Yet another reason why I’ll never be compared to Moses.

I’m expecting that everyone reading this is interested because of the awesome teaser last week. Go ahead, I’ll give you a minute to go back and look for it.

So we’re talking about the guy who is famous for his excuses. Time and time again Moses argues with God and time and time again God provides an answer. I’ll admit that I started off this morning with a vendetta against Moses. He was assured by God himself, not an angel, a messenger, or a vision, that he was chosen for a very specific mission. His multiple concerns were addressed by God and to every answer there were ten more questions. How selfish could he be?

Then I was reminded that Moses was a flesh-and-bones kinda guy. He wasn’t some superhero as we tend to imagine him. He had his flaws, his insecurities and his very human fears. Let’s look back at some of the key moments of his life:

1. Mistaken Identity: Born a Jew, raised an Egyptian; all of the perks of the royal life with none of the bloodline. Did he know he was a Hebrew all of his life? Hard to say. But he did identify with them as an adult, despite being raised by the Pharaoh’s daughter.
2. Murder: Moses killed a guy. He didn’t kill just anyone, but he killed an Egyptian. Strike against him for the whole murder thing, but also turning himself against the Egyptian people…his honorary people.
3. Anger from the Hebrews: The Egyptians are against him, but at least he has the support from the people of his bloodline. Nope. They’re not impressed either. Exodus 2:13-14 relays the reaction of the Hebrews towards him. They are not overly fond of him. Pharaoh is not fond of him either.
4. Moses in hiding: Scared of death and punishment Moses runs. He starts a new life married to the daughter of a priest (change the genders, but here’s some easy listening).

A lot for one man to take on. He had some serious baggage that caused his to have his doubts about his abilities to minister to anyone. This is the state in which we find Moses at the time of his call; a seriously broken man doubting himself and everyone around him.

So let’s have a look at Moses and his foibles, shall we? Like so many of the other prophets there is an amazing event that seems to go against all of nature’s rules in which God reveals himself. It draws Moses in and he is told that he is in the presence of God. The first emotion that we see Moses express is one of fear. He is damned scared being in the presence of God. He knows that God is great and he is weak. He knows that God could wipe him out without a second thought. What he doesn’t know is that God is about to turn his life upside down. (Now this is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside down. I’d to take a minute just sit right there I’ll tell you how I became a prophet to the people Israel)

So God reveals himself, and not only that but he tells Moses that He knows the problems that His people have been going through. Now that’s fine. Then God unloads the big whammy there: Moses is the guy to fix that!

Here is where you start to see the real fear that Moses has. Now you remember back to Exodus 2:15 right? Pharaoh is not so pleased with the old Moses. So Moses’ concern about going back to tell Pharaoh to free his slaves is fairly legitimate. His life is quite literally on the line here. It’s only human to be concerned with your own livelihood…especially with a wife and kids to take care of! I would be concerned too! And God isn’t asking for Moses to be a robot with no emotions. If he wanted an emotionless robot, he would have made one. Oh man, can you even imagine? How awesome would the 10 commandments movie be if Charlton Heston were a robot? Well, anyways, he was not. He was a human being, someone that people can relate to. He has real human fears, real human emotions and that is who God chose…a real, imperfect human. But He didn’t leave it at that. God didn’t just say to Moses, “Now have fun and try not to get hurt, mmkay?” He promised Moses that He would be there with him, and not leave him to do this on his own.

God also gives Moses a unique promise through his own introduction. The short phrase where God tells Moses, “I am who I am” speaks to his inimitable character. It identifies him as being unidentifiable but the on who always was, always is and always will be. These 5 words leave us confused and enlightened all at the same time. It reminds us, as it reminded Moses, that God is the one who is ultimately in control, and the only one who is truly aware of all the intricacies of this world. Was this the answer that Moses wanted? No, probably not. But more than God just saying, “Hey Moses, tell them it’s Yahweh.” He gives Moses the assurance that He is the everlasting God, and that he will change the people’s hearts to believe in him.

