A non-denominational guide to confident Christian living published by ttie Faith for Daily Living Foundation, a duly registered non-profit :Trust

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Table of Contents

Title Page.

Preface.

About This eBook.

Between Ourselves.

The Old Man and the Sea.

The Shortest Distance

Loneliness.

Faith for Daily Living Website / MySchool Card.

Daily Readings for September:

Is Half a Loaf Better Than No Bread?

iii

September 2018

Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa

01

02 03 04 05 06 07 08

09 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30

Table of Contents

Daily Readings for October:

Looking To Christ.

One Solitary Life.

Your September Readings.

Your October Bible Readings.

Important Information (cont. from pg ii).

The Faith for Daily Living eBook.

Abbreviations.

Back Page.

iv

October 2018

Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa

01 02 03 04 05 06

07 08 09 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31

About this eBook.

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vii

About this eBook.

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viii

Dear Friends,

Here we are, the year well over half-way through. I am happy to be able to inform you that our new office set-up is working well, and our new computer expert, Penny Needham has settled in well. The office is a lot quieter with fewer people around(!) and all is going according to plan.

In the first few months of the year we were happy to welcome several old readers back onto our mailing list, as well as a number of new ones. I repeat my request to all readers to encourage any they may know who have dropped off our mailing list (for whatever reason) to enlist again and so re-join this enormous family of fellow-disciples of Jesus.

The annual review of our financial statements which takes place in March brought a pleasant surprise. Despite rising costs and a year of problems and upheavals our credit balance had made a significant increase. Several large donations over the year-end gave rise to this happy state of affairs. We thank all who have donated - either large or small amounts. We said again, as we gave thanks to God, “Somebody up there likes us”. Also a further happy feature is that the use of “My School” cards continues to rise. People outside South Africa will find the “Paypal” system a cost-effective way to donate - it saves us costs too. Our banks are charging us heavily to process overseas cheques - sometimes the commission is more than the value of the cheque!

God bless you as you go forward in his name.

Yours in Christ,

(John Borman)

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

After a few of the usual Sunday evening hymns, the church’s

pastor once again slowly stood up, walked over to the pulpit, and

gave a brief introduction to his childhood friend. With that, an

elderly man stepped up to the pulpit to speak. “A father, his son,

and a friend were sailing off the Pacific Coast”, he began, “when a

fast approaching storm blocked any attempt to get back to shore.

The waves were so high, that even though the father was an

experienced sailor, he could not keep the boat upright, and the

three of them were swept into the sea”.

The old man hesitated for a moment, making eye contact with

two teenagers who were, for the first time since the service began,

looking somewhat interested in his story. He continued, “Grabbing

a rescue line, the father had to make the most excruciating

decision of his life… to which boy would he throw the end of the

line? He only had seconds to make the decision.

The father knew that his son was a Christian, and he also

knew that his son’s friend was not. The agony of his decision could

not be matched by the torrent of the waves. As the father yelled out

“I love you, son!” he threw the lifeline to his son’s friend. By the

time he pulled the friend back to the capsized boat, his son had

disappeared beyond the raging swells into the black of night. His

body was never recovered”.

By this time the two teenagers were sitting straighter in their pew,

waiting for the next words to come from the old man’s mouth.

“The father”, he continued, “knew his son would step into eternity

with Jesus, and he could not bear the thought of his son’s friend

stepping into eternity without Jesus. Therefore he sacrificed his

son. How great is the love of God that he should do the same for

us”. With that, the old man turned and sat back down again in his

chair as silence filled the church.

Within minutes after the service ended, the two teenagers

were at the old man’s side. “That was a nice story”, politely started

one of the boys, “but I don’t think it was very realistic for a father to

give up his son’s life in hope that the other boy would become a

Christian”.

“Well, you’ve got a point there” the old man replied, glancing

down at his worn Bible. A big smile broadened his narrow face,

and he once again looked at the two boys, and said, “It sure isn’t

very realistic is it? But I’m standing here today to tell you that that

story gives me a glimpse of what it must have been like for God to

give up his Son for me”.

“You see, … I was the son’s friend”

(From “The Messenger” St John’s United Church,

Pietermaritzburg)

THE SHORTEST DISTANCE

The shortest distance between a problem and a solution is the

distances between your knees and the floor. The one who kneels

to the Lord can stand through anything.

LONELINESS

Gary Bezuidenhout

When your heart feels small and broken,

And no one seems to care,

Loving words are never spoken

And tender touches rare.

You feel alone and full of pain -

Though many share it too,

Instead of sunshine you have rain,

No voice says, “I love you”.

Your tears collect, and sorrow grows,

You feel too weak to walk.

Your loving Father really knows

How much you need to talk.

Reach out to him and hold his hand

For he will lead you through.

No matter what, he’ll understand

And always be with you.

Forget the sorrow and the strain,

And let your spirit free.

And talk to God about your pain,

Down on your bended knee.

Your faith will bring him near you,

No matter where you are,

His love will tell you what to do

Before you drift too far. .

FAITH FOR DAILY LIVING

WEBSITE The Word in Your World

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Saturday 1st September

COMPLETE TRUST

“Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these”.

Mk 10:14 GNB

W e sometimes admire the charm and winsomeness of small children - when we are not getting annoyed by the noise they

are making, or the mess! But Jesus saw in a small child the model of faith he wanted his

disciples and other followers to copy. If a parent says to a child, “I will bring you a lollipop when I come home from the shops”, the child doesn’t argue or query. He knows that, come wind or weather, the lollipop will be forthcoming. The child doesn’t earn or deserve the gift. It’s a parent’s promise. Some of the people whom Jesus met in the gospel stories were working their way to the kingdom - or were trying to. They assumed that the blessings God could give came as a reward for the correct behaviour they were expected to observe. They knew too, of all manner of wrong things that they were supposed to avoid. Jesus wanted them to get ideas like that right out of their heads. Jesus wanted his disciples to exhibit complete and utter childlike trust in the mighty love, care and grace of the Father.

This is still the heart of the gospel message. Amid the rush and swirl of modern life, the contradictions of living and the problems of faith in a scientific age, the Father still says, “Trust me as implicitly as a child trusts his parent”. Stop trying to do God’s job for him. Stop trying to impress God - and your family and fellow believers. Learn to accept what God offers thankfully - you can’t make it or earn it. Enjoy his love - and bask in it.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to trust you like a child.

Sunday 2nd

September

RECEIVE IT

“I assure you that whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it”.

Mk 10:15 GNB

S ometimes people get inspired and set out to “build the Kingdom of God”. It is done with acts of kindness, works

of mercy, innovations and programmes of evangelism. Noble thoughts, challenges, visions and sometimes sacrifice are thought to be the material out of which the Kingdom is made. Missionary endeavour is another component that is sometimes needed to build this mythical Kingdom. It is sometimes spoken of as if Jesus came to build the Kingdom - and then left it to his human followers to finish the task. Many wonderful ideas are framed and so are plenty of programmes.

Jesus said that it is not built by human endeavour. If it were to be, it would mean that it was a man-made achievement. We could be proud of it, “put our backs into it”, claim the credit for it, and criticise it. Jesus said, “Receive it” “As Mark refers it to disciples, they cannot earn it, or deserve it or make it, but only accept it thankfully as God’s gift. This is why group after group have so far in the story failed to enter in. They have all brought their own agenda - religious leaders, family, crowd. Only those helplessly needing to be healed, and occasionally the disciples, have burst through into the world of self-abandoning trust, like that of a small child. It is they who receive the blessing” (D. English, The Message of Mark, p176).

So be humble. Strong, bold and competent that you are, bristling with ambition to lead and leave your mark - accept that the Kingdom is God’s. It is his self-giving to you. Receive it (and him) with joy.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to receive you and your Kingdom.

Monday 3rd

September

GENTLE JESUS

“Then he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on each of them, and blessed them”.

Mk 10:16 GNB

T he Bible offers us many verbal “snapshots” of God. It is a collection of many writings penned by a wide variety of authors

over a period of at least a thousand years. Moreover, it contains the sacred books of two faiths - Judaism and Christianity.

In the early pages it depicts God as the great creator, bringing the world into being and filling it with plants, creatures, and people. Later this God is the great guide, showing Abraham a way through the desert. Then he is the great liberator of his people when they fall into slavery in Egypt. Sometimes he is the shepherd, sometimes the great ruler or king. At times he is a warrior, at others a judge, and at yet others he is a father. Sometimes he is called a rock, sometimes a deliverer, a husband, and eventually as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. All of these word-pictures enable us to build up a composite picture of a complex being. And here a new aspect of God’s nature is revealed by Jesus - he is the friend of little children. Unlike many adults he does not shoo them away. He welcomes them, takes them in his arms and deals with them tenderly and gently. Has any other faith such a picture of its God?

“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” is perhaps the most beautiful of all the pictures the Bible gives us of God. In a world that is rough, cruel, hard and harsh, unkind, tough and often punishing, Christian believers cherish this image of God - and they remember that it was given to us by Jesus himself.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help us in all circumstances to cherish little children.

Tuesday 4th September

GOOD TEACHER

“As Jesus was starting on his way again, a man ran up, knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?”

