Revised Common Lectionary

This Psalm begins with a tremendous statement of faith - “In the Lord I take refuge.” The whole Psalm should be understood in the light of this tremendous statement of faith. * From the vantage-point of faith, the Psalmist is able to overcome the temptation to doubt God (vs. 1-3). - His enemies say to him, “”Flee like a bird to your mountain.” The Psalmist replies, “In the Lord I take refuge.” - The “wicked” are out to get him. The Psalmist looks at them, and says, “In the Lord do I take refuge.” - It seems that “the foundations are being destroyed.” The Psalmist looks to the Lord, and says, “In the Lord I take refuge.” * From the vantage-point of faith, the Psalmist views the whole of life in the light of God: "The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord is on His heavenly throne. He observes the sons of men; his eyes examine them. The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked and those who love violence His soul hates. On the wicked He will rain fiery coals and bur...

 * Our Question: “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job)  * God's Answer: "He (Jesus) is risen."

Genesis 11 * "Scientists can become so fascinated by what they could do that they do not even stop to think about whether they should." (Dr Ian Malcolm). * "God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs" (Dr Ian Malcolm). * "I was overwhelmed by the power of this place, but I did not have enough respect for that power" (Dr Ellie Sattler). Monsters are created and morality is forgotten (see Robin Cook's book, Mutation). "Can we do this?" is not the only question that needs to be asked. "Should we do this?" must also be asked. When is morality forgotten? - We forget morality when we forget God. We forget morality when we forget to ask. "What does God want us to do?" What happens when God is forgotten, when we forget about what God wants us to do? "Come, let us build ourselves a city (a 'Jurassic Park') and a tower with its top in the heave...

Hosea 5:15-7:16 We are to leave the old way of sinful disobedience and follow the new way of faith and obedience: ‘Come, let us return to the Lord... Let us press on to know the Lord’. As we return to the Lord, pressing on to know Him, His blessing returns to us. He leads us in the way of fruitfulness: ‘He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth’(6:1,3). We must not be like those who react to God’s Word with ‘pride’: ‘They do not return to the Lord their God’. God longs to ‘redeem’ them, yet they ‘rebel against’ Him: ‘They do not turn to the Most High God’(7:10,13,16). Our ‘love’ for God is not to be ‘like the early dew that disappears’. Let us ‘acknowledge our guilt and seek His face’. Let us love Him with a ‘steadfast love’(5:15; 6:4,6). Hosea 8:1-9:17 ‘Israel’ had ‘forgotten’ and ‘forsaken’ the Lord (8:14). We have not remembered the Lord. We have turned away from Him. We have forgotten Him. We have been ‘unfaithful’ to Him. T...

Numbers 29:1-40   What blessing comes to us when the Holy Spirit comes to us! We thank You, Lord, for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Before the Holy Spirit can work through - to bring others to Christ, He must work in us - yo make us more like Christ. When, Lord, we pray for blessing, help us to pray for "the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23).

Psalm 36:1-12 We thank You, Lord, for “Your steadfast love” (Psalm 36:5,7,10). Your love is the best love. It’s the greatest love of all. Your love is very wonderful. We rejoice in Your love. We are amazed at Your love. We look at Jesus, Your Son, crucified for us, and we say, “Amazing love, how can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” Jesus died for us. Now, He lives in us. In love, You are leading us on into Your future – on to “fullness of joy in Your presence” (Psalm 16:11).

The Generation Gap – The old and the young cannot or will not understand each other. How do we tackle the problem of the Generation Gap? Do we seek our answer with the adult generation? – By demanding that young people comply with their parents Do we seek our answer with the youth culture? – By demanding that adults embrace the attitude of their children Neither of these alternatives gets to the root of the problem. There is, however, a third alternative. We can take the problem to Jesus. In my own experience, the Generation Gap has never been a great problem. Why? – Because the problem was taken to Jesus. As I entered the years of adolescence and early adulthood, I committed my life to Jesus Christ.On the same night, my father also committed his life to Jesus Christ. I was fifteen. He was forty. It looked like the perfect situation for a generation gap. The generation gap never quite developed. Why? – Because we both found the perfect solution: Jesus. In Jesus Chris...

