The tongue can bring happiness, support, mercy or pain, tears, disappointment, destruction and even death.
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On the morning of February 24, 2022, we woke up to the sounds of explosions. It was the beginning of a bloody war in Ukraine.
Very quickly cruise missiles began to fly over our town, one of them flew right over our house. This type of weapon is terrible, it carries death and great destruction. Explosions, shots, the sounds of the enemy’s helicopters and rockets left no choice, I decided to save the lives of my children. We left our town and a short time later Ukraine. However, my country and the pain of my people is always in my heart.
Despite all the drama of the events, God remained faithful, He led us through incredible paths and blessed us a lot. Now, two and a half years later, we live in a peaceful England. Our house is near the airport and every day we hear passenger planes take off and land. It's loud but not scary, and it doesn't make you run and seek shelter.
Unlike cruise missiles, airplanes are not meant to kill, they give the opportunity to travel, to see the world, to visit relatives or friends, etc. Although there is something else they have in common. Cruise missiles, like airplanes, have an engine. This is a relatively small part of the structure, but it has a huge potential.
In the message of James (3:4-10) it says about a small member of our body that also has a huge potential. It’s our tongue, also a kind of engine that is capable of great things. The tongue can bring happiness, support, healing, mercy or pain, tears, disappointment, destruction and even death.
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Every time we prove ourselves right no matter what, when we express our resentment or dissatisfaction using words as sharp as a knife, when we express our accumulated negative emotions by splashing them like dirty slop, when we want to remain in the centre of attention and do not disdain dark humour, addressing it to our neighbours, do we feel true satisfaction, relief, joy, or on the contrary, do we feel something unpleasant, some kind of loss, emptiness or sadness? It's our decision how we use our tongue.
If we are true children of our Heavenly Father, then let’s seek first of all His wisdom, which is pure and merciful, let’s bless each other with our tongues and let’s sow the fruit of truth and peace.
James 3:17-18But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.18Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
Author: Alla Hunt
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And 'thus says' is a formula written throughout scripture that we all do well to heed.
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Again and again God speaks through His prophets, warning his people to mend their ways or face judgement. The prophet Ezekiel stands before the elders of the nation of Judah, pleading with them to turn back to the Lord. The northern nation of Israel has already been defeated and exiled to Assyria and now the southern nation of Judah faces defeat and deportation at the hands of the Babylonians. The reason for God allowing such a catastrophe was the same in both cases - the worship of idols. They had embraced the religions and gods of neighbouring nations and were trying to serve the One God as if He were one of many. But the Lord had stated clearly to these people that He is a jealous God, and will not tolerate rivals (Deuteronomy 4, Exodus 34). Syncretism is the slippery slope to ruin.
A word for then and for today is 'return'. The World Prayer Centre has framed prayer around three words - 'repent, return, release'; and in the recent week of prayer for the nation the theme was - 'gather, remember, return'. The word in common, and which has been repeated on several occasions is 'return'.
In Ezekiel 14:6 it comes three times, though it is partly lost in translation.
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations."Ezekiel 14:6 (italics added for emphasis)
The Hebrew word 'shuv' is translated into English in various ways, but the root word means simply to return. In this passage 'repent' is 'shuv' stated in the imperative; it is a command to return to the Lord, no ifs or buts, no conditions or terms, no delays or procrastination, just come back to God. And 'thus says' is a formula written throughout scripture that we all do well to heed. For these elders of Judah, as for the nations of today, it is not too late to return to the Lord. Unless this primary command is heeded and obeyed, nothing else can be achieved, and we remain victims of our own sinfulness.
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'Turning away' is also translated from 'shuv', but here as a causative (the hifil stem). So we can infer from this simple grammar that if we simply and promptly obey God's primary command to return to Him, then He will cause us naturally to shun idolatry. To 'turn your faces' is a simple expression meaning to shift attention, so as we return to the Lord our attention intuitively turns away from all our abominations, those being all the things that displease our heavenly Father.