This still isn’t enough for Moses in his insecurity. He is given great signs by God, great and disgusting signs (Exodus 4:1-9…personally I think I would be more disturbed by the leprous hand than the roddy snake…but that’s just me!) And this still isn’t enough to give Moses the confidence that he needs. He can see God’s presence, he can see that God can do great and miraculous acts, but he can’t see that he is good enough to do these things in God’s stead. Sound familiar? I mean sure, my excuse for not doing something is never going to be that I was too slow of tongue but I have been known to go the opposite route and try and get out of something because nobody understands me because I talk too fast. I am terrible at making small talk (How about that weather? Quite a cold snap we had a while back eh? Ohhhhh boy!) I am not a good enough Christian. I break the law (my speedometer doesn’t like to stay at 50km/hour). In short, I would not be a good role model, a good example for all those people who are expecting me to demonstrate Christ in my life. But you’ll notice that not once did God say that he wanted Moses to change. He never once said, “Moses, you have lived a terrible life! You killed people, you’re a coward and you’re quite smelly. Please change so that I can use you to save the Israelites.”

God knows what Moses has done. God tells Moses that he will be there with him the whole time; that Moses doesn’t need to be perfect because God is perfect. This is the part where we see God’s patience wearing thin, and really, can you blame him? He has proved himself over and over again; he has answered all of Moses’ questions but nothing seems to appease him. Moses needs that support that he isn’t willing to take from God. His support comes in the form of his brother Aaron who we hear is up to the job, but who is not there to take over. In no uncertain terms God tells Moses that he(Moses) will still be the one that people look up to. He will be the one who is in charge; the one that people get angry at, the one to whom God will be talking. God has chosen him for a reason, he knows all of his faults and in spite of (or maybe because of) all of them he believes that Moses can do this task.

Where are your weaknesses? What is holding you back? If God can use a murdering chicken chances are that you’re salvageable too.

Hey God, how about noooooo

Thursday morning (I realize it is now Monday, but it was Thursday morning when I started) and we are continuing with our discussion of God calling people to his service. Last week we saw Paul and Isaiah, two guys who were changed after pretty spectacular encounters with God. This week we are looking at the most resistant prophet of them all.

I’m going to test my psychic powers and presume that you are thinking of our good friend Jonah. If you are then you are on the exact same wavelength that I am.

Jonah here doesn’t just politely decline God’s call to ministry but he flees the scene. Without so much as a see you later he hops on the first boat he can find that is heading as far away from Nineveh as possible. What I love is Jonah’s naivete in Jonah 1:3 where he attempts to run away to Tarshish to try and get away from God’ to try and trick Him assuming that he could somehow be so sneaky as to fool God. I picture the thought process going something like this “Oh that God. I mean sure He was able to find me when He first called me to do this STUPID thing but I’ll show Him! If I just leave this place and get on this ship going as far away from Nineveh as possible, God will never know! He’ll never be able to find me!”

Of course the very next verse shows us just how well that worked. Don’t worry guys, if you want to run away from God it’s totally easy. He doesn’t know all about you at all. Ya, not so much. The next verse tells us that God created a huge storm that was so tremendous that it threatened the very ship that Jonah was traveling on. So much for that plan! How often do you and I do the same thing? One of the scariest things that I read in the bible is in Matthew 25:36 where Jesus tells us about the things that we are to be doing. One of the items in the list is visiting people who are in prison. This is something that completely terrifies me to the very depths of my soul. You don’t know what these people have done, you don’t know why they’re in there, all you know is that they have done something bad. That’s scary and it’s something that I don’t want to do. I like to ignore this passage and pretend like it doesn’t exist. That’s what I imagine Jonah’s first impression to the call to minister to the Ninevites to be like. All that he had heard was what a bad lot they were. He was scared. He didn’t want to go there and preach a message that could likely get him murdered. But how do you say no to God? He’s got a way with words. As much as Jonah wanted to run away from this task, when God’s got something in his mind, it’s gonna happen.