Mk 10:17 GNB

The Hebrew background of the whole Bible points again and again to the nature of God as a talking, speaking, teaching

person. At the beginning of Genesis, in his first act of creation, God ‘speaks’. Later, in giving the law on Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments are referred to as the “Ten Words”, and “the law” as “the Torah” which is Hebrew for “Teaching”. And one of Jesus’ main roles is that of teacher.

There were many teachers. The rabbis were the great teachers of the Israelite people. And the priests’ original task was that of speaking out the words that came from God. In the days of Jesus, he was one of many who went around teaching. But he was different. He spoke with authority, or, as we would say, “When he spoke you listened because you could tell that he knew what he was talking about”. The man addressed him as “Good Teacher” because he was a good teacher. He addressed him as “Good” because he was a good man who taught. And what he taught about was good, too.

Still we need to hear his teaching. In a world of confusion, doubt, scepticism and cynicism, much nonsense passes as wisdom and truth is scarce. So is plain, common sense. Look for the teaching of the truth - sheer, solid, gospel truth. Get it from teachers who know what they are talking about. Test what poses as the truth against the meat of the gospel. Does it square up to the Bible? Will it still be worth believing in fifty years down the line?

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to hear and understand good teaching.

Wednesday 5th September

WHAT MUST I DO?

“Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?” Mk 10:17 GNB

W e all assume that we have to do something in relation to God. We think we must pray and talk a lot. We think we need

to do some heroic act that will make God take notice. We think we must give a lot of money - if only we had it in the first place to give! Maybe if we left our native country and went out to preach the gospel in some far-off remote place?

The man who came running up to Jesus was rich. Maybe it was significant that a rich man wanted to do something? Maybe he was accustomed to impressing people. Maybe that horn-shaped drum at the temple that rattled when the rich people put coins in it would clatter and clang a lot if he threw plenty of money into it? That was what it was for - to advertise a person’s generosity. But what Jesus was offering wasn’t to be bought. It was God’s own Kingdom, his kind of life, the deep rich quality of life that Jesus called “eternal life” and had the quality of eternity. And it was precious - more precious than anything that could be valued in monetary terms. The real answer the man needed was to be told, “No, it isn’t like that at all. It’s about submitting to God and to his kingly rule in your life. It’s about letting Christ, his love and his compassion, in and letting them flood everything in your existence.

That’s what you have to do too. You have to let Christ in, his love, the people he wants you to love - the last, the lost and the least - until there’s no room left for yourself.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, come in and fill my life with your love.

Thursday 6th September

CALLING JESUS GOOD

“Why do you call me good?’ Jesus asked him”. Mk 10:18 GNB

I t is part of normal human conversation to refer to people or things as “good” or “bad”. If we are selling a car, we say “It is

a good car” but whether the buyer comes to such a positive evaluation is another thing.

The rich young man called Jesus “Good”. But the religious leaders came to a different conclusion. Whether something or someone is good or bad depends not only on that thing or person. It depends on the ideas and attitudes of the person making the judgment as well - perhaps more so. The common people decided Jesus was good - he went about healing people. He taught strong things - and new ones - about God. He had more credibility than the religious leaders. And his stories were so apt and so enlightening. If the man only knew – Jesus was good also because he came from God and he revealed God. He was good because he forgave people their sins and the release from guilt was a massive interior liberation that freed people to leave their past behind and become real people under God. Jesus was good because he made people better, and he was good because he made people stronger. And he made people better because he didn’t lay down rules for being “religious” like the other religious teachers.

And Jesus is good because he is good for you - still today. Friendship with Jesus makes you a happier person, a stronger person, a more loving person, a kinder person and a more helpful person. He loves you without manipulating you. He leads you with-out obliterating your own individuality. He is good for you because he brings the best out of you.

PRAYER THOUGHT Jesus, make me good, like you.

Friday 7th September

THE RULES THAT FAIL

“You know the commandments; Do not commit murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not accuse anyone

falsely; do not cheat; respect your father and your mother. ‘Teacher’, the man said, ‘ever since I was young, I have

obeyed all these commandments’”. Mk 10:19, 20 GNB

T he laws, or commandments, were given by God on Mount Sinai whilst the Israelites were trekking from Egypt to Israel.

They formed the fabric of behaviour for Israelite society ever thereafter. They were known as “the teaching” or, in Hebrew, “the torah”. They were deemed to be God’s provision for “a better life for all”. When all obeyed them, social life went smoothly. There is something strong, definite and clear about them. They are the principles for good community life and relationships. If parents use them to set a good example to their children and the children follow, community life is strong, wholesome, good and holy. It was thought that if people obeyed them God would reward them with long life, health and prosperity. Some did. Many didn’t. Many good Jews made it the main article of their faith to comply with what God wanted of them. Many other societies down the centuries, seeing the good communal relationships enjoyed by the Israelites, have taken over the same commandments and held them up for their own nations.

But the young man who came to Jesus did not find the certainty of God, the inner assurance of faith or satisfying spiritual life he craved. There was still that “God-shaped blank” so many have spoken of. There was something else he desired and deep down knew he didn’t have. That can only come from knowing Christ. He had come to the right place.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to do more than just obey a set of rules.

Saturday 8th September

AN AGONISING CHOICE

“Jesus looked straight at (the rich young ruler) with love and said, ‘You need only one thing. Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have

riches in heaven; then come and follow me’”. Mk 10:21 GNB

I n the nineteenth century there were turbulent political developments in many European countries. In Italy one great

national leader was Garibaldi, who said to his little band of patriots, “I promise you forced marches, short rations, bloody battles, wounds, imprisonment and death. Let him who loves home and fatherland, follow me”. He had a ready supply of followers. Half-hearted leadership making compromises would not win the battles that lay ahead of them.

Jesus did not weaken the demand he made of the rich young ruler. He was uncompromising. He invited the man to do the exact opposite of what his previous way of life had been about. “Sell all your possessions and give them to the poor”. Along with his fanatical observance of the law, the man had made acquiring wealth the be-all and end-all of his life. He was not interested in “riches in heaven”. The riches he had in this life had fastened their tentacles around his heart. And, like most people with wealth, he trusted in the security, prestige, comfort and power these were giving him. “If he is to find the childlike way of discipleship Jesus required then he must first loosen the grip of that in which he trusted now, namely his wealth. It had to be a straight choice - riches or the kingdom” (D. English, The Message of Mark, p177).

There is a cost to discipleship - or it isn’t discipleship to Christ. Are you ready to be a real disciple?

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, let me be ready to pay the price of true discipleship.

Sunday 9th September

COUNTING THE COST

“When the man heard this, gloom spread over his face, and he went away sad, because he was very rich”.

Mk 10:22 GNB

I t is not at all uncommon for people to meet with Jesus Christ, hear the call of the kingdom, and decide, consciously and

deliberately, not to follow the way of the Lord. Many issues and considerations can get in the way of a person following Christ. Family pressures can weigh on a person’s mind. Sometimes a person has to stay at home and look after a parent. For another one a deep sense of guilt or inadequacy may weigh upon the decision-making process. And frequently it is the desire for a fortune or at least the pleasures of “the world, the flesh and the devil”.

The rich young ruler had made up his mind long before he met Jesus on this particular day. He had made choices, options and decisions which had set his course. He had worked hard for his wealth. And probably had investments to protect. Wealth makes people defensive - they have to think, all the time, about the liability for tax, the effect on their descendants, the possibility of inflation and devaluation. And they have to be on their guard against rogues. Nowadays the cost of insurance is also a big factor.

The man in the story counted the cost. And decided it was too high. He knew what he had. But he never knew what he missed. You too have to make choices. Weigh them up carefully, thoughtfully and prayerfully. You may decide to put off making choices - but you may not get the opportunity again. Time moves on swiftly and time can change you and the decisions you have to make.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to make the right decisions. Now.

Monday 10th September

HARD TO BE RICH

“Jesus looked round at his disciples and said to them, ‘how hard it will be for rich people to enter the Kingdom of God!’”

Mk 10:23 GNB

W e all envy those with plenty of money. We think of the smart car we could buy, the bigger and better house we could live

in, the luxurious holidays we could have, the entertaining we could do, the generous donations we could make, the power it would give us over other people - and how many friends it would bring us.

The recent movie, “All the Money in the World” showed some of the problems that beset a very rich man. The vast wealth he had acquired made him miserable, selfish and mean. It led to his grandson being kidnapped and held to ransom. Eventually the boy’s captors cut off his ear! He spent his every waking moment worrying about how much tax he would have to pay. And he converted much of his money into works of art to preserve the value. Far from being free to do anything and everything he wanted to - he was trapped by his own wealth.

Jesus saw the dangers in what money could do to people. He lost a man who might have become a strong apostle and evangelist. It was far better to have a simple childlike trust in God the Father. That way you really live life to the utmost.

John Wesley preached a practical sermon on money. He said, “Get all you can” by fair means and hard work. “Save all you can” by a simple lifestyle, and by avoiding ostentatious luxury. “Give all you can” he said, in ways that will benefit other people, glorify God, and enable you to live a holy life. Try it!