Ezekiel was addressing the leaders of Judah prior to their demise, entirely due to their own wanton waywardness and refusal to return. The prophetic word still stands for the people of modern Israel, whose presence in the land God promised is guaranteed by their faithfulness to the Lord rather than their own ingenuity.
The prophetic word also has universal application. In our own nation if we seek answers to our national debt, to crime, drug abuse, street violence, racial tensions, discrimination, health issues, gender confusion, family breakdown, and so many more troubling trends, there is, according to the Bible, only one answer:
'Return to the Lord'.
“Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up."(Hos 6:1)
Author: John Plumb
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To succeed in anything we must have confidence in God and believe that He wants us to succeed
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The bible says, blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. Jeremiah 17:7-8 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out it's roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but it's leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.
To succeed at whatever God calls us to do, we must learn to be confident not self confident but confident in Christ. The apostle Paul was brilliant in his teachings as he said I am self sufficient in Christ, Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Jesus said in John 15:5 I am the vine you are the branches, he who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.
It seems to take forever to learn this truth, much of our frustration comes from misplaced confidence. Paul said put no confidence in the flesh, Philippians 3:3 for we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Now he wasn't saying we're not supposed to trust anyone, he was saying if we give others or yourself the trust that belongs to God alone, we won't succeed at anything. To succeed in anything we must have confidence in God and believe that He wants us to succeed. We may fail on our way to succeed, but only if we trust God He will take our failures and cause them to work out for our good and to His glory. Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose".
Sometimes our confidence is shaken when trials come especially if they are lengthy, when this happens we can learn from the example of what King David did in 1 Samuel 30:6 when David had no-one else to believe in him, he believed in himself and God's ability to work through him and strengthen him.
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That is if we don't believe in ourselves, we don't believe in Him. God said "I am in you, but I can only do things through you what you believe me for". Think about it, God is able to do all things.
It probably goes without saying that this phrase of King David considering and saying "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life". Psalm 23 is a spoken word of faith. It can only be said by someone who looks beyond the event and circumstances of life and have implicit confidence in the one who is ultimately in control (God).
David believed that nothing could happen to him, no difficulty or dilemma could come into his life without eventual good emerging from the chaos, most of us when we look back on our life can see the truth of this.
So the challenge for us is to believe and have confidence when we are going through circumstances/trials that is beyond our control that God is in control.
Author: Herbert Jean
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God's word and warnings are given into the hands of His people to declare the danger in time and space of our accountability before almighty God.
Well, I was late posting this blog so thanks to Becky and Kevin for bearing with me. We arrived back off holiday to be plunged into some confusion with my father taken ill and zoomed into hospital. I remembered a few times that I needed to write something but the time and headspace eluded me. I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and I was prompted to cry to the Lord about a number of things - then I remembered again that it is my turn to write a blog. What should I write Lord I asked?
What came to mind was that scripture: Isaiah 40:6-9 (NLT) - A voice said, “SHOUT!” I asked, “What should I shout? “SHOUT that people are like the grass. Their beauty fades as quickly as the flowers in a field. 7 The grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the LORD. And so it is with people.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.” O Zion, messenger of good news, SHOUT from the mountaintops! Shout it louder, O Jerusalem. SHOUT, and do not be afraid. Tell the towns of Judah, “Your God is coming!”
There was a three-year period where I got a scripture for each year and each year that scripture came to pass or started to come to pass. In 2018 the scripture was: Haggai 2:6-7 (NLT) - “For this is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: In just a little while I will again shake the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the dry land. I will shake all the nations...”
The sense that I had with the scripture was that a shaking would begin and continue. A shaking in which God's people would not be observers but participants - a shaking which I, our family, our friends, our fellowship, the wider church would experience first-hand in a very direct way. God was about to start to shake the trees to see what would remain - and so, arguably from different people's standpoint, in various ways, it has happened and started to happen.
From when we were on holiday one of the prevailing images that I have in mind is a scene from Herculaneum. This is one of the towns overtaken by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. (Future Roman emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem and destroyed the second temple in AD70 – a contemporary historian commented that Titus’ reign was unnaturally accompanied by disasters).