This passage really amazes me with the way that things happen. And you’re thinking, well, that was descriptive, good job with this bible stuff there. Just hang on though and look a little closer at Jonah 1. So we’ve already talked about the fact that Jonah tried to hide from God and it obviously did not work. But what happens next shows God’s might in a very different way. Of course the way that the people in this time thought is going to be quite different than the way I do, in fact very few people think in the same way I do, thank goodness for them, but for me, when I am in the middle of a huge storm my first thought isn’t necessarily, “Who screwed up so bad as to cause this stupid storm?” This is what happens here though is that everyone starts praying to their gods and trying to determine who is to blame. Jonah is not a dumb guy, despite what some of his decisions might lead you to believe and when confronted he realizes that it was his act of cowardice that led to this storm that is threatening to destroy the ship and all those on board. And he mans up and takes the fall for the stupid decision that he made. He is punished for this with an unplanned voyage into the depths of the sea. Might have been easier to just go to Nineveh eh Jonah? And that is the end of this tale of disobedience and tragedy.

Just kidding! This is where things start to get fun. So our good friend Jonah is bobbing around in the middle of his watery grave and everyone on board, well, they’re all praising God. If you’re as bright and astute as I’ve been giving you credit for then you’ll have noticed something. There’s a capital-G and it’s singular. Well how about that. Even before Jonah makes his way to Nineveh he’s already pointing people towards the one true God. Just a little bit of preparation for the task at hand, I’m sure.

Now Jonah offered himself up to the sea as a sacrifice. It took him a while but he realized that he screwed up and needed to pay the price. So when he is in the sea he is assuming that that is it and he’s a goner going deep in the belly of Sheol. Instead he finds himself in the belly of a whale (some more listening material) and somehow rather than thinking that he was going to become whale poop he figures out that this is God’s way of saving him. Of course we can’t talk about Jonah’s salvation during the three days and nights in the cavernous fish’s belly without thinking about a similar tale of salvation that has the same basic premise (See Matthew 12:40-41). Without even realizing it, Jonah was prophesying to the most miraculous even that we would ever see. His actions point us to the path that Jesus took, literally going to the path of Sheol and rising from the dead after 3 days. Through our most reluctant prophet we see the absolute truth in the final verse of his prayer that “Salvation belongs to the LORD.”

As stated previously, Jonah did not want to be a prophet. He didn’t even make up excuses about why he wouldn’t be good at it and how God would be better off looking for someone else to take on this role (teaser alert, look here next week!), he just straight up ran away. Now God didn’t just let Jonah have his way as a sulky underachiever but after letting him think about his decision for a while God once again gave the command to be a prophet to the Ninevites. It’s pretty easy to say no once but to say no twice after just being saved from the craziest storm ever and spending three days in a stinky fish belly, well even I would have been surprised to see him say no.

Jonah says yes and is the best prophet that we’ve ever seen, it’s awesome. Actually, no, he’s a pretty crappy prophet, all things considered. He gets upset at God’s mercy towards the Ninevites, even though he was appreciative of this mercy when it was extended towards him. After all that, even though he was potentially one of the worst prophets ever, God’s will is done. It isn’t through Jonah’s natural charisma and convincing words that the whole city of Nineveh (and by the waaaay, the whole city? That’s pretty huge! Consider the city of Sodom where not even 10 righteous people could be found in the face of imminent destruction) is saved. It is God’s message through Jonah that brings these people to repentance. So if even the most unlikely person can bring God’s word to one of the most evil and sinful cities, why are you still saying no?

Israel

On Thursday, pastor Jeremy Swem led the young adults' Bible study on the state of Israel. And I do mean state in both senses of the word. Both its condition, and the political state with real borders and all that. A funny thing is that we, as Christians, in the eyes of many people, are supposed to support Israel as it is now. In many ways, some people think that the seriousness of your faith, and your salvation, depend almost exclusively on how you view the modern state of Israel. Do you support it in what it does, or not? And if not, are you prepared to stand before the lord your God and defend that choice, that you rejected his chosen people?