Joshua 1:1-18 We thank You, Lord, that we have Your wonderful promise - "The Lord your God is with you" - as well as Your clear command - "Be strong" (Joshua 1:9). Without Your promise, the command is no use. Again and again, we fail to keep Your commands. Again and again, we need to be reassured. You are still with us. This is what we need to hear. This is where our strength comes from. It comes from Your promise. It comes from knowing that You never fail us. You have never failed us. You never will fail us.

Joshua 11:16-12:24 Where does victory come from? Does it come from ourselves? No! It comes from You, Lord. You give us the victory. We give You the glory: "To God be the glory! Great things He has done. So loved He the world that He gave us His Son... Praise the Lord!"

We thank You, Lord, that the Holy Spirit directs our attention to Jesus (John 16:14). He leads us to make our confession of faith: "Jesus is Lord" (1 Corinthians 12:3). He leads us into a new life - a life that is centred on Jesus, a life that brings glory to You and blessing to us.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 Before the creation, there is the Creator. * He is the chief focus of attention in the Bible’s first chapter. Wherever we look in Genesis 1, we see the word, God. This is about Him. Genesis 1 speaks about us. It tells us where we have come from. We have come from God. He is our Creator. Take away God, and our life has no meaning, no purpose, no direction. * Move on from the Bible’s first chapter. Read the rest of Genesis, the rest of the Old Testament,the rest of the Bible. What do you find? The Bible is a Book about God. It’s not only a Book about God. It’s a Book that has been given to us by God. It’s His Word. * What about our faith and our life? Our faith comes to us from God. Our life has been given to us by God. We are to put our faith in God. We are to live our life for God. * “God said, Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). The light of God’s love and holiness. “He created us in His own image” (Genesis 1:27). Cre...

“The Lord will wash away the filth of Zion’s people… His glory will cover everything” (Isaiah 4:4-5). The restoration of the divine glory is the goal of the divine cleansing. What God does for us and in us is the reversal of what sin does – “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God’s people are His “vineyard”, “the garden of His delight” (Isaiah 5:7). Our response to the Lord is to love Him and worship Him: “Let me sing a love song to my Beloved” (Isaiah 5:1). We rejoice in the Lord because He has forgiven our sin (Isaiah 6:7). We sing praise to Him because all glory belongs to Him (Isaiah 6:3). Our sin, which is great (Isaiah 6:5), has been forgiven – All glory to God! This is the Lord’s doing. It is marvellous in our eyes. “The King” is among us. He reveals Himself as the King of love. Out of love for the Lord, we make our response – Here am I. Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). As we obey God’s command, “Go and tell the people” (Isaiah 6:9), we may f...

1 Chronicles 21:1-22:1  "Satan stood up against Israel... " (1 Chronicles 21:1). Satan is much more powerful than we are. He's not more powerful than You, Lord. Satan prevails against us. He does not prevail against You. Help us, Lord, to come to You - and receive Your prevailing power. In our own strength, we cannot stand against Satan. In Your strength, we shall stand against him - and we shall triumph over him. 

Genesis 17:1-27 Lord, everything seems so hopeless  - when we take our eyes off You! Help us to keep our eyes on You. Fill us with fresh hope. Sometimes, we can be optimists. Often, we’re pessimists. You’re always “the God of hope” ( Romans 15:13 ). You’re always saying to us, “There is hope” ( Jeremiah 31:17 ). Lord, real hope comes from You. It’s more than human optimism. It’s Your gift to us. It’s Your “gift of eternal life” ( Romans 6:23 ). Lord, real hope comes from You. It’s more than just “hoping for the best.” It’s being lifted up by You, Lord – the God who raised Jesus from the dead (Acts 2::24). Thank You, Lord, for the hope that You give to us when we stand upon Your great promises: “I will pour out My Spirit … and everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved” ( Acts 2:18 , 21 ). You lift us out of our hopelessness. You give us strength to face the future with confidence – the strength which comes from knowing that You are the God of ...