Both Pompeii and Herculaneum were overtaken by the erupting volcano - Pompeii was submerged in pumice and ash and Herculaneum blasted by fearsome heat. The image that remains is of the skeletons of people who had not run but waited at their boat houses to be rescued by the Roman fleet. The fleet never came. There was a Tsunami and the ships could not get to the people to lift them off. Instead, these comfortably well-off people in their holiday homes were scorched to death in seconds where they stood waiting... You can see them today their skeletons mark where they fell.
What if you knew this was going to happen and did nothing? What if you had science beyond the ages and a report saying that in on August 24th AD79 Mount Vesuvius was going to violently eject a cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), ejecting molten rock, pulverized pumice and hot ash at 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which would destroy both towns - and did nothing?
So, we are urged "SHOUT"! ... God has determined that His word will endure forever. Jesus said that the testimony of the words that He spoke will never pass away. The Lord has declared that His word and His Name are exalted above all things. His word is our notice of warning. The “shakings” so far are nothing compared to what is to come. Do we stand by and let the bodies pile up on the beach or do we "SHOUT"?
God's word and warnings are given into the hands of His people to declare the danger in time and space of our accountability before almighty God. Jesus declares to the church "don't be caught sleeping yourselves"! “Be ready”! “Get oil”! “You are the watchmen”! We need to know that in the time of shaking there is only peace and refuge in one place - in Jesus. Whatever our path, no matter how we are shaken, He is the only saviour. His is the only salvation. He alone has the words of eternal life.
Now reaching older years, I have almost experienced all of the stages of our life on earth. I am slower than I was, I am more tired than I was, I think about things differently than I did, I have a different lens on life. As the song goes "nothing lasts except the grace of God but which I stand in Jesus". So those who know the Lord in my generation have a duty to KEEP SHOUTING – “Build on the rock”! “Build your life on Jesus”! “Give your life to Him”!
Nothing lasts except His word, His promises, His love and what we need most desperately all of us - His grace and mercy shown through the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Let us heed His warnings. Let us not be found asleep. Let His people SHOUT!
Author: Chris Pearson
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We can be assured that if we commit the day and our way to Him, He will make His plans and paths plain to us
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Recently, along with my daily reading of Gods word, I felt encouraged by the Lord to read a Psalm each day. I find the psalms both encouraging, and challenging. All of life is in the psalms and the psalmist often speaks from real life experiences. But I noticed in some of the earlier psalms that David refers often to night times and mornings, and the way the Lord watches over him at these times, but also the way David responds to the Lord at these times too. I don’t know about you but I find the hours of the night a time where I often reflect on and sift through the events of the day. These can be good and productive times, but there are often times when the hours of the night bring distorted and worrying thoughts. When everything seems swirl around your head and become confused and sometimes frightening. David is no stranger to the night times and mornings of lives and what a difference knowing and trusting the Lord can bring to them. And what he says about them is both challenging and encouraging.
Night Time
Encouragement
In Psalm 3 we find David surrounded by enemies and on the run from his son Absalom. The words of the Psalm are David's declaration of how he sees the situation. “O Lord I have many enemies; so many are against me. So many are saying God will never rescue him!" (v1 NLT). How many times in our life do we feel like the situations (enemies) that surround us seem bigger than we can handle. And those thoughts of how will my situation change, how will I escape these circumstances etc. loom large in our mind. Sometimes even the best shared thoughts and empathy of other people can reinforce the magnitude of the situation, which encourages us to think; there is no way out, nothing can change, it’s a hopeless case. But we can take heart from David’s declaration “But you O Lord are a shield around me; you are my glory, the one who hold my head high. I cried out to the Lord and he answered me from his holy mountain" (v3 & 4 NLT). David put the Lord front and centre of the situation. Reinforcing the place of the Lord in his life, that it was the Lord of heaven and earth that was his shield, his glory, and the one that sustains him (holds his head high). David declares that he is not trusting in his own achievements or strengths, but that of the one who is over all and who has never been defeated. And because of that awareness and declaration he is at peace. “I lay down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me.” (v5 NLT). In other words I let go of my concerns, I stop carrying my worries, I put down the need to know how things would turn out and how change would be achieved, I stopped trying to look after myself/others. Instead, I slept (rested) and I woke in safety, for the Lord was watching over me. The Lord took care of him while he rested. This was such a good reminder to me to allow myself not to have to carry the concerns or find the solutions. But to rest on the understanding that the Lord has it in hand and will affect all that is needed to keep me and those I love safe. David reiterates further in Psalm 4 just so we get the message “Many people say “who will show us better times? Let your face smile on us, Lord. You have given me greater joy than those who have abundant harvests of grain and new wine. In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, O lord, will keep me safe” (v6-8 NLT).