Well, Tim had a good point. He asked, reasonably enough, didn't Israel do what it was supposed to do already? Ah yes. The idea that there is a chosen people out there who are protected by God based on where they live or who their parents are is a thorny one for we as Christians. It unsettles us, because we feel as though God shouldn't play favorites in the capricious way that we do. We feel as though God should be above this sort of petty nonsense. If he's God of everyone, then why are some people more equal than others?

This idea of a holy place, some place on earth that is holier than any other, also makes us feel uncomfortable, because Christianity is one of the few faiths, aside from Kopimism, that can claim a true global reach. It doesn't require you to learn a new language, to face a certain direction, to change your name, or to eat different foods, or even to wear different clothes. Your culture can remain intact, even if your faith changes. If we begin to believe that there is a chosen nation on earth, be it Israel, the United States, or Uganda, then we have to believe also that there exists a chosen people, a people who are to be imitated, and then Christ is no longer Lord of all.

It all ties back to the picture that I'm not exactly keen on. This one. This picture that has Jesus looking pretty much like a white guy, which has been used for a long time to present Christianity as a sort of white man's religion, as though Jesus was God of the Europeans. Which he isn't. He's Lord of all. Our feeling about how Jesus came to the whole world is beautifully encapsulated in what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, when he said in John 20:19-26
'Sir' the woman said 'I can see that you are a prophet.Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is Jerusalem.'
Jesus declared 'Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and is now here when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.'
The woman said 'I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.'
Jesus declared 'I, who speak to you, am he.' (NIV)

Did you get all that? Not only is Jesus saying that Jerusalem is not going to be where God is rightly to be worshipped only, that he can be worshipped anywhere, but also that salvation is from the Jews. How do we make those two things work? Well, it has to do with what Tim was talking about earlier. Israel, Jerusalem, it did what it was supposed to do. CS Lewis talks about this in Mere Christianity, when he says that Israel existed then primarily to bring forth the savior.

He selected one particular people and spent several centuries hammering into their heads the sort of God He was---that there was only one of Him and that He cared about right conduct. Those people were the Jews, and the Old Testament gives an account of the hammering process.

Then comes the real shock. Among these Jews then suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world Who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else: And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sin. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is “humble and meek” and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

That's what we mean when we say that Salvation is from the Jews. Anyone else would have missed it. Polytheism was everywhere, all the time, and if Christ was born into a polytheistic society, they would have seen him as a god, but not as Lord and God. It took a group of people who had heard for millennia that there was only one God, to see him as the manifestation of that same God. Not as another God, not as a great teacher, but Lord and God. And now we are the new Israel, grafted into the history of Salvation (Romans 11:11-24). We have been attached to salvation not based on where we were born, but on what we believe. So what do we do with Israel as Christians now? The same as we do for any other nation. We praise them when they do well, and we admonish them when they do evil. They are sinners like everyone else, and don't get a free pass based on an accident of birth, just like the rest of us. The temple is gone, the sacrificial altar is gone. The once and for all sacrifice has been accomplished. Where do we worship God now? In spirit and in truth.

PJ.

Walking in Christ

Walking in Him

“As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” Colossians 2:6

One of the things that we most often take for granted is our ability to get around…that is until we, for some reason, are unable to. I thank the good Lord above that I have never broken a bone in my body, given my lack of coordination this is nothing short of a miracle. I have never broken my legs, but I have sprained my ankle and it proved to be more than just a little bit of a nuisance. The normal treks thatI would take on foot proved to be nearly impossible. Those trips that I thought nothing of prior to being injured were now all that I could think about.

