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Glen Park Gospel Church >> Archive >> Editorial >> 2009
Each month the Glen Park Gospel Church produce a one page newsletter called the Green Leaf. It's available from the chapel each Sunday. Some months include a topical article or report. We thought you might appreciate reading those previously published.
A Year of Favourite Bible Readings
For the last nine years, in the Green Leaf, we have been following a Read Through the Bible in Three Years plan. This year however, we are charting a different course, a year of the most favourite Bible passages grouped together under one or more themes each month. You will notice that the reading is shorter, sometimes only a few verses, seldom more than twenty. Also you will probably read some passages more than once, but in a different series.
If you are settled into regular pattern with your devotional time, please continue to enjoy it, but if you are not in the habit of regular Bible reading; here is your opportunity. Make a habit of selecting something from each reading to encourage and fuel your prayer time. A point of praise; encouragement to pray; a lesson to learn or an example to follow. Use the Bible passage to keep your prayer time active and interesting. Look for God to speak to you through His word and wait on Him. He is not in a hurry. Then share this blessing with someone else.
For a list of this month's readings, click here.
The Prison Letters of Paul
Some of the best works were written by people who were in prison because of their faith. An example of this is the Pilgrim’s Progress of John Bunyan. These people probably have busied themselves with the affairs and concerns of the people in their pastoral care, but their imprisonment gave them an opportunity which has had a far greater impact for the Lord over centuries. Paul had to write, and his writing has been preserved for almost two thousand years.
This month’s readings look at the prison letters of Paul to the early churches. Paul often wrote because there were problems needing to be corrected, but not always. Sometimes we need to be corrected too, and sometimes we simply need to be encouraged. Whatever our mood as we open the Bible this month let us ask, "What's in this for me? Is there a lesson to learn, an example to follow, an attitude to correct? Lord, speak to me in your word and show me more about my Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
For a list of this month's readings, click here.
David Frank Stokes:
We All Miss Him, but All Heaven Thrills Him
Our hearts are deeply saddened over the loss of David Stokes. David was one of those killed by the February 7th 2009 fire that ravaged his home and farm at Upper Plenty. David went to tend to a malfunctioning pump; but did not return.
He was a loving husband, father and grandfather to Jenice and his family. David had been a beloved and faithful member of our fellowship for many years. His greatest accomplishment was his expertise in children's ministry as Sunday School Superintendent when the Sunday School grew to 98 children attending regularly. Many of those were added to the growing youth fellowship with Youth Clubs, Youth Services, Camping activities and Saturday night outings.
After he and Jenice moved to Upper Plenty many of these young people (and some older ones) travelled once a month to the Upper Plenty Fellowship in Stokes' home. I believe the blessings from these gatherings remains with many people to this day.
David also continued to preach at our church whenever he was asked and we continued to enjoy his fellowship in this way. We have always considered David and Jenice as part of our extended fellowship and he will be sincerely missed by all who knew him. However we can rejoice and be at peace knowing that he is at home with Lord he loved and served so faithfully. Our thoughts of sympathy and earnest prayers will continue to be with Jenice and all the family as they come to terms with their sad loss.
Our tribute is by Joan Smith.
For These Uncertain Times
Psalm 112 is clearly instructive and encouraging for the man and woman of God in times like these. We are seeing panic financially, environmentally and internationally. Our world is in turmoil, but those who have put their trust in the Lord have every good reason to remain confident and at peace.
Here is a list of the blessing of God upon those who stay their mind on Him:
- Their family will be upright and blessed.
- Their finances will be secure.
- They will have under-standing of difficulties.
- Things will work out for good being well managed.
- They will be unshaken and bad news will not upset unduly.
- They will have peace in trouble.
- Honour will attend their way.
These things do not just happen, they are the fruit of right living planted over the years, the result of studying and applying God’s precious word. Notice verse One, “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in His Commands” NIV. Now, compare it to verse 10. They will have learned the secret of gracious, righteous living, compassion, giving to the needy, and anchoring their heart in their God. Right living requires instruction, correction, practice and application.
There is no effective functional alternative to the regular study and personal application of God’s word to our lives. This Church provides ample opportunity to participate and we welcome your involvement.
Little Foxes
‘Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines’
Canticles 2:15
A little thorn may cause much suffering. A little cloud may hide the sun. Little foxes spoil the vines; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart. The little sins burrow in the soul, and make it so full of that which is hateful to Christ, that He will hold no comfortable fellowship with us.
A great sin cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make us miserable. Jesus will not walk with His people unless they drive out every known sin. He says, ‘ If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.’