Knowing the Lord Jesus Christ is more important and more wonderful than everything else (Philippians 3:8). Paul's testimony lifts us above the shallow superficiality of the worldly way of thinking. Too often, we attach too much importance to the things that aren't really that important. We need to be reminded that Jesus is the most important Person of all. No-one else can ever be more important and more wonderful than Jesus.

“You do not have because you do not ask God” (James 4:2) - This is a call to prayer. “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3) - This is a call to seek God's glory.

Genesis 21:1-21 Lord, what You have done for us – we could never have done for ourselves! It’s so amazing what You have done for us. We were making plans for ourselves - but our plans didn’t include You! You came to us. You said to us, “I have a wonderful plan for your life.” We look at the plans we had for ourselves, we look at the plan You have for us – and we say, ‘Your way is so much better than our own way.’ Your way is the way of blessing. It’s the way of giving glory to You. Lord, where would be – if You had not come to us, if You had not led us into Your way, if You had not brought us into Your blessing? You did not wait for us to start looking for You – You came looking for us. You did not wait for us to start saying, ‘Bless us, Lord’ – You came to us with Your blessing. You did not wait for us to lift ourselves up – You lifted us up. Thank You, Lord.

I was reading Romans 1:1-7. I was asking the question, "What's this about?" There's one simple answer to this question: "This is all about Jesus!"

God’s Word for hard times: “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31).

Genesis 49:28-50:26 Lord, when hard times come our way, help us to remember that "Your steadfast love never ceases" (Lamentations 3:22). When bad things are happening to us, help us to keep on remembering that You are still the good God. Who are we to say that You are no longer with us – just because we’re going through a hard time? You’re with us in our bad days as well as our good days. You’ve promised to be with us every step of the way. Who are we to suggest that You’ve gone away and left us to go it alone? Help us to trust Your promises – and not to get dragged away from You by our feelings which can go up and down like a yoyo. Sometimes, we’re up. Sometimes, we’re down. With You, there are no ups and down – You’re always the faithful God. You’re always near to us – even when we feel that You’re far away from us. We’ve wandered far away from You – but You’re always near to us. Thank You, Lord, that You are always with us.

Genesis 32:22-32 We thank You, Lord, that we have the victory in Christ. This is not our own victory. It's His victory. On the Cross, He won the victory over Satan. How do we know that He has won the victory? - You raised Him from the dead. We thank You, Lord, that Jesus didn't win the victory for Himself. He won the victory for us. He gives His victory to us. Help us, Lord, to walk with You in victory. When we stumble and fall - as we so often do, pick us up and set us on our feet again. Help us to take our stand against Satan. help us to take our stand in Christ. Lead us on, Lord, from victory to victory.

Genesis 29:1-30 Lord, Your way is the best way. We, often, wander off on our own. We forget that we are called to follow You, to walk in Your footsteps. Again and again, we need to be reminded that Your way is the best way. Help us to see that Your way is a wonderful way - even when it turns out to be very different from what we had expected.

Genesis 1:4-13                                    Lord, when You speak to us, help us to say, ‘Your will be done’ ( Matthew 6:10 ). ‘Let it be to me according to Your Word’ ( Luke 1:38 ) - This was Mary’s prayer. May it also be our prayer. By ourselves, we are helpless and hopeless - Without Your help, we have no hope of doing Your will and pleasing You. We need Your Holy Spirit - May the Spirit’s ‘living water’ flow in us ( John 7:37-39 ). Thank You, Lord, for the gift of Your Holy Spirit - He gives us the power to ‘walk in the light’ ( 1 John 1:7 ) with You. Lead us in the way of fruitfulness - the way of “love, joy, peace..." ( Galatians 5:22-23 ) .

Genesis 26:1-35 Lord, when our hold on You is weak, help us to remember that Your hold on us is strong. Often, we get bogged down in our sin. Lift us up by Your grace. Give us strength to rise above our sin - strength to become all that You want us to be.