Now here I am obviously talking about a physical walk, a physical journey, but that’s not always what our walk is. Throughout the scriptures and throughout Christianity we have many references to our walk with Christ. Our walk with God isn’t the same as what we see in Genesis where Adam and Eve physically walked with God. Instead ours is more about the entirety of our whole life. What does it mean to walk with God in all of our actions? What does it mean to walk with God in all of our thoughts, words and deeds? Deuteronomy 13:3-4 describes what it means to walk after the Lord. We see that it isn’t only with our actions that we are walking with God but it is through our thoughts, our words, our heart and soul that truly show what our walk looks like.

So right here now we have a big old list of bible verses that talk about how or where we should be walking with God. Feel free to peruse these at your leisure.

Psalm 26:11

Psalm 86:11

Psalm 119:35

Ezekiel 20:19-21

Micah 6:8

Romans 6:1-4

Romans 8:1-4

Romans 13:13-14

2 Corinthians 5:7

Galatians 5:16

Ephesians 5:2-15

Colossians 4:5-6

1 Thessalonians 2:12

2 John 1:4-6

3 John 1:4

It’s quite a list. We went through it point by point and it is truly amazing at the message that God has for us in our walk in faith.

One of the ideas that was continually being presented was the idea of knowledge. We are not born with all of the knowledge, all of the wisdom that we will have in our entire lives. Can you imagine how overwhelming that would be to have somebody tell you everything that you’ll ever need to know all at once? I can very nearly guarantee that you would never be able to remember it all. If you’re anything like me you would see a butterfly flitting by and miss the vast majority of the section that told you all about what you need to do in order to stay alive. Whoopsie!

But we are told in these verses that during our walk with God we will learn all that we need to know in bits and pieces. We will learn from doing, we will learn from what others do, even from what others tell us. All of the knowledge that we obtain will lead us to even more knowledge. It is different than just being told everything because it comes with the desire to learn more. Just as in a walk of any kind we all move at our own pace. Each of us will progress in our walk with Christ at a different speed. We’ll learn different things along the way and be able to apply it to our lives in different ways.

The knowledge that we obtain leads us in many different directions. Sometimes we don’t want to hear what we’ve been told and we try to run away. We want to flee the path that we know is right and go off in our own way. We don’t want the things that we do to be observed by those around us, we don’t want to be seen at all.

A great deal of these verses talk about walking in the light. It’s a strange concept that we don’t really think about. We take light for granted. We can flick the light switch (which I need to do soon, it somehow came to be that my sunshiney office is quite dark) and suddenly you can see everything around you. What we fail to take into account is that just the same as we can see what’s around us, we can be seen much more clearly as well. Everything we do well is seen, but where we fail is also illumined. That’s the part from which we want to run away. We don’t want people to see when we fail, especially the people to whom we are ministering.

I am not a very good driver. I am impatient. I don’t always signal. I occasionally cut people off. I quite often yell at people when I don’t think they’re driving as they ought to be. I am not at my most Christ-like when I am behind the wheel of my car. For this very reason I could never put a Jesus fish on the back of my car. I am afraid that people would get the impression that all Christians drive like me. That Christians are an impatient, jerky driving bunch of people. When I am in my car, I am trying to hide my Christianity in the dark. I am focused on my own desires, and I know that when I am doing that I am not being a good representative of Christ.

Our path takes these little detours at precisely these times. The times when we try to do what is best for us rather than looking at what we know is best for those around us. When Jesus is asked what the most important commandment is he doesn’t name off one of the ten commandments or one of the Levitical laws but instead he sums it all up by saying “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbour as yourself.” It’s a powerful statement that applies to us in our walk with Christ. When we are thinking about our neighbour and his/her needs we are not putting ourselves above them. When we do that we prevent ourselves from sinning by thinking of them. We are less likely to murder someone (physically, or with our thoughts and words) if we are trying to help them. We are less likely to steal if we are trying to care for them and all that they have. If we want to protect their reputation it is less likely that we would be gossiping about them