Ask then the question, ‘What has driven Christ from me?’ He hides behind the wall of your sins. That wall may be made up of little pebbles as of great stones. The sea is made of drops. The rocks are made of grains. And the rock that wrecks your barque may have been made up of the daily working of the coral insects of your sins.
The little foxes spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes. Jesus invites you to go with Him and take them. He like Samson will surely take the foxes at once and as easily.
Adapted from Morning and Evening,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, May 30th
Little is Much with God
“He that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.”
Exodus 16:18
Like with the Israelites of old God provides sufficiently for His people in accord with His word. He is able to provide for the many from very little. Remember the record of the loaves and fishes:
And his disciples say unto him, Whence should we have so much in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes.
It was enough:
“Who has despised the day of small things?” The Angel asked Zechariah. God does not despise insignificant things. Neither was He extolling the diminutive. He was saying, ‘Don’t go by outward appearances! This is not to be done by the power of men nor the might of nations, but by My Spirit.’
We look around and say, ‘There is nothing here for me!’ But we forget that, “the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” We need to learn to look through God’s spectacles, to see as God sees, to see what God sees.
God is not impressed with greatness; nor is He concerned about smallness. To obey is better than sacrifice; to hearken than the fat of rams. God does not need our stuff. All He asks for is our trust and our availability. It is enough. He can do the rest.
"Ephriam is a cake not turned"
Hosea 7:8
A cake cooked in an oven fuelled by fire has to be turned or half will be charred whilst the side away from the fire will be raw and unpalatable.
Hosea’a claim was that Ephriam had been affected injuriously by his godless neighbours. The world had impacted in Ephriam’s relationship with his God. “He has mixed himself among the people” says Hosea. The fire of ungodliness will do one of two things, it will finish the work of baking, or it will ruin the meal, and all the work and cost of preparation will be lost.
Opposition will either cause us to turn from God, or it will make us run to Him. God is able to care for us in these situations, for there is not a temptation to which we can be exposed, but that He is faithful. His grace is available. His grace is sufficient. With the testing He has already provided the means whereby we can bear it.
The result depends upon the care with which the cake is exposed to the fire whilst it is in the oven. Therefore turn the cake of your life by carefully maintaining your reading of God’s word; by committing your way to Him; by making full use of God’s promises in meeting life’s problems and demands; by prayerfully sharing God’s grace with others; by being in the place of worship and good Christian fellowship regularly; by cultivating friendships with God’s children; by participating in God’s kingdom; by sharing with others your and their pilgrimage experiences.
A half baked cake is one that is left all alone. Don’t be a half baked Christian. There is no need.
Promises, Promises, Promises!
The promises in God’s word are a gold field just waiting to be explored and exploited. It is new to every believer, no matter how many of God’s children have prospected there before. We may have to sink a shaft or two to find them.
The promises are not gold to be selfishly hoarded, they are manna which falls according to our need and capacity to gather. Those who are hungry have no need. Those who are satisfied cannot have too much, as it falls every day and must be gathered fresh.
Peter says, ‘He (God) has granted to us His precious magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.’ ‘As many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us’, says Paul.
C H Spurgeon put it that when God opens His warehouse for one of His saints, He cannot and will not deny entrance to any of His children. What is good for one is good to all.
Corrie ten Boom, that veteran of the faith who survived Hitler’s extermination program, wrote:
The Bible is a cheque book. When you say “yes” to Jesus Christ, many promises were deposited to your credit at that very moment. When you come across a promise and say, ‘Thank you Lord, I accept this,’ then you have cashed a cheque, and that very day you are richer than you were the day before.
Many promises are designed to meet particular needs, like medicine in a chemists shop, so read the labels. If we need help, we can ask the God’s Helper, the Holy Spirit to guide us and He will, for ‘no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.’ There is no such thing as a use-by date on God’s goodies.
Our prayer notes this month include a treasure map to help us uncover the ore containing mother lode. For those who do not already use our prayer notes, here is the best of all reasons to begin. Through diligence and practice we can learn to mine the richness God has put aside just for us.
This benefit is limited to the members of God’s family. If you ane not one of His then accept His open invitation: “The one who comes to me, I will not cast out,” says Jesus. It is the START HERE button. And that’s a promise.
References:
2 Peter
1;
2 Corinthians 1;
Morning and
Evening, Spurgeon;
Prayers and Promises for Every
Day, ten Boom;
Psalm 84;
John 6:38.
Memorial Stones
“So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.”
Joshua 4:7
They were just ordinary stones, such as may be found in the bed of almost any river. What was so memorable about them was the miraculous event that led to their recovery, and the participation of a miracle working God in redeeming, leading, and supplying the people of His heart.