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, I dedicate my assets to you.

Tuesday 11th September

CAN ANYTHING SUCCEED LIKE SUCCESS?

“The disciples were shocked at these words, but Jesus went on to say, ‘My children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle’”.

Mk 10:24, 25 GNB

S chemes to succeed are two a penny. Books on it are written by the score. Lectures are delivered, courses are given, tips are

handed out. If they were all successful, the world would be overrun by

successful people! In ancient Israel, the trappings of outward “success” were

regarded as the rewards God gave to his people for being obedient to the law. Obey God, so the culture went, and he would give you wealth, health and happiness. So if you were healthy, wealthy or happy it meant you must have been good! And it gave the message that you knew God, were in his good books, and, in the terminology current in the New Testament, it proclaimed that you were “in the Kingdom of God”. The disciples of Jesus grew up with such beliefs. But Jesus knew better. That was why he was such a “good teacher”. But he could see how wealth warped people, made them feel superior, distorted their values, and made them selfish, mean and less than real persons. Sometimes it made them deeply unhappy. They looked at the whole of life with materialistic ambition and greed. Sometimes it dominated their whole lives and blotted God out.

Heed the warning of Jesus. He chose poverty and encouraged his followers to beware of the dangers of making money their God. The danger is still there - only now money encourages people to think that they deserve it!

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, protect me from the dangers of wealth.

Wednesday 12th September

WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED?

“The disciples were completely amazed and asked one another, ‘Who, then, can be saved?’”

Mk 10:26 GNB

T he gospel of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached and declared turned the ideas of the common people of his day

upside down. They believed that you spent your life getting yourself into God’s good books by obeying the Commandments, attending synagogue, making the prescribed sacrifices, keeping out of trouble and generally “being good”. It was a tall order and only those totally dedicated to it managed to “get into the home straight”. The majority fell by the wayside. But there was a big supply of sheep at the temple and you could go there, buy an approved animal, offer it in the temple as a sacrifice, and that would “see you right”. It was all a religious mechanism that ensured a ready trade at the temple door to keep the temple coffers well oiled. And you hoped it all got God to accept you. Meanwhile you wrestled with all the inner guilt it created in your heart and soul.

The disciples were completely baffled by the claim Jesus made that it was hard for the rich to get into God’s good books. Their reasoning was that if the rich, competent and successful people couldn’t make it, then who could? If you see yourself as being on your own you too will wonder whether God will have you. Jesus was teaching that you don’t knock on God’s door with your scoresheet. You come empty-handed. You trust in God who, out of his fatherly grace accepts you, embraces you, makes you a new person, washes away the guilt, and sets you on your way.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, show me how to trust you implicitly.

Thursday 13th September

EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE FOR GOD

“Jesus looked straight at them and answered, ‘This is impossible for human beings, but not

for God; everything is possible for God’”. Mk 10:27 GNB

We all assume that faith is something we have to do. We have to go to school and learn eventually how to earn a living. It’s

one of the life-tasks of early adulthood. Finding and marrying a mate is another. It’s one of the things you “do”. As a child your parents do everything for you - lacing your shoes, buttering your bread. Bit by bit you take it over and become more and more independent. And since God is such an overarching figure we automatically look for our identity in “doing the God-thing”, although we don’t call it that. It’s big. It’s important. It’s complicated. And you have to prove yourself to God over a period of years .

Only it isn’t like that at all. Entering the Kingdom of God is like becoming a child again - only now God does everything for you. It isn’t something you do at all. It’s something God does. Over and above his commandments, demands, teachings and laws, he is a loving God. With all your faults, failures, mistakes, inadequacies and shortcomings, he loves you, accepts you, and desires to work in you and through you. His grace is his supreme hallmark. He opens his arms to you and seeks to fill your whole existence with his power and his love. It is something you can’t do for yourself. Only he can do it for you. It’s hard to hand over your adulthood to God - you want to be self-sufficient, “on your own”, and so on. But for the Kingdom to be meaningful for you - hand over and learn to rely on him.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, work your Kingdom grace in me.

Friday 14th September

LEAVING EVERYTHING

“Peter spoke up, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you’”.

Mk 10:28 GNB

A lbert Schweitzer was a very talented young man. Growing up in the town of Colmar in Alsace, France, he graduated in

philosophy and in theology, both of them with doctoral degrees. He then studied music and obtained a third doctorate in that, becoming an accomplished organist in his early twenties. A casual glance at a magazine in the university library attracted his attention to messages from the mission field in Africa. He read more and more. When he put the magazine down, he had made up his mind. God was calling him to take up medicine and serve in Equatorial Africa. The necessary studies saw him through to his fourth doctoral degree and off he went to begin a small hospital far away from any other such facility. On leaves back in Europe he gave organ recitals to raise money to expand his hospital at Lambarene. Like the disciples in Galilee he had left everything and followed Christ. He could have had a glittering career teaching Biblical Studies in Europe. But he “left everything”.

Many others, far less talented and distinguished, have responded to the call laid upon them. The man from Galilee still touches the hearts and lives of people, young and old, and directs them to places and kinds of service and ministry that are costly both to themselves and their families. Most of Christ’s first disciples met their deaths in the arenas with lions or by being burnt at the stake. Peter’s question asked what it was all about - wasn’t such renunciation sufficient? But much more lay in store.

Pray today for those who serve in dangerous places and those who toil with little reward.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, bless and help those who have left everything.

Saturday 15th September

THERE IS A REWARD

“’Yes’, Jesus said to them, ‘and I tell you that anyone who leaves home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and for the gospel, will receive

much more in this present age. He will receive a hundred times more houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children

and fields - and persecutions as well; and in the age to come he will receive eternal life’”.

Mk 10: 29, 30 GNB

W e do not know what the future will bring! But we serve God out of obedience, not as an investment. History shows that

some who have “given up everything” have later been honoured in some way. But few have received material reward. In 1820 a young British Methodist minister by the name of William Shaw sailed for South Africa with the 1820 settlers. Within three years he had become a missionary to the Xhosa people and spent the next thirty seven years moving up and down the eastern parts of South Africa, setting up nine mission stations in the process. They were often burnt down. He rebuilt them and kept visiting and revisiting them, building up the faith of the people by his constant and tireless pastoral care. Returning to finish his ministry in Britain, the church there honoured his tireless efforts at the tip of Africa by making him President of the British Methodist Conference. Often the reward for hard work is even more! .

The servants of Christ do not look for honours or rewards. They have heard the word of Christ himself and know that their real reward will not be honours and accolades here, but rather “eternal life in the age to come”. It is that hope that Jesus has given them - and it keeps them going.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, thank you for the promise of eternal life.

Sunday 16th September

LIFE IS FULL OF SURPRISES

“But many who now are first will be last, and many who now are last will be first”.

Mk 10:31 GNB

T he Kingdom, as Jesus teaches it, sees things in ways that are different. Kingdom values are not all common sense. In the

Kingdom, eternity invades time and mixes with it. Kingdom life is full of surprises.

“One might have seen it as obvious that children could not be part of the Kingdom vision. But they are. It would be clear that a devout law-keeping rich young man who so much wanted to enter the Kingdom of God would do so. But he didn’t. It would seem self-evident that the powerful rich, as a group, would be needed. But they are not. Anyone can see that disciples of Jesus, giving up everything, possess nothing. But they are immensely rich in every area of life. Truly, the meek do inherit the earth! By the same token, of course, the Twelve must not begin to elevate themselves as superior disciples through having literally left everything behind” (D. English, The Message of Mark, p 178).

This should perhaps not surprise us, since God does not look on human life the way we do. So many things blind us to the true nature of reality. Power and love are both very different in God’s eyes. Our selfishness determines the way we see things - what we want and what we prize, what we reject and what we spurn. And we would hardly expect a man dying on a cross to become the Saviour of the world. He did. And he is. So how do we decide who is first and who is last?

We need, as Paul said, the mind that was in Christ Jesus.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to understand your way of seeing things.

Monday 17th September

CHILDLIKENESS OR CHILDISHNESS?

“Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it”.

Mk 10:15 NEB

I t is easy to misinterpret what Jesus had to say about the Kingdom and children. Many men and women of the world

dismiss the Christian religion as a weak movement and something that is “O.K. for kids and old women”. In many branches of the Christian faith good things are done for children - children’s homes and orphanages, schools and education being just some.

But Jesus did not scale down the element of discipleship to make following him simplistic. Nor did the early church in New Testament times confine its missionary outreach to Gentile children. Nor did Jesus encourage his followers to concentrate on children’s missions or childish activities or beliefs. The commending of the little children makes only the point that childlike trust should be the dominant factor in their faith – they are to trust the way children do, rather than try to achieve something to prove what big, strong, self-reliant disciples they are. They are accepted by God in his grace, rather than as a reward for good works they have done. However much you do, however good it is, you can’t persuade God to accept you. He does accept you when you commit yourself in simple trust - the way children trust their parents. “It does not commend simplistic attitudes like rejection of learning, prohibition of planning, neglect of natural and God-given abilities and high-profile activity. The passage warns against trusting any of these, but not against using any of them” (D. English, The Message of Mark, p178). In fact, Christ encourages maturity in disciples and the work of his Holy Spirit promotes growth in grace in those who engage in work for him.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to be childlike in trusting you.

