Welcome

(Reading: Genesis 4)

Prayer to our Heavenly Father is a great privilege that we all enjoy. Over six hundred prayers are recorded in the Bible. Some describe/introduce this great privilege with the words “call upon”, which describes the action. An example is: “For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?” (Deuteronomy 4:7).

Readings: Deuteronomy 21; Song of Solomon 1; Acts 13

Our readings bring us to some profound themes in God’s word, especially the concept of innocent blood being shed and the forgiveness it brings to those who believe. In Deuteronomy 21, we read about the shedding of innocent blood and the process of atonement for it, which foreshadows what we find fulfilled in Christ as described in Acts 13 and symbolized in the Song of Solomon.

Bloodshed at a price

Even as young children we understand the concept of death, yet we tend to live our teenage and young adult lives in denial of it, with sometimes a quite reckless disregard for our mortality.

Yet as we get older and begin to experience the aches and pains, our focus shifts towards the inevitability of death, to that time when as the Psalmist puts it “there is no remembrance of GOD; In the grave who will give Him thanks?”

We have been made in the image, or likeness of GOD and as such we have a relationship with him that cannot be found anywhere else in His creation. The preacher in Ecclesiastes (chapter 3:11) explains our relationship this way:

What was Moses praying for in this Psalm, and how did he go about it? Does his prayer help us to understand the character and experience of Moses? And, what exhortational or practical lessons can we learn?

We believe we can say with some confidence that Psalm 90 is indeed a prayer of Moses, but when in his life was it written? We may divide Moses’ pilgrimage into three broad sections: up to age 40 in Egypt; between 41 and 80 in the wilderness; and from 81 to 120 through the Exodus journey.

Readings: Deuteronomy 12; Ecclesiastes 5; Acts 2

This quotation is taken from Luke 1:17 and makes us think about our preparedness and are we preparing others for Jesus’ return? We often tend to concentrate on the ‘Signs of the Times’, but what about our lives in the Truth? Are we prepared in terms of our way of life, our activities or lack of them, the quality of our life in the Truth? What will we regret, when the Lord Jesus Christ returns? We long and pray for that time to come, but are we ready and prepared for that moment?

2. My hour is not yet come

Time is something that we live within. We are constrained by it – we can only travel in one direction through it, and the concept of seeing the end from the beginning, or even timelessness, is beyond our comprehension. But God exists outside of time and sending Jesus into the world at a set time, to work out a ministry within the boundaries of time, He could see everything mapped out from start to finish.

Paul, speaking to the Athenians in Acts 17:26, presents God in a way they could understand saying, “[God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.”

Readings: Deuteronomy 3; Proverbs 30; John 13-14

In John 13:34, Jesus gives his disciples a “new” commandment, to “love one another”. This doesn’t immediately sound like a new commandment as Jesus has said similar things before. For example in the sermon on the mount we read:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:43-45).

1. The Face of the Eagle

Each of the four gospel writers presents Jesus from the perspective of one of the four faces of the cherubim. The most commonly accepted view is that Matthew presents Jesus as the lion, the designated King of the Jews, Mark presents him as the ox emphasising his diligence and unrelenting service, Luke presents him as Son of Man with a focus on his human descent, and John presents the spiritual perspective, the eagle flying high in the sky above the earth.

Readings: Numbers 32; Proverbs 23; John 5

Our time at the table of our Lord Jesus, meditating upon his precious words and taking bread and wine in remembrance of his loving self-sacrifice, are intended to encourage and strengthen us in enduring the trials of this life. The state of the world today, both at a personal and national level, is becoming ever darker as divine standards of morality and behaviour are flouted and the international situation, again becomes increasingly dangerous.

About four hundred years have passed since the work of the prophets after the exile (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi). Indeed, the sun had gone down on the prophets (Micah 3:6). There had been no open visions, it seems. However, as time passed the faithful in the nation of Israel were still looking for Messiah. Time had passed and, according to some calculations, the time for the fulfilment of Daniel’s Seventy Week prophecy (Daniel 9:24) was about to be fulfilled.