ineke.co.uk

This week at our midweek prayer meeting at church someone read Psalm 100 to us, which is a wonderful Psalm and an encouragement.

But when he finished, I carried on and read Psalm 101 which I didn’t know so well. It’s written by David, and talks about how he lives his life. I don’t know about you but I’m miles off from the standards he sets! Just have a read…

I will sing of your love and justice;
to you, Lord, I will sing praise.
I will be careful to lead a blameless life—
when will you come to me?
I will conduct the affairs of my house
with a blameless heart.
I will not look with approval
on anything that is vile.
I hate what faithless people do;
I will have no part in it.
The perverse of heart shall be far from me;
I will have nothing to do with what is evil.
Whoever slanders their neighbor in secret,
I will put to silence;
whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart,
I will not tolerate.
My eyes will be on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
the one whose walk is blameless
will minister to me.
No one who practices deceit
will dwell in my house;
no one who speaks falsely
will stand in my presence.
Every morning I will put to silence
all the wicked in the land;
I will cut off every evildoer
from the city of the Lord.

I don’t know about you, but generally, every time I read or hear a C.S. Lewis quote I think wow that’s brilliant, and generally just have no doubt in it. However, at the moment I’m reading Mere Christianity and this morning came across this quote:

If you had committed a murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up to the police and be hanged. It is, therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian soldier to kill an enemy. I always have thought so, ever since I became a Christian, and long before the war, and I still think so now that we are at peace.

A bit different, hey? He continues:

It is no good quoting “Thou shalt not kill.” There are two Greek words: the ordinary word to kill and the word to murder. And when Christ quote that commandment He uses the murder one in all three accounts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And I am told there is the same distinction in Hebrew. All killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery.

So I’ve never read anything like this before – I’d be interested in your opinions! Any thoughts?!

At housegroup this week we were looking at Nehemiah 4, and opposition. As an example of a type of opposition we looked at the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.

I don’t know about you, but there’s a lot of stories we learnt in Sunday school, that when I read again now I notice so many new and different things it’s like reading them for the first time! So thought I’d share some bits we picked out…

• As a child, we’re taught that Goliath was a giant, or a big man, but what does that mean in numbers? Turns out this guy was 9 feet tall, that’s getting on for 3 metres!
• We remember that David picked “five smooth stones” from the brook. I think I always translated this as five small stones, but we found in the footnotes of a study bible that each of these stones was larger than a cricket ball!
• David smacked this guy square on the forehead in his first shot, not only this, he did this while running with a bag of 4 other heavy stones and his moving target running back at him!
• When David finally convinces Saul to let him go and fight Goliath, Saul says “Go, and the Lord be with you”. We think this is great that Saul thought that God was what David needed to be able to win, but read on. The next line: “Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armour on him and a bronze helmet on his head.” Essentially, “God be with you, but just incase that doesn’t work, have all this stuff that stops you being able to move!”
• Oh, and when it was all done, he chopped of Goliath’s head with a sword, anyone else remember that?!

As per usual, just a random collection of thoughts more than anything else 🙂

Oh, and then of course I couldn’t get this Sunday school classic out of my head all evening! Enjoy 🙂

As mentioned previously, I’m currently using N.T. Wright’s bible study books for my quiet time, and I’m on Philippians at the moment. (and still looking for good Old Testament equivalent recommendations 🙂 )

This week I reached a pretty familiar verse,

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” – Philippians 1v21

A lot of the time this is quoted it’s on it’s own… but just to add to this, further down the paragraph we also read,

“I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” – Philippans 1vv23-24

What Paul is saying is that he’d rather be in heaven, but there’s lots to be done here on earth for now. So if our time here ‘in the body’ is only limited, shouldn’t we be making the most of the time we have? (And I’m speaking to myself here as much as anyone else!)

I was chatting to some friends a while ago and we were trying to work out and clarify what it is that Jehovah’s Witnesses believe (bear with me, I’ve got a point!). I think we agreed that they believe only a limited number of people get into heaven, and yet they spend all their time making sure other people know what they believe to be the truth, because that’s what they do with their time on earth. Now it may be that the more people they “get into heaven” the higher up the priority list they get to get one of the coveted spaces, we weren’t completely sure on that point, but isn’t it great that they’re so passionate about sharing what they believe while they can?

In our limited time here on this suffering planet, where there is death, mourning, crying and pain, shouldn’t we be doing all we can to share the good news? As a Christian, I believe there’s no limit on the number of people who will fit inside those pearly gates, so why on earth am I not telling everyone I see? Completely strangers, let alone those I’m close to and love!

What a challenge – a bit scary, hey?

About a year ago, I starting using N.T. Wright’s “for everyone” books for my quiet time, I’ve worked through “Matthew for Everyone”, and one or two “Paul for Everyone” books, but after a year I’ve been a bit challenged by some gaping wholes in my Old Testament knowledge! I honestly have very little idea of the story of Daniel, and several others. Now much as I really like the format of the “for everyone” books, they’ve not done the whole Old Testament, yet.

So my question is, can you recommend any Book by Book Old Testament personal study books?! 🙂

I’ve just written this as a potential for the Compassion UK blog, but thought I’d share it here too 🙂

In church recently we’ve been going through the book of Ephesians and it’s been a great series. One thing our pastor has encouraged us to try a couple of times is to take Paul’s prayers, and pray them for people we know. He said if we’re struggling to find where to start our prayers, then who’s a better pray-er than Paul to take inspiration from? And if we can’t beat him we should join him!

The idea is essentially to take a prayer from his letters, and where it says “you”, replace it with the name of who you’re praying for! Just look for the “I pray” bits!

So with that in mind, here’s some of the bit’s we’ve looked at in recent weeks which I’ve dug out to try. Where below I’ve put “my sponsored child”, do try inserting the names of your sponsored kids!

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give [my sponsored child] the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that [he/she] may know him better. I pray that the eyes of [my sponsored child’s] heart may be enlightened in order that [he/she] may know the hope to which he has called [him/her], the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” – Ephesians 1vv17-19a.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen [my sponsored child] with power through his Spirit in [his/her] inner being, so that Christ may dwell in [his/her] heart through faith. And I pray that [he/she], being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that [my sponsored child] may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” – Ephesians 3vv16-19