A Poem About Our Times

What’s accepted as the norm hurts us
Immorality always does
Pornography is sold with bread, petrol and protractors
Children are lawfully helped to abort their babes on the quiet
Foolish parents meanwhile open wide their daughters’ bedrooms
Callous males play with heart strings to get their benefits on the side
We’re all cheapened

The ‘great’ night of television viewing ahead
Spying on the smutty lives in the house
Filling our minds with dark murders and sex crimes
Being lulled into a false sense of security about sexual deviancy and the occult
Laughing at rebelliousness and sacrilegiousness in cartoon
It seems they are giving us what we want
Is that what we’ve become – where’s honour, where’s self-respect?

The official line is that God’s word can’t be believed
In its place - a fanciful theory of Mr Nobody
No one made the complex universe
Life accidentally arose
And such a theory, from scientists, who often fail to predict today’s weather
Yet we swallow the line that they know how things happened billions of years ago – Huh!
Hope is killed

A strong and wonderful everlasting hope exists right under our noses
But dying, hopeless and depressed people are soothed by sporting heroes.

The poor cousin of the ten commandments

In the beginning God made the seventh day and put a special blessing in it for humanity’s benefit. With many of us leading hectic lives we need a blessed rest day, so it’s a great shame the Sabbath has become the poor cousin of the Ten Commandments.

It’s the most modified (apart from the anti-idolatry one, surprisingly omitted from the catechisms of two major denominations). It’s the only one some say Jesus broke. He wouldn’t be the unblemished Saviour of the world if that were true.  It’s the only one it seems okay to ask others to break for our benefit, yet ironically it’s the only one of the ten specifically forbidding this (Exodus 20:8-11). It seems to be compromised more than the others when pressure comes or even when there’s no pressure at all. It’s also the only one of the ten specifically referred to at Creation.

Christians rightly give utmost importance to having a good relationship with God. Again, it’s so ironic the Sabbath is the poor cousin when it is the most relevant of the Ten Commandments to the cultivation of our relationship with God. Of the ten, only the Sabbath is specifically designed for this purpose. That it has become the poor cousin is therefore most peculiar indeed.

Getting much needed rest from our daily grind, finding special time to worship God, learning more of Him, and being together with our brethren and families are very important blessings Let’s not miss these blessings!

God's perfect peace plan for our mental well-being

Many, perhaps even you, are having great difficulty coping with a whole range of disappointments, griefs or failures and even wonder if life is worth living. You’ve tried many sensible and not so sensible things, but nothing provides the mental stability you crave.

I want to urge you to deeply consider God’s perfect peace plan for your mental well-being. Here’s a thirteen-fold package of great things Christianity has to offer in this respect: (1) Effective tools for overcoming destructive emotions; (2) A solution to guilt; (3) A solution to worthlessness and lack of identity; (4) A loving family; (5) Supernatural strength (God’s) to deal with things human resources have failed to resolve; (6) Daily purpose and activities to keep you meaningfully occupied and bring joy and satisfaction; (7) Exciting long-term hope to look forward to and to motivate you to endure life’s troubles; (8) A special restful day of the week to look forward to every week; (9) A helpful framework for understanding why the world is like it is and for believing why violence and suffering will finally end one day; (10) Wise proverbs and teachings for healthy and happy living; (11) Accountability to a loving God; (12) Power over satanic/demonic influences on the mind; and best of all; (13) The greatest leader, Saviour and role model ever – Jesus the Christ.

By David Kidd, author of devotional book A Life Truly Worth Living – God’s perfect peace plan for your mental well-being

Take this cup

Ever found it perplexing why Jesus prayed in Luke 22:42 “Father, if it isYour will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done?

 At the Lord’s Supper we often emphasize the terrible physical aspect of the cup of Jesus’ sufferings (the brutal cup) – the floggings, the crown of thorns, the nails through Jesus’ hands and feet, and the excruciating pain of hanging on the cross.  The word we use today to describe the worst kind of pain is the word excruciating. It’s very interesting how the word excruciating has a link with the word crucifixion. Charles Spurgeon writes:

We know that the greatest … pain that the body can endure, is that arising from a bone out of its place … Now when the Lord was raised up upon the cross, and his sacred body hung in the air from the nails, all the joints began to give, so that the bones were parted one from the other so visibly that, in very truth (as David had prophesied) they might tell all his bones, and thus, throughout his whole body, he endured acute torture. (The Treasury of David, Vol. 1, Hendrickson Publishers, p. 343).

Maybe we can’t be 100% sure why Jesus prayed for the cup to be removed when the cross was always His destiny, but if we turn our eyes also toward the non-physical aspects of the cup we might better understand the horrible extent of the agony Jesus was experiencing. For example, the cup was also:

. an undeserved cup. Jesus suffered as an innocent man for others.

. a treacherous cup of rejection. Peter, Judas, all the disciples, His own nation, and His creation deserted and disowned Him.

. a cup of spiritual warfare. The cup involved Jesus fighting the forces of darkness arrayed against Him. See Luke 22:53, Colossians 2:15.

. a sin filled cup (2 Corinthians 5:21). Imagine the agony for the Holy Christ of taking the sins of the world on Himself.

. a cup of God’s wrath and of a curse against Him. See Isaiah 53:4 and Galatians 3:13.

. the cup of the forsaken. Compare Jesus’ cry of being forsaken with the martyrs who were singing as they burned at the stake. They had the comfort of God and the love of God shed abroad in their hearts. Jesus had the wrath of God abiding on Him.

Glory be to our Lord who never wavered in His willingness to do His Father’s will.

Putting an end to all suffering

When we’re feeling upset about the terrible suffering in the world and God’s patience towards it, it’s useful to contemplate God’s options for ending it. Here are four possible options.

He could step in every time we were about to do something that could cause harm. How many of us would complain about Him being a terrible ‘Big Brother’ figure?

Secondly, He could destroy all sinners, since greed, lying, stealing, adultery, murder, and all manner of self-centered attitudes and actions are by far the main reasons for suffering. We probably wouldn’t like this option. Who would be left?

Thirdly, God could turn us all into robots with no free will who always behave exactly as programmed. I’m sure this option’s not very appealing either.

The remaining option, as I see it, is to try and turn our hearts away from doing the wrong thing by loving us so much we would never wish to hurt Him or others again. That’s the approach God took through the Cross. Millions have been turned away from lives dangerous to themselves and society by giving their lives to their loving Saviour. Love changes hearts better than anything.

Sadly, however, because most aren’t responding to His love, God will have to bring this world to a close, and apply the second option to those who refuse to accept His gracious free gift of eternal life through trusting in His Son. For now, we can just praise God for His free-will-respecting plan for ours and the world’s salvation.