Challenge
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The word of the Lord is both encouraging, and directive. There are times when we need to do something in answer to the situations that trouble us. This can be challenging. I find one of the most challenging directives for my life is around anger. How quickly it can become inflamed in our lives, and result in words or actions that can hurt others or damage relationships for ever. Anger is a powerful emotion that demands action, either in word or deed against the one that has angered us. And I have always found that nothing done in anger is profitable to me or others. Yet even the knowledge of that does not stop me acting out of anger. David must have experienced this because he gives one of the best pieces of advice to us, if only we can take it on board. Psalm 4v 4&5 (NLT) “Don’t sin by letting anger control you”. Excellent advice, but my goodness how hard it is to not let anger control you; how do we do that? Paul in his letter to the Ephesians gives direction about anger, he says “Don’t let the sun go down while you are angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.” Ephesians 4v26 (NLT) which is good advice if you can get on top of your anger and put the situation right before you go to bed. But if that is not possible David gives some wise words in this area. “Think about it overnight……And remain silent. Offer sacrifices in the right spirit and trust the Lord”. There are two keys here. One is; shutting up!! The hardest thing to do. If you’re not in the right place to speak without inflaming the anger more; shut up and sleep on it. But David advises not to leave it at that. He says if we then offer sacrifices to the Lord (pray and seek his face) in the right spirit, we can then trust the Lord to put the situation right, either by equipping us to overcome the anger and speak or act in the right way to heal the situation. Or let it go and trust him to put the situation right. This really can be a challenge but if we only dealt with anger as these great men of God advise, then there would be much let conflict in the world and the Church.
Morning
Challenge
So that covers the night time. What about the morning? David uses the morning to pray. David says “Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord” Psalm 5v3 (NLT). If you’re not a morning person praying in the morning can be hard. Hurtling last minute out of bed and rushing off into the day, may work for you. But taking time to prepare yourself for the day by coming before the Lord is so much better. Setting the alarm a few minutes earlier and actually getting out of bed to commit the day to the Lord really does set your life on a better course for the day. But David adds an extra little insight to his prayer life that actually is so important. “Each morning, I bring my requests to you, and wait expectantly” it’s the word expectantly. In our church there is a plaque which says `Expect a Miracle` I find that so challenging. Do I really expect a miracle, every morning when I pray, do I really wait expectantly for the Lord to take control of the day and answer my prayers how he wills. If I don’t then why am I praying? My prayer is that as I pray the Lord will help me to increase the expectancy in my heart so that I do wait expectantly and expect a miracle every day.
Encouragement
Psalm 5 v7&8 (NLT) “Because of your unfailing love, I can enter your house; I will worship at your temple with the deepest awe. Lead me in the right path O Lord, or my enemies will conquer me. Make your way plain to me to follow”. The encouragement that David brings is that because of Gods unfailing love we can enter his house. For David his place of worship was epitomised by entering the temple. Jesus says to the woman at the well that the time is coming when it will not matter where you worship the Father but only that you worship in Spirit and Truth. And we can be can be encouraged that because Gods faithfulness, His unfailing love is renewed every day to us then we can worship with deepest awe because we know we are accepted, by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. And we can be assured that if we commit the day and our way to Him, He will make His plans and paths plain to us. Thank you, Lord, for your unfailing love to us every morning and every night.
Author: Jan Pearson
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