This isn’t easy but as we go through our walk of life we realize that we aren’t the first to take this path, that we have a guide, Jesus who has already done all of this and who gives us the example of what we are to do. Of course even though we have this example, we have this path, we don’t always follow it. This idea became particularly evident as I was walking through the snow. Now, bear with me here, I really do have a point. The first snowfall is beautiful and blah blah blah but it is a pain in the butt to try and get anywhere. I am always grateful for those people with the big snowboots who have gone before me and have made a path that I can follow. Unfortunately there are times when I don’t think that the path that they’ve made is really the best one. I would rather they crossed over that snowdrift a little closer to my car. Or even worse than that they are one of those long legged freaks and it’s a lot more effort to make my short little legs match their stride. However, when I fail to follow the path that they made I always regret it; both me and my poor, wet feet.

This is similar to the path that Jesus has provided for us. We may argue with the way that he has gone, but when we stray from it, we really do regret it. When we fail to put that extra bit of effort into matching his stride we stumble, we fall, and once again we are left with that feeling of regret.

We are never told that our walk with Christ is going to be easy. We are told the exact opposite in fact. But as we continue in our walk we do so knowing that we’re not doing it alone. God is there with us the whole way. He’s not so far ahead of us that we can’t see where he is; he’s not so far behind us that we don’t know where we’re going. Our walk is with God. He is there with us, guiding us, protecting us and strengthening us so that when we are at our weakest he is there to encourage us and keep us going.

*Material for this bible study was inspired by the book “Living in Jesus”

Pastor Jim Expounds: Happy Birthday, KJV!

Pastor Jim Expounds: Happy Birthday, KJV!: Yes, roll out the party hats and get into the party spirit, someone is celebrating a milestone birthday this year. Yes, King James, come o...

Paul and Isaiah-totally righteous bros

So let’s get out our bibles and have some fun here.

If you’re anything like me, which I guarantee you’re not, your big question might be, “God, why on earth did you put me here?”

It’s a good question. It’s something we struggle with nearly every day. In 1 Corinthians 12:27-31 we read that God has appointed people to a bunch of different of different positions.

God continues to appoint people to these positions. But it isn’t something new. Throughout the bible there are scads of people who have been appointed to various areas of responsibility. What can be especially surprising is who God uses, where they came from, and even their reactions to being called.

So come along and let’s have a look at some of the more legendary people that God called for his ministry.

Paul

­Notorious for being the Christian killing bad guy, Paul is one of the most influential writers of the New Testament.

Acts 9 tells the story of how Paul came to be in service.

Notice anything? Ya, Paul is a pretty bad guy when he starts out. He doesn’t have a miraculous epiphany AND THEN God calls him. No, Paul (Saul here) is a sinful, killing machine. And that’s exactly when God comes to him; when he is at his very worst.

God brings about this amazing light from heaven that completely surrounds him and utterly shocks him. Now this isn’t just your average 100watt bulb, this is the most terrifying and awe-inspiring light that you can imagine.

And how does Paul react? Well, he doesn’t really, does he? But through his silence we see a lot (a little bit of a pun there, can’t help it!) He only says one thing while in the presence of Christ, but in that he acknowledges that this is the Lord. Seems trivial, but for someone who was making his livelihood killing people for this same belief, it says a lot.

Now we’ve got Saul. He’s had the eyes of his heart opened (if you’re in need of some mood music, click here) but the eyes of his face were closed quite tightly. This makes complete sense, if you want someone to serve you then the only logical thing to do is to make it 20% more difficult for them to do so.

Ok, now let’s take some time to pray about this…

How many of you got your hands all folded to pray and closed your eyes in preparation? Why?

I teach Sunday School. If I want the kids to pay attention to the words that we’re praying I want to make sure that their hands are kept to themselves and that they aren’t distracted by trying to hit the kid next to them. So the hands are folded. There are a bunch of colourful posters and interesting things that we’ll be doing later set out on the table that attract a lot of attention, so the eyes are closed. With hands out of action and eyes closed to the ten hundred distractions that are around the words of the prayer are given much more attention than they may have been otherwise.