Tuesday 18th September

WEALTH AND SERVICE

“How hard it will be for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God”.

Mk 10:23 NEB

I n the United States there is a whole theological faculty in a large university that was founded by a husband and wife who donated

millions of dollars. It meant that thousands of trainee ministers over the decades have been able to study for the ministry. The couple’s generosity has brought glory to God and has enabled growth and development in those students. Some have even become significant scholars.

Not all Christian disciples have to be poor. Not all rich people are devoid of love for Jesus Christ. The rich young ruler, however was unable to make commitment to Christ his prior commitment before all else. He could just not let go of his wealth. Jesus, we need to notice, does not call every young person to leave everything and go. Nor does he call all rich people to give away everything they have. Some have brought glory to God and honour to Christ and his church by giving away large sums of money. Others have served God by consciously using their assets to encourage the growth and development of Christian ministry.

God guides different people to express their gratitude to him and their love for Jesus in a variety of ways. Some go to far distant places. Others pay for them to go! Some toil at some specific task that takes years and years. And some serve God by finding ways and means to raise money that will provide some ministry or service that would languish without funding. Do not despise money. Recognise it as a tool and as a means of bringing glory to God. Use it as mightily as you can.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, show me how you want me to bring glory to you.

Wednesday 19th September

WHO CAN BE SAVED?

“The disciples asked one another, ‘Who, then, can be saved?’”

Mk 10:26 GNB

W e need to be careful that we do not jump to conclusions that are based, not on what Jesus said, but on what we assume

he meant. This teaching of Jesus “does not support the contention that the

poor are somehow naturally spiritual or people of faith. Nor does it say that the rich are automatically materialistic or sinful. It does say that in the matter of salvation, those with wealth, and presumably the power that goes with it, are more inclined to trust those things than to give themselves primarily in faith to God.

Yet there are many rich saints who are not controlled by their money and who serve their Lord outstandingly. The poor do not automatically believe, and are under many pressures to be more materialistic and greedy than the rich. Yet it cannot be a coincidence that in many places today it is amongst the poor that spiritual revival is breaking out and deep new insights into the Christian faith are being discovered.

To speak, as some do, of God’s ‘bias to the poor’ is properly to recognize that it is not God’s will in his world for the minority to have most and the majority to have least. For that situation rich Christians, which includes most people in the countries that are usually included in what is commonly referred to as ‘the West’, will be called to account, and we should be doing more about it now than we do” (D. English, The Message of Mark, p179).

Most people tend to take their economic context for granted, and to think that the economic anomalies are for experts and politicians to solve. Christians ought to think deeply about the whole world order.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, bring in an order of plenty and equality.

Thursday 20th September

UP TO JERUSALEM

“Jesus and his disciples were now on the road going up to Jerusalem. Jesus was going ahead of the

disciples, who were filled with alarm”. Mk 10:32 GNB

Jerusalem is a unique city. It is a sacred city for three different world religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is built on a

site chosen by King David a thousand years before Christ. It is here that King Solomon built the first temple. That one was destroyed by the Babylonian conquerors in 586 B.C. A second temple was built after the Israelites returned from exile in Babylon at the end of the sixth century B.C. That temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

For Christian disciples it is the city towards which Jesus set his face on his courageous journey to the cross. How could he know that the cross awaited him? He had figured it all out. The Romans didn’t want “trouble” and he spelt trouble to the Jewish religious authorities. They had clashed with him throughout his ministry of teaching and healing. He came to be the Saviour of the world and it was too massive a task to be accomplished by an inoffensive ministry of teaching and healing in Galilee where he had spent the bulk of his time once he had begun his ministry. So he turned to head into the eye of the storm. There was a massive price to pay for the sin of mankind, and he knew it. And he was prepared to pay that price. Today Christians can visit the Garden Tomb and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, both claiming to be the historical site of the crucifixion and resurrection.

Accept that Christ turned to face all that was coming in Jerusalem. For you.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, thank you for all that you did for my salvation.

Friday 21st September

MORE THAN A LITTLE LOCAL DISPUTE

“The chief priests and teachers of the law will condemn him to death and then hand him over

to the Gentiles, who will kill him”. Mk 10:33, 34 GNB

In the February of this year a gang attacked the police station in a relatively obscure village in South Africa’s Eastern Cape,

Engcobo. They killed several policemen but were later arrested. It raised the whole issue of police security and it had emanated from a church building. The question of the control of religious bodies and groups on a national basis came up for discussion. A local event had become a national matter.

When Jesus took his disciples to Jerusalem for the Passover feast it was an ordinary “domestic” Jewish feast. But when the religious leaders handed him over to the Roman authorities and they killed him, the Roman Empire became involved. It was a forerunner to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit some time later, when the disciples were driven out beyond the confines of the Jewish faith, and Christianity suddenly became an international faith. Some three hundred years later the Emperor Constantine declared himself to be a Christian believer and the Christian faith to be an official faith in the Empire.

The same process is true when it is reversed. This world faith (Christianity has more adherents than any other faith in today’s world) has to be localised for it to be effective. Every grouping of Christians must practise their Christian faith, challenging injustice, corruption, unfair and racist practices for Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, to be really and truly alive today. And when one person becomes a Christian believer in a local village or town anywhere in the world, it is an event of global significance.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, grant that people everywhere will know and serve Jesus.

Saturday 22nd

September

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

“Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee (asked Jesus) ‘When you sit on your throne in your glorious Kingdom, we want you to let us sit with you, one at your right and one at

your left’”. Mk 10:35, 37 GNB

W e all dream of some future bliss. It helps us to ignore the dreary humdrum existence most of us experience as our

normal way of life. Sometimes the dreams come true. Often they don’t. The disciples of Jesus, listening to him teach about the coming Kingdom of God, imagined it as a glorious paradise. They imagined it would be an experience of grandeur, glory and power. In real life they were humble fishermen. Maybe they were transferring onto Christ some ancient fairy story, and they saw in the future Jesus talked about, a chance to “cash in”. Their naïve opportunism got the better of them, completely confusing the promise that Jesus had given them, that his future meant taking up a cross and dying.

Very often non-believers sneer at the Christian faith. They say, “It’s nothing more than pie in the sky when you die”. It is true that the Christian faith looks to the future. It has a sense of time that few other ways of thinking hold. It claims that the future is in God’s hands and that we walk into a future with him that is something more meaningful than the emptiness of death, which is the alternative. Whatever picture language may be used, the strong, positive hope that Christianity holds out is - “We will be with Christ in the future and we trust ourselves to him both now and in that rich, eternal life of love, peace and glory hereafter.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to look to the future with hope and faith.

Sunday 23rd

September

INVITATION TO SUFFERING

“Jesus said to them, ‘You don’t know what you are asking for. Can you drink the cup of suffering that I must drink?”

Mk 10:38 GNB

M any people misunderstand what Christian discipleship is really all about. Many church congregations are little more than

a glorified social club - with worship on a Sunday thrown in. Sometimes evangelists punt the Christian way of life as “Peace, power and poise”. And sometimes Christianity is presented as “God’s Way to Success”.

Jesus cut right to the core of the shallow request of James and John. They had not understood what following Jesus was all about. Jesus knew. The cup he was about to drink was not the cup of celebration and success. He was not heading to a future bright with the prospect of power and success as they supposed. The forces of evil were ranged against him, as they were ranged against God. The religious people, who might have been expected to know God’s ways didn’t. They saw Jesus as a danger, a rival and a heretic. He was promoting God, not the national God they supposed God to be. He was ready to give his life for the salvation of all humanity, not just the Jewish nation. It didn’t come by glory, power and triumph. There was pain, suffering, self-sacrifice, love, hope and prayer. Jesus already knew that the cup of wine he was to drink with them would symbolise his shed blood, that his life of giving life through teaching, healing and friendship was just about over. The cup that lay ahead was a bitter one, not a sweet one. He knew he was not here to spread the secret of health and happiness.

People still miss the point. Be sure you grasp it.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to drink your cup with you.

Monday 24th September

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST

“Can you be baptized in the way I must be baptized?” Mk 10:38 GNB

T he Jewish faith practised baptism long before Christianity came along, and so it was a well-established custom before John the

Baptist started his ministry of preaching and baptizing in the River Jordan. It had the obvious symbolism of cleansing and so was often used when Gentiles converted to Judaism. Getting baptized washed the contamination of the old faith away. But it could mean more. It could symbolise for the new convert, the act of dying to the old way of life, and rising out of the water to the new faith, even to the new God. John the Baptist was seeking to put new meaning into the familiar ritual. And he pointed people to the inner change that the baptism indicated.