In this nothing much has changed. God still redeems, leads and endows the people of His heart. We are going to take some of the stones of God’s past blessing and build a memorial pile on the yonder bank. Over the Years God has done some miraculous things for His people at Glen Park. At our Anniversary we will be remembering and recounting some of these. Some of us will live them again in our memories and others will rejoice in the testimony to God’s guiding and goodness.
This Anniversary is more than just nostalgia. It is a reinforcing in our consciousness of the foundation of faith, because God is willing to extend His blessing into the lives of all and any who come to Him in expectancy through His Son, Jesus Christ, as the Good Book reminds us, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.”
Come then and share with us, not just in the memories, but in the ongoing blessings in Christ. That’s the real purpose of remembering; ongoing participation. What God did for them He will continue to do for us.
A Speck in My Eye
"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"1 Jesus was speaking of hypocrisy. But there are also other lessons to learn from specks, or dust, in our eye.
A speck in our eye can feel like a log. We have all experienced that. How painful it can be! But it is part of our world, and we have to learn to deal with it. There is much dust flying about. We are not isolated. Sooner or later we too will be afflicted.
The Church community is also a world with much dust. The actions of others are to us like those specks. Others may not mean it, but unfortunately they do not live up to our expectations of them. They do things we may not do; they do not think about how others may feel; they can say things that hurt; they hold values we do not; their interests may not be ours; their views we question. Little things: maybe; but little things mean a lot. And these little things become the specks in our eye.
As well as hurt, specks affect us in other ways. They give us a bleary, distorted view of the world as our sight fills with tears; they alter the way we see things. They immobilise our actions; all we were doing is immediately put on hold. They interrupt our relationship with those around us as we tend to our own needs. They make us draw attention to ourselves by our behaviour, when we could have been ministering to the needs of others.
Let us then apply this little parable to our part in the Kingdom. Are we one of those suffering from specks: the speck of our own sinfulness, the speck of unfulfilled ambitions, the speck of unexpected consequences, the speck of unswallowed pride, the speck of lost opportunities; the list goes on and on.
To apply the parable we must look to the speck in our own eye and ask ourselves, “What has caused me to leave the place of fellowship? Why have I broken fellowship with my Lord? What has caused me to act in this way? Why do I feel I cannot go back?” These specks really feel like logs in our eye. We have them out of all proportion.
In God’s eyes there are no specks. There is no sin that cannot be forgiven. There is no action that cannot be reversed. There is no fellowship that can not be restored. As Jesus said, “ . . . first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”2 When you are then helping take the speck from the eye of another, the unfortunate consequence has been reversed. Fellowship is restored.
1. Matthew 7:3 (NASB)
2. Ibid, v5
Looking for the Coming King
For four hundred long tumultuous years the heavens had been silent. No prophetic voice, no revelation to warn or encourage. To many it was as though Jehovah had given up, or at least gone on holiday. Yet there were those who knew of His advent. They knew where to look and what to expect. Although God had not spoken nationally, He had communed personally with those who were attuned to Him.
On the day of presentation of Jesus, Simeon who was in touch with God, whom some scholars in searching the annals of ancient Jewish writers have identified as the son of Hillel and the father of Gamaliel, the president of the Sanhedrin in 13AD, was drawn by the Holy Spirit to the Temple and took up the infant Jesus in his arms and blessed him. At that very moment the widow Anna, a prophetess, well over an hundred yeas of age, who had spent the last 84 of them in communion with God, came to up and proclaimed the Redeemer to all who were also waiting for Him.
There is ten times more evidence of the coming of Jesus again to this wretched, sin torn world to be King, the One who will rule in righteousness over all nations, the One who will usher in peace: ten times more prophetic evidence than there was at His coming to be Redeemer:
Unto them that look for Him, He shall appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation*
We already know how He will come. We know where He will come. We know who will accompany Him. We know the conditions prevailing at His coming. We know what He will do when He comes. We know how He will be greeted. We know who will see His coming. We do not know the actual day or hour of His coming, but we do have knowledge of that time and season, and even a count down. We know the evidences or signs that He is coming.
All this intelligence has been sealed up until the last moment** Only those who look for Him will understand what is happening. These, like Simeon and like Anna and others at that first Christmas, will be searching the Scriptures, seeking the mind of the Spirit of God, scrutinising world events and scanning the skies; seeking, waiting, expecting:
Unto them that look for Him, He shall appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation*
* Hebrews 9:28
** Daniel 12:9
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