With our eyes closed, our hands tied up (so to speak) we are unable to do anything else. We are concentrated solely on the words of God. The dishes have to wait. The work that we brought home can’t be finished without the use of our hand and eyes. Everything else that we would make into a priority ceases and God is now the centre of our attention.

What about Paul? The very second that we see him being confronted by the call of God he loses his sight. His concentration is solely on Jesus. He can’t see to carry on with his primary mission. He can’t continue on with the work that he’s brought with him. Right then and there the only thing that he is focused on is the work of Christ and the way that will impact his future. Not only that but he is now dependant on the very people that he was off to murder. That’s a big change in events! Right then as his physical eyes are closed, everything else is wide open to the plans that God has. He has left the life where he is dependent only upon his own self and he is now realizing that in order to truly serve God, to spread the message of Christ he has to let go of what he had worked for and take hold of what God had in place for him, whether good or bad.

And this is where we leave off. Saul is Paul. He is suffering physically and is blossoming spiritually. He has accepted God’s call without saying a word. His actions say more than his words ever could.

Isaiah

Let’s backtrack a bit here and go back into the Old Testament. Flip your bibles open right near the middle at Isaiah 6. Isaiah amazes me with his courage and humility while in the face of God.

Put yourself in Isaiah’s shoes…err, sandals? You are face to face with a mystical creature, a being unlike anything you have ever seen. You aren’t really sure how you know this, but you know that this is a holy creature. Maybe it’s the way that it continually praises God. You’re standing there, seraphim in front of you praising the name of God, and you realize you’re looking right at God. You stop in complete and utter fear because you are thinking back to what is written in the Torah that any man who sees the face of God is a goner (Exodus 33:20).

Before God can even lay out what he has in store for Isaiah he is a trembling, fearful man. He tells God about how sinful he is, how unclean he is and ho he does not deserve to be in the presence of God. Sounds rather like another person that we heard about who was called to God’s service.

God looked at Isaiah and said “You’re absolutely right. You are a dreadful, horrible man and you deserve death for being in my presence.” That would make a pretty crappy story. He knew that Isaiah was not good enough on his own to serve Him. He knew that Isaiah was unclean and would always be unclean if left to his own devices. Rather than leave him in his sinful state he took matters into his own hands. The unclean lips of which Isaiah complained were made clean. Verse 7 says that “[Isaiah’s] guilt is taken away and [his] sin atoned for.” God made sure that Isaiah wouldn’t be sent out dependent only upon himself. He prepared him for what needed to be done.

And God gives him quite a responsibility. The message that Isaiah is sent to proclaim is not a happy one. It is an ominous message that proclaims to God’s chosen people that their path is not looking so good. The way that they are traveling is one based on the understanding of a prideful, narrow minded people. They are not following the promise of God. They are not obeying the message that God has given for them. The future is looking bleak as God’s chosen people choose to ignore the message that has been given to them. But even in the midst of Isaiah’s message of potential doom and gloom we see a small glimmering of hope. We see God’s promise that even in the midst of death there is the promise of life. Even though the decisions of His people have utterly destroyed them, God himself is providing them with a new and great opportunity (read more about God’s promise in Isaiah 11).

Welcome welcome.

Hi everyone. Pastor Jim here.

And the ever-fabulous Amanda too!

And welcome to our new Bible Study blog.

Grab a cup of coffee, grab your Bible, and peruse around the lovely Bible studies that have been going on this week.

It was absolutely Amanda's idea, and I thought it was a good one, to let everyone know what we've been talking about in Bible Study. Let's say you can't make it out, or things get busy, or you're just interested in what's going on, we're happy to keep you updated.

We'd be happy for you to comment on anything that moves you.... emotionally, because we're always happy for dialogue to continue.

What you'll find here won't be everything, but it will be a pretty good look into what the various groups, Thursdays and Mondays, get into talking about. We pray that you will be blessed by the experience.

Have a great visit, and enjoy!

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