Jesus filled the whole idea with a new and powerful meaning. “Baptism is a violent image connected with sorrow and grief. It has about it the sense of being forcibly plunged beneath the waters, cast into the depths… The disciples may have associated ‘the cup’ with celebration and the baptism with the current idea among many of their fellow Jews that baptism was a ‘token of God’s renewal of his people as a prelude to the coming of the Kingdom’. The last thing that the disciples would have supposed was that the Jewish and Roman authorities would have been meting out the cup for God” (D. English, The Message of Mark, p181). James and John assure Jesus that they can be baptized with his kind of baptism. Later, many of the twelve did suffer martyrdom in the arenas and at the stake for Christ.

Before you swear your allegiance to Christ, be sure you know what is involved.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, make me willing to suffer with and for you.

Tuesday 25th September

LOOKING AHEAD

“Jesus said to them, ‘You will indeed drink the cup I must drink and be baptized in the way I must be baptized’”.

Mk 10:39 GNB

I t is easy to get mixed up about what the Christian way of life is. A group of happy young people singing their hearts out at a youth

camp could easily convey the impression that Christianity is an exercise in self-induced euphoria. And the other-worldly emphasis frequently employed in many prayers could suggest the exercise is all an attempt to escape the harsh realities of life in the rough, tough evil world.

Whilst Jesus grappled with the rapidly-approaching threat of his own death and tried to disabuse the disciples of their hopelessly inadequate idea of the Kingdom of God, he nevertheless had to lead them on to some realistic expectation of the drama that lay ahead. He had to wean them from the denialism in which they were indulging. He knew some of them would face formal legal trials. Others would be treated with violence. And some would face death for their loyalty to him.

Many of them would be treated as sport for the entertainment of the masses. They were going to need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to face opposition, angry mobs, imprisonment and death.

Only in some hostile countries today will Christian believers have to face violence and death. But many have to withstand ridicule, fierce opposition, derision, mockery, and scorn as the norm in their places of work, and even from family members. If you do, take some comfort from these words of Jesus and prepare yourself mentally and spiritually for what lies ahead. If you have to suffer, count yourself honoured to be chosen and entrusted by Christ himself with such a responsibility.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to cope with whatever opposition comes my way.

Wednesday 26th September

AUTHORITY AND SERVICE

“Jesus …said, ‘You know that those who are considered rulers of the heathen have power over them, and the

leaders have complete authority. This, however, is not the way it is among you. If one of you wants to be great,

he must be the servant of the rest’”. Mk 10:42, 43 GNB

E verybody - well, nearly everybody - wants to be the boss. Some struggle, argue and fight to get to the top. And some

don’t take long before they start lording it over the rest when they get there.

The ladder-climbing games of James and John got to the ears of the other ten disciples. They were not charmed. It led to arguments among them as to which of them was the greatest. And that got to the ears of Jesus who saw in it the cue to give some teaching about serving and authority. In effect Jesus said, “Forget about power struggles among yourselves. Stop bickering and trying to outdo each other. Rather be selfless in serving each other. Concentrate on giving to and helping each other. Invest in your fellow disciples and make serving God your top priority” .

Many today who engage in serving out of obedience to God, end up in positions of control, leadership or authority. And some make getting into “top positions” their goal, the warning of Jesus to James and John notwithstanding. If you are tempted to control, watch yourself. Make absolutely sure that you are serving others and God as your topmost priority. If you do get elected or invited to take some position of authority keep asking yourself whether you are serving, supporting and helping, or just enjoying the limelight and the prominence that the position gives you. And keep asking.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to be ambitious only in serving.

Thursday 27th September

BE FIRST IN SERVING

“If one of you wants to be first, he must be the slave of all”. Mk 10:44 GNB

M any people are motivated by the desire for prestige. But “True greatness as Jesus understood it, was not to be found in

a position of prestige and personal glory; it was to be found in service. Service was a hallmark of Anthony Ashley Cooper, who was to become the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. Although a member of Parliament, he rejected political ambition by espousing movements for reform that were often unpopular. He was particularly concerned about children, and when boys and girls from four years of age were being sent down coal mines to work, reform was urgently needed. It was his bill that brought it about. Another measure secured factory reform, and yet another the end of the practice of the climbing chimney boys. He became the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, with a town house in London’s Grosvenor Square, the family seat at Wimborne St Giles and broad estates in the Dorset countryside - yet it is not for any of this that he is remembered.

Consider these words of John Baillie; ‘If only we were ready to forget our own engrossing affairs, our own swelling ambitions… and asked ourselves instead how we can be of most use to the neediest, weakest, poorest, most suffering of our fellow-creatures, then we should be manifesting something worth calling greatness’” (Soldier’s Armoury, 1977, p51, 52).

Jesus is the greatest person who ever lived. But he was consid-ered great because “he went about doing good”. So did Mother Theresa. So did Dr Albert Schweitzer - people of the twentieth century. The needs are still great. And they call for people who will be great in serving others.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, prompt me to serve whoever needs me the most.

Friday 28th September

WHAT JESUS CAME FOR

“Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve”.

Mk 10:45 NIV

O ne of the drives that motivates many people is the desire for power. People love to control others and some measure their

“success” by the size of the staff under their management. Richard Foster wrote a book with a lot of insight into human nature and entitled it, “Money, Sex and Power”. These were the three areas of human life, he said, where people were vulnerable and yet where they had to work out their discipleship to Jesus Christ with great care. And Abraham Lincoln said, “Anyone can cope with adversity, but if you really want to put a person to the test, give him a little power”.

Clearly the disciples of Jesus struggled with this side of their faith. Probably they assumed since Jesus was possessed with such power to heal and teach that they too would be given power to do all manner of things. They yearned for places of prominence and superiority where people would serve them with awe. It wasn’t like that. And Jesus, as a final “No” to their drive for power and prominence said that even he himself had not come to be served by other people, but to serve them selflessly and sacrificially. In teaching he served people, enlightening them about God. In healing them he served them, giving them the health God willed for them. In feeding them in the miracle of the loaves and fishes he highlighted for them God’s bountiful provision. In loving them in every way he gave himself without stint.

He still calls his followers today to serve, not to get but to give, not to seek power but to help, support and uphold others.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, show me how to serve others and inspire me to do it.

Saturday 29th September

JESUS AS A RANSOM

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”.

Mk 10:45 NIV

W hen Jesus said that he gave his life as a ransom for many he was using a term that was in common use on a daily basis.

We are all familiar with certain financial words and phrases - deposit, down payment, interest rate, investment, return, call account and so forth. In the language and usage of Christ’s day, the word “ransom” was frequently used and was understood by all and sundry.

Jesus was trying to get his disciples to grasp the meaning of his impending death and resurrection. “If the twelve did not see the point of such a process Jesus is now trying to help them to do so. The ‘ransom’ was a familiar image in Jewish, Roman and Greek cultures. It was the price paid to liberate a slave, a prisoner of war, or a condemned person. The paying of the price cleaned the slate. To set a person free like this was known as ‘redemption’. Jesus Christ’s action in setting us free is described as ‘redeeming’ us in several places in the New Testament. The figure of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 (‘He was wounded for our transgressions’) hovers in the background of every discussion of what this means. The point of the image is to make clear that Jesus Christ, Son of God, and Son of Man was himself the price paid to set us free. At the source of all Christian service in the world is the crucified and risen Lord who died to liberate us into such service” (D. English, The Message of Mark, p182).

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, be my model in sacrificial service.

Sunday 30th September

JESUS, HAVE MERCY

“When (blind Bartimaeus) heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’”

Mk 10:47 NIV

A year or so ago a news item on the London TV channel “Sky News” featured an interview with an Oxford professor. He

explained that, under his oversight, a team of medical researchers was making progress in discovering a treatment to give sight to people who had been born blind. They were not quite there yet, but they had made significant progress. To be born blind is an awful handicap, despite the wonderful courage and skill that have been developed by some sufferers.

Blind Bartimaeus is set in contrast to the disciples. They can see - but they can’t see who Jesus is! He knows who Jesus is - but hecan’t see. Like several other desperate people Mark tells about,Bartimaeus knows that Jesus has the answer to his problem, andhe shouts his way past the objections of the crowd in order tomaximize his one opportunity to get to Jesus. Dubious as hisdescription of Jesus was (did Jesus want to be linked to Israel’sgreat military deliverer?) Jesus hears him and fixes his attention onthis desperate man whose every energy focuses on Jesus andgetting to him. In all the confusion of the moment he puts hisdemand to Jesus, “Have mercy on me”. He will not allow the crowdto deprive him of his one slender chance to be made a completeand whole person.

Make sure you too get to Jesus! Ignore the impediments created by intellectual arguments, the problems posed by organised religion, and the doubts swirling around in society. Get to Jesus - even if you have to barge your way there!

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to see Jesus.

IS HALF A LOAF BETTER THAN NO BREAD?

Sue Acton

I love to walk along the river-edge - the Great Kei River - which

flows windingly below the cliffs and krantzes at the bottom of our

lands. I love its deep, quiet, seemingly still places as well as its

rushy-rapids and cascades and little waterfalls. I have found peace

as I’ve wandered among the trees along the green lawn-like banks,

and I have been fascinated by the crags and crevices of the rocky

cliffs which look as though they’ve been daubed with paints

of russet-brown, grey and white. Trees and ferns, aloes and

succulents grow out of nookies and crannies in the rocks, like

some great hanging-garden of God, and the krantzes echo as

hadedas and wild ducks, with their raucous calls, fly by.

Sometimes the child in me would call out too - to hear the echo

calling back! “Helloo there” “oo there”.

“What’s your name?” “ur name”. Always, only half the question

or message would come back! Half the message. So often our

Christian lives give only half the message! We so easily TALK of

love and reconciliation and other Christian virtues without the

actions to match the words - and because the “message” is

incomplete, it is lost on those who hear, whose hearts may be

saying, “Don’t just tell me, SHOW me”. We so often say, but don’t

do. Conversely some folk say, “Oh I don’t say much, but I try to let

my life be a witness”. A witness to whom? Good deeds without

testimony to Jesus is only half the message - the most vital part is

missing!

Churches sometimes fail too, by presenting only half the

Gospel. Teaching may take one as far as the Cross for salvation,

but often not on to the empowering of the Holy Spirit for the living

of the Christian life in all its fullness. Some preachers share only

the promises and blessings of God, without also telling of

the costliness of salvation by Jesus, and the costliness of real

commitment to him - forgiveness at cost - price instead of

commitment at all cost!

Some styles thump out “judgement and brimstone” without the

balance-half of love and forgiveness. Yet another half-message is

that Christianity is all praise and worship and happy meetings; but

while it is all of those things, there is also the need to be outward

looking, to be God’s eyes and hands and speech in the world

around us; to reach out , meet needs, challenge wrongs in society,

help the less fortunate - care for the “widows and orphans” of life.

Jesus, the rock of our salvation, NEVER gave only

half-the-message of God’s love. Neither his words nor his actions

were ever half-hearted. He went all the way - all the way to

Calvary; and if we are part of the rock that he is, we must see to

it that our lives don’t tell only half the truth. Someone said that

“a half-truth is worse than a lie because it makes of the truth, a lie”,

and John Stott spoke of the need for Christians to be not “either/

or”, but “both/and” people! Jesus is the BREAD OF LIFE” ... let us

not only offer “half-a-loaf”, when the world is sick with spiritual

starvation, and the Whole Loaf may be theirs.

Monday 1st October

CALL HIM!

“Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him’”. Mk 10:49 GNB

P eople sometimes wonder to themselves what you have to do to get to know God. They assume that “You need to do the

spiritual things, say your prayers, go to church, read your Bible, and ‘be good’”. They assume it’s something you have to do.

However, the picture the Bible paints of God is somewhat different. From the Garden of Eden on God keeps “popping in” so to speak. He appears from nowhere, stops people in their tracks, demands their attention, gives them instructions, appoints them to various duties and generally “takes charge”. He takes the initiative all the way through. The people have to respond to his commands and answer his call. In the New Testament Jesus did the same. The disciples at Capernaum didn’t go running to the carpenter’s shop and drag Jesus to where they might want him. He invaded their territory - the fishing boat by the lake, and he called them to “Follow me”. Here Bartimaeus waited by the road at Jericho - till Jesus came. And Jesus gave his command, “Call him”. It was a moment Bartimaeus had been waiting for. And the noisy, interfering crowd had to make way for Bartimaeus to respond to Jesus. And Jesus took charge. “Call him” he said. And all voices were silent, all eyes were on the man who himself couldn’t see.

If you have never come face to face with Jesus, know that he says the same thing to you, “Call him”. He calls you, whether you have heard him before or never. He calls you however unworthy you think you are to be in his company, however unready you may deem yourself to become a disciple. Don’t miss his call. It is the opportunity of a life time.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, call to me as you did to Blind Bartimaeus.

Tuesday 2nd

October

THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY

“They called to the blind man, ‘Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you’. Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped

to his feet and came to Jesus”. Mk 10:49, 50 NIV

Years ago there used to be a radio programme in the United Kingdom called “Opportunity Knocks”. It was a talent show and

winners went on to all manner of other entertainment. It began with a little ditty in which they sang, “Opportunity knocks, opportunity knocks. Opportunity never knocks twice”. That idea is only partially true. It depends on the kind of opportunity. And it knocks frequently for some people, but never at all for others.

It was unlikely to knock twice for the blind man of Jericho. Jesus and his wonder-working power were once-in-a-lifetime phenomena for this man who latched on to this shred of hope provided by Jesus. Most of Mark’s stories of Jesus are full of drama and action. At the invitation of Jesus the man who spent his life languishing by the roadside sprung into action and was there, face-to-face with Jesus. It was the greatest moment of his life.

When you come face to face with Jesus it is the greatest encounter of your life too. He reaches out to you as he reached out to this desperate man. Seize the moment when it comes. You may find that there are all kinds of things to which you have been blind but now you will be able to see. God and the truth and reality of Jesus Christ will be one. So will other people. The world around you will appear differently when Jesus opens your inner eyes. Suffering will appear differently too when you see it in the light of Christ’s suffering.

Take your opportunity whilst you have it.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, open my eyes in new and wonderful ways.

Wednesday 3rd

October

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

““What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked him”. Mk 10:51 GNB

M ost of us, when first we come to meet Jesus Christ, are very confused. We have been brought up in a certain family where

a variety of experiences have shaped us - family placement, educational background, social customs, religious ideas, and economic situation. This means that we usually think we want one thing, but really need another. We have been encouraged to be successful, but have struggled with school. We have been poor economically, but have had a sound religious background, and so forth. The people in Israel wanted a political saviour - deliverer. Bartimaeus didn’t have to wonder what was his most pressing need. It was all too obvious and his blindness had shaped his whole existence, his economic position, his faith, and his sense of hopelessness or desperation.

It is useful for Christian disciples to think carefully what their most important need is. Some would say that it would be “a closer walk with God”. Others would long for better financial security. Some would long for healing from long-standing resentments and bitterness. Ridding the memory of a painful family break-up would be another person’s deepest need. Other people would find that they needed more skills in their work situation, or a more congenial working environment. Some would wonder where they were getting to in life. Some would feel that their deepest need was a more spiritual atmosphere in their church congregation. Many people would find that they had more than one deep need. And some people would find that they themselves needed to do more for their own spiritual growth and development. Whatever your need, cast yourself on Jesus like blind Bartimaeus and pray that he will meet it.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to sort out my priorities.

Thursday 4th October

WANT TO SEE

“’Teacher’ the blind man answered, ‘I want to see again’”. Mk 10:51 GNB

I t is interesting that the incident of Jesus giving sight to blind Bartimaeus comes after the recording of so many sayings in

which Jesus had been trying to get his disciples to see what his purpose and mission was. But they too were blind and slow to catch on about the way of the cross and the values of the Kingdom.

“The whole incident can be followed through as a picture of Christian discipleship, and no doubt many Christians saw this message within Bartimaeus’ transformation. The story reminds us that when Christ opens our eyes the whole of life is transformed. Even those who have physical sight begin to see the world in a different way. Indeed, we might say that what we see shows whether or not we are true followers of Christ.

Anthony Bloom describes this truth in Meditations on a Theme. ‘We can see with the eyes of indifference as the passers-by saw Bartimaeus. We can see with the eyes of greed as the glutton in Dickens who, seeing cattle grazing in the fields, could only think ‘live beef!’. We can see with the eyes of hatred when we become horribly clear-sighted but with the perspicacity of the devil … and lastly we may see with the eyes of love, with a pure heart that can see God and his image in people’. It is as the fox says in Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince: ‘We can see truly only with the heart, what is vital is invisible to the eyes’” (The Soldier’s Armoury, 1977, p57).

All Christian disciples will want Christ to open their eyes more and more with growing insight and understanding with their growth in grace.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord help me to grow in grace and in insight.

Friday 5th October

FAITH IS THE KEY

“‘Go’, Jesus told him, ‘your faith has made you well’. At once he was able to see and followed Jesus on the road”.

Mk 10:52 GNB

W hat a difference faith makes when it is focused on Jesus and commits itself to him. The disciples struggled with what

Jesus asked of them - true discipleship, based on him and on obedience to him. Bartimaeus had heard what Jesus was about and his desire was strong and deep. When he heard Jesus was coming, he decided, “This is it” and neither the noise of the crowd nor the rebukes of the people who found him a nuisance were going to stop him. He flung himself on Christ’s mercy and love - and was healed.

“People approach God in many different ways, but the essential element every time is that attitude of trusting commitment which is faith. Faith is seen in these words written in the sixteenth century by Teresa of Avila: ‘Well now’, I said to myself, ‘if the Lord is so powerful, as I see he is, and if the devils are his slaves (and of that there can be no doubt) what harm can they do to me, who am a servant of this Lord and King? So I took a cross in my hand and it really seemed that God was giving me courage; in a short time I found I was another person and I should not have been afraid to wrestle with devils’.

However you approach Jesus today, approach him in great faith! In faith press through the crowd. In faith press on in spite of personal difficulties. In faith press on until in some way or other you touch him. Thus you will know him, and prove his power” (The Soldier’s Armoury, 1977, p37).

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, make me strong and persistent in faith.

Saturday 6th October

FOLLOWING JESUS

“‘Go’, said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you’. Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road”.

Mk 10:52 NIV

T he man Bartimaeus did not earn his cure. But his massive faith put him in the place where the healing grace and power of

Jesus could do its saving work. Faith is the inner hand on the knob that opens the door of the believer’s heart and mind through which God in Jesus Christ comes in with grace and saving power. Bartimaeus, so to speak, barged his way to the front of the queue for Christ’s mercy and refused to take “No” for an answer. Abandoning niceties, ignoring fancy descriptions, sidestepping pretty prayers and eschewing word games, Bartimaeus flung himself at Christ’s feet, called on his mercy, drew on his love, depended totally on his grace and with empty hands, which he was well-versed in extending on the street corner for gifts, said “Please, please, please”. Jesus knew faith when he saw it. No one could con him, deceive or hoodwink him. And Jesus turned the taps of mercy on full flow. And the blind beggar became a whole man in Christ, able now to work and support himself and to walk as tall as anyone else in Jericho.

And he followed Jesus. In response to the mercy and saving power of Christ, he overflowed with gratitude. With exuberance he joined the crowd and the disciples making their way to Jerusalem.

Be grateful for God’s mercy in Christ to you. Revel in his mercy, rejoice in his grace. Never turn back. Find some way to express that gratitude. Let your faith grow. Let it infect others and let it strengthen their faith. And go with Jesus to Calvary and the Garden of resurrection.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, let my faith magnify in your company and in your love.

Sunday 7th October

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES

“As they approached Jerusalem, near the towns of Bethphage and Bethany, they came to the Mount of Olives”.

Mk 11:1 GNB

A man who agreed to join a tour to Israel (at his wife’s pleading!) said afterwards, “I was never a Christian believer before,

although I went to Church on Good Friday and Christmas Day. But then, when I saw it all where it actually happened, everything came alive. I walked where Jesus walked. In Gethsemane I tried to pray where Jesus prayed. On Galilee I sailed where Jesus sailed. It all became real. I realized for the first time that the Christian faith was anchored in planet earth. Now I am a convinced believer”. Some religions are based on myths. Some arise from an idea. Christianity is based on a story, and lots of small stories within that bigger story, and that big story actually happened - in Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Capernaum, Jericho, Bethany, Calvary and Gethsemane. You can still walk down the road from the Mount of Olives to Gethsemane along which Jesus rode into Jerusalem! You can stand on the Mount of Olives and look down on the city, identifying the Dome of the Rock on which the original temple was built .

Jesus came to this planet. Coming to somewhere means he made everywhere his home - not only Jerusalem, but Johannesburg, not only Capernaum but Cape Town, not only Bethlehem but Brisbane, not only Nazareth but New York. It wasn’t a fairy story. It was a real story taking place in real places, for real people, and giving them real salvation, and real life. It gave them certainty of God, hope for the future, a meaningful faith, a place in which to live their lives and tell their stories. And it is eternally true.

Prayer thought Lord, thank you for treading this earth and changing everything.

Monday 8th October

THE MASTER NEEDS IT

“Jesus sent two of his disciples on ahead with these instructions: ‘Go to the village there ahead of you.

As soon as you get there, you will find a colt tied up that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. And if someone asks you why you are doing that, tell

him that the master needs it and will send it back at once’”. Mk 11:1, 2, 3 GNB

There are many situations of which it could be said, “The Master needs it”. He needed the donkey - and used it. Early in the

nineteenth century a young man called Thomas Squance was diagnosed with diseased lungs, but he volunteered to go to Ceylon as a missionary with the Methodist Church’s pioneering mission. On the voyage the head of the party and leader of the Methodist Missionary Society, Dr Thomas Coke, died. Squance was asked to take over leadership and led the missionary enterprise in Northern Ceylon and Southern India for more than twenty years. The Master needed him.

Could it be said of you that the Master needs you - to assume some leadership position in your local congregation? To witness to Jesus in your place of work? To begin some previously unattempted enterprise for Christ? To support some humble ministry function that is floundering for lack of people? To undertake some youth guidance or pastoral care of the elderly?

Many small beginnings have led to bigger and more significant works because someone overheard the message “The Master has need of it”. It may be that he is expressing this need to you this very day - or that he is suggesting that you pass on the message of the Master’s need through you to someone else?

PRAYER THOUGHT Master, if you need me, please find me ready and willing.

Tuesday 9th October

JESUS IN CHARGE

“Jesus sent two of his disciples on ahead with these instructions”.

Mk 11:1, 2 GNB

J esus had planned the event we refer to as “The Triumphal Entry”. He had deliberately “set his face to go to Jerusalem” and

now he was there. From start to finish Jesus was in control of the situation. He knew that the prophet Zechariah had said, “Shout for joy, you people of Jerusalem! Look your king is coming to you! He comes triumphant and victorious, but humble and riding on a donkey - on a colt, the foal of a donkey”. Now he saw the gathering of masses of people for the Passover festival as an opportunity to act out that prophecy.

The man who rode the donkey was someone different, someone special. He was someone most people had heard about - and he was signalling that he came representing some sovereign power other than the Roman Emperor or the local Jewish authorities - who were the “religious leaders” who opposed and criticised him. Christ’s message was that there is another power at work in the world besides the “big shots”.

God may not always be visible. But he does not ride on a horse in majesty and military might. He comes in gentleness, humility and yet in royal dignity. He may not call the shots with mighty armies, but he is quietly asserting himself and his unusual form of sovereignty. Here in Jerusalem he was working his purpose of salvation through the power of suffering love. Behind and within the drama of the cross he will effect the redemption of all humanity and claim the love and loyalty of millions. He is not the victim. He is treading the pathway to Calvary and resurrection. This sovereignty will endure beyond the rule of the Caesars and Pontius Pilate.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me always to perceive your hidden rule.

Wednesday 10th October

JESUS IS KING

“Praise God! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! God bless the coming Kingdom of King

David, our father! Praise God”. Mk 11:9, 10 GNB

When Jesus came in Israel the Romans were in control. In those days empires came and went in steady succession.

The Israelites had only been free from foreign domination for a short period in the previous thousand years. At one point they had reluctantly decided to have a king - but he was understood as being under the sovereignty of God. Their faith in God led them to this belief. But always their God was over - not alongside - their king, when they had one. Even their greatest king, David, was still subordinate to God. And ultimately, the foreign Emperors were subject to Jehovah-God. The Passover was a great nationalistic feast, in which the Jews celebrated their escape from Egypt. By his triumphal entry Jesus was in all probability telling the crowd in Jerusalem that they needed to bow to the real king of Israel - Almighty God himself, and not to forget to whom they really belonged.

Christian believers always need to remind themselves that the secular rulers – kings, presidents and prime ministers - of the day are only subordinate to the Lord God Almighty and to give them only so much obeisance, never total allegiance. Christian believers will bear in mind that secular rulers - however capable - are all sinners. As such they are accountable to God and will, sometime, be called to account by God himself. Most of them are unaware of this dimension of their status. Indeed, some strut the earthly stage as if they are God almighty with fatal results to their citizens and society at large.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, bless and help all earthly rulers.

Thursday 11th October

JESUS THE JEW

“Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple”. Mk 11:11 NIV

In World War II the thirteenth century Gothic cathedral in the English city of Coventry was destroyed by bombs. After the war

steps were taken to build a new one and an architect by the name of Basil Spence was engaged to design the building and guide its erection. He wanted to put up a huge bronze sculpt of St Michael slaying the dragon from the Book of Revelation. He sought the help of the foremost sculptor in Britain, Sir Jacob Epstein. Epstein was delighted - he had never been asked to do such a sculpt before. Nervously, Spence asked him the cost, having previously asked around about a likely price. Epstein did his sums. He quoted an amount that was only half of what Spence had been fearing. When Spence presented this aspect of the building to the Cathedral committee there was a long, awkward silence. Then someone said exactly what Spence guessed would come. “But Epstein’s a Jew”. “Yes”, said Spence, “and so was Jesus Christ”. The committee agreed unanimously to Spence’s proposal and the magnificent sculpt is there to this day .

We often overlook the fact that Jesus was an orthodox Jew who observed the traditions of his culture. After his triumphal entry into Jerusalem he went to the temple, the sacred sanctuary of Judaism. It enshrined precious hopes and beliefs of a whole people. And three times a year faithful Jews came from all over the Mediterranean world to celebrate one of the three great festivals - Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Jesus did not come to smash the faith of people. He wanted to fulfil, enrich and renew all that Judaism stood for - the love of God, his sovereignty and his salvation.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to cherish the traditions of the Christian faith.

Friday 12th October

THE ANGRY JESUS

“Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there.

He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those selling doves”.

Mk 11:15 NIV

A s children we grow up understanding that Jesus was “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild”. The picture is of a weak, loving, friend

of the lost and the lonely. Many of us retain that image through into adulthood and find it difficult to balance it with the stronger, more robust picture of Jesus which this incident in the temple paints.

Despite all that it symbolised in the Jewish faith, the temple was host to a racket. The sacrificial system required worshippers to come and offer lambs, sheep or doves in atonement for their sins. But they had to be perfect. Only the priests could certify them as perfect. And they only certified as perfect animals that had been bought there. And, yes there was a mark-up of significant percentages! Jesus was appalled. So he seethed with rage and drove out those who changed money – and they always added a cut. The sacrificial system was meant to enable people to get right with God – not to enrich the priesthood.

We might well cast around and decide where there are injustices in our day and in our society that Jesus would find obnoxious. We might ask ourselves whether he would keep quiet about them - or would he determine to wipe them out? Such things pertain not only in society at large. Some practices in many churches would not “pass muster” with Jesus either. Sadly, there are practitioners of the Christian religion who secretly see the church as providing them with an opportunity to feather their nests unscrupulously. They need to be disciplined in the name of Christ.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, purge your church of all evil practices.

Saturday 13th October

A HOUSE OF PRAYER

“As he taught them, he said, ‘Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?”

Mk 11:17 NIV

C hurch buildings evoke a variety of emotions in different people. A senior minister once said, “When you go into a church it

should make you feel, ‘I want to pray’”. In most communities when a church is built the local people will have worked hard to raise funds to build it, and will feel, “At last! And it’s actually ours”, whatever it looks like. Nevertheless, there is something different. A service of opening will be held, and an act of dedication will be performed. That act of dedication will hand the place over to God. When that act is complete in one sense it will no longer be “Ours”. It will belong to God. The people “give” it to him. It will be a place of worship. Teaching of the Bible will take place. Funerals will be held. So will baptisms, Holy Communion, weddings, the training of the young in Sunday School, church business meetings, - and maybe fund-raising efforts such as fetes. But above all people will pray there. Some will go there privately to pray for family matters, disputes, or in times of sickness, bereavement or trouble. There may even be services of prayer in times of national crisis.

You can, of course, pray anywhere. But few people do. Make a habit of praying when you first enter a church for a service of worship. Pray for the minister and organist, or your own family, for the congregation, and especially for any who will be going to worship burdened by worries. Pray for the world, that healing and justice, peace and hope may flourish.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, make our place of worship a house of prayer.

Sunday 14th October

OPEN TO ALL

“My Temple will be called a house of prayer for the people of all nations”.

Mk 11:17 GNB

T he Old Testament story of the history of God’s dealings with the Israelite begins with the account of God’s call to Abraham.

In it God promises to make the Israelites a great nation who will be a blessing to other nations. Along the way this promise was often taken to mean that God would give them special privilege, and that they would be superior to other nations. Gradually there built up a sense of “God for the Jews” and little attention was given to the Gentiles. Their experience in exile in Babylon, however, opened up a wider world. God was still God - even in a foreign country. And there began to dawn the sense that God would one day gather other people to Jerusalem where they would be able to worship him. When the second temple was built towards the end of the sixth century BC it was built in a segregated system. The inner sanctuary was called “the Holy of Holies” and only the High Priest could enter it. Then there was a court of the priests, a court of the women, then a much larger outer court of the Gentiles. It was in this court of the Gentiles that the buying and selling of the animals for sacrifice took place. And this was the part that was desecrated by the commerce to which Jesus took exception. It deprived the Gentile Jews of a sacred place for prayer.

When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost it directed the apostles to the wider world of the Gentiles for Christ. Christians must always jealously guard this universal embrace of Christ for people of all nations, genders and races.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, thank you for the world-wide love of Jesus.

Monday 15th October

A DEN OF ROBBERS?

“My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you have made it ‘a den of robbers’”.

Mk 11:17 NIV

I t is frightfully easy for religious bodies to get side-tracked from their original and primary purpose. A large central city church

decided to move to a new venue and erected a building several storeys high. The idea was to rent out some of the upper storeys and with the rents help to pay for the running of the church. Soon the senior minister was being badgered by one tenant after another to alter the terms of a lease, break down walls, cancel a lease, and so on. He said, “This new building has turned me into a glorified property manager”. The head office of another national church became so top-heavy with officials that it became difficult to see how it actually related to the congregations where the disciples of Jesus gathered. And bureaucracies of this size often develop internal career ladders of their own. Not all could be described as “Dens of Robbers” like the temple in Christ’s day. But the priests of the temple had lost all clear vision of what it ought to have been and what its real purpose was. That had been lost because “the business” had become all-dominant to the exclusion of its God-appointed calling. And some popular television “ministries” have become little more than money-making operations for the enrichment of the ministers concerned.

Christian disciples may be tempted to feel superior to the priests of Christ’s day and their temple racket. But serious thought needs to be given to much church life in the twenty-first century and searching questions need to be asked about the true purpose and witness of Christ’s church.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, bring your church back to its true purpose.

Tuesday 16th October

ENMITY

“The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching”.

Mk 11:18 NIV

The number and variety of grounds for “picking a fight” are plentiful. People envy one another. They hold different ideas,

believe different teachings, hold diverging opinions, and sometimes they are just plain jealous. And they bear grudges, stoking up resentments, and desire to get revenge. In some ways, Jesus was, in the teacher’s eyes at any rate, a “pretender to the throne”. They were the appointed teachers with official authority. But he had come along with a different approach. They taught what the official interpretation of the law said. He gave his own interpretation. He knew what God was like and said so. He gave his own line on the law. And the people flocked to hear him, making the official teachers jealous of his popularity amongst the people. And he made his teaching interesting and worth listening to by the stories he told. His parables were true to life - and the point he was making was always transparently clear. He gave them an idea of the Kingdom of God. And what he did bore out the message he brought.

So they started to plan. Not only was he popular. Because he was so different he was a threat to the tradition they taught. He threatened to turn things upside down. He had to be killed before he caused too much trouble. And before they lost too much business in the temple! He had healed people, taught them, befriended them, enlightened them - but they didn’t “get him”. And so they set the wheels in motion that led to Calvary.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, I pray for those who oppose Jesus today.

Wednesday 17th October

HAVE FAITH IN GOD

“Jesus answered, ‘Have faith in God’”. Mk 11:22 GNB

A Catholic priest noticed one Sunday morning that a university professor married to a regular worshipper in his church had

come to mass. As his wife had sometimes expressed concern about his professed atheism, the priest was surprised, but said nothing. This continued for quite some time and gradually the man thawed out. One day he even ventured some conversation with the priest. “Tell me” said the priest, “I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see you at mass these last few months. Has anything happened to cause you to change your mind?” The man replied, “Well, I decided it’s not a wise thing to argue with the examiner just before you write your finals”.

Having faith means different things in various contexts. Generally, it means believing that there is a God and that he works in various ways in a universe which he has created. Sometimes it can mean living a very God-conscious life of close personal communion with God. Then again it can mean accepting that God has a claim on your whole existence and committing everything you are and have to him. Sometimes having faith can imply that, although you are ill, you dare to defy the possibility that your ill-health may continue - or even deteriorate - and you insist that God will heal you, or that, having recovered, your recovery has been caused by God’s active intervention.

Many people believe that the growth of science has called into question all religious faith. The fact of the matter, in this modern world, is that six of the seven billion people on planet earth profess some kind of religious faith, despite the decline of organised religion in western society. Listen to Jesus - and have faith in God.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help my faith to increase.

Thursday 18th October

THE POWER OF BELIEVING PRAYER

“I tell you: When you pray and ask for something, believe that you have received it, and you will be

given whatever you ask for”. Mk 11:24 GNB

Many people have found their faith put to the test in prayer, taking these words of Jesus and praying urgently for

something important. A pioneer missionary in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, William Shaw, illustrates this. The religion of the Africans constituted a challenge to the missionaries, and William Shaw had a duel of wills with a famous rain-maker, Gqindiva, whose help had been sought by chief Pato in time of severe drought. Shaw insisted that rain came from God, not from the rain-maker. The rain-maker replied that Shaw was hindering him from making rain. A serious situation now arose. Some of Shaw’s people believed that his word was stronger than the rain-maker’s; others were obviously sceptical of the power of the missionary’s God. Faced with Elijah’s predicament, he had no alternative but to appeal to God to vindicate the true prophet and expose the false. So he set apart a whole day for fasting and prayer and at certain intervals called the people together to petition God for the mercy of rain. The incident is best concluded in Shaw’s own words: ‘God was pleased in his infinite mercy to answer for himself. Just as the people were beginning to assemble for the evening service (the last for the day), drops of rain began to fall slowly … and at the time of its close, the rain was falling in heavy showers’. The rain-maker was discredited and the people called the downpour of many days ‘God’s Rain’” (H. Davies, Great South African Christians, p37, 8).

Have the courage of William Shaw. And pray believing.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to prove the power of believing prayer.

Friday 19th October

BE READY TO FORGIVE

“And when you stand and pray, forgive anything you may have against anyone, so that your Father in heaven will

forgive the wrongs you have done”. Mk 11:25 GNB

O ne of our biggest problems concerns the grievances we nurse against people whom we regard as having done us some

wrong. Sometimes we nurse these grievances for years. Some people never shed them. They take them with them to the grave. But they poison our souls. They can warp our thinking, not only about the issue in question but in a wide general sense. The phrase “bitter and twisted” expresses perfectly what hurts that