of what he did.

But then Jesus tells us that if we truly want to follow Him, we are going to have to go where He leads. Jesus doesn't promise us complete prosperity and ease of life. What Jesus does promise is a life that is good.

1Peter 1:6-7

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith - greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Promises, Promises Promises!

In Genesis God makes a clear and comprehensive promise to Abram 'I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great, And so you will be a blessing'. When we as humans make promises we enter in to a contract usually with the intention of fulfilling the contract being made, an example when a groom and bride stand facing each other on their wedding day they make  promises to one another with the full intention of keeping them, many fail in the promises made during their wedding vows .

 Not so with God when he makes promises you can be confident  he will fulfill them he is faithful . The problem arises when the promises do not come to fruition within our time scale, as was the case for Abram. 
God promised that he would have descendants that would become a nation that takes time which Abram clearly did not factor into the promise,  having descendants does not happen over night, but he makes a common mistake he helps God out, through his own scheme rather than waiting for God's plan to come about. Patience is not a gift many of us have but it is a fruit of the Spirit which is given by God and developed within us all we need to do is to ask for it, it is not instant, it is a life time lesson for some of us to learn but learn it we must.
 Blessings Ray     

And Jesus said......

Jesus said 'I am the way, the truth and the life no one can come to the Father except through me'


Jesus said 'I am the Way' he is the one who leads to the path of life, it is only through Him that we can be with God. If you turn up at an airport wanting to travel to South Africa then you need to board a plane that is heading to South Africa, no other plane will take you there. Jesus is the only way to the Father.
 Jesus said 'I am the truth' no other man on this earth can claim to be such. There is no one on this planet who never lied or did anything wrong, so no one can claim to be the truth, except Jesus because He is God himself and there is no sin or lie within Him.


Jesus said 'I am the Life' What is the meaning of life about which Jesus is talking? Are we dead and do we need life? Lets see what it is about. We read in Romans 3:23, 'For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God' And also in Romans 6:23 'For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord.'


All have sinned and so we are lifeless because our soul is dead in sin. because of our sins we are heading towards death - eternal death. But Jesus came into this world to save us from hell. He gave His precious life for us. he shed His precious blood on the cross to purchase freedom for us.


He gave His life for us but now we have to claim life - eternal life, so that we may never die but live forever. Jesus came to give us eternal life - a life that will never fade. He came to give us life abundant and it is available free of cost because Jesus paid the price for it on the cross.


The Good News of Jesus is for all; it welcomes all just as we are. but if that loving invitation into God's Kingdom is to be accepted, it requires radical change of those parts of our human nature that fall short of God's will for His creation. you may recall that the very first recorded words of Jesus in Mark's account 1:15 are these 'The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the Gospel/the Good News.' The challenge to repent, to turn away from what is selfish and sinful, in order to receive something better - that challenge has always provoked a mixed response.


We are called to preach the whole Gospel, not an edited version, not an inoffensive Gospel like lead free petrol or wheat free bread the gospel only comes with power if there is repentance. 


Blessings
Ray

And He will be called.....

For to us a child is born

to us a child is given,

and the government will be on HIs shoulders

and He will be called Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God, Everlasting Father, prince of Peace

Isaiah 9:6

Wonderful Counselor - through the birth and death of Jesus, a priceless gift arrived, the Wonderful Counselor sent to dwell in all the hearts of those who would believe. Is He guiding you? Surrender your life to His leadership, what He has for you is beyond anything you could imagine. 1 Corinthians 3:9

Mighty God - We follow a Mighty God, not like the gods of this world, or the gods Isaiah had in mind when he wrote this prophecy. Isaiah was surrounded by gods who were impotent and brought death but we have a God who is mighty to save. This is what makes our God mighty, scripture tell us that while we were dead in our sins He made us alive!

 Our Everlasting Father is compassionate, He is not angry with us, he is concerned about the smallest things in our lives and when He corrects us He does it to bring us closer to Him, not to condemn us or drive us away. He wants for us to be His children.

Prince of Peace - we long for peace in our lives....in our thoughts, decisions, emotions, relationships, families and our world. He is our Prince of Peace, our refuge throughout the storms in our lives.

The Government is on his shoulders all authority is with him, he is the one who is in charge of this world and as Christians we have access to the everlasting father because of the birth of this child Jesus let us honour him.

Blessings Without Warnings  Ray x 

My Son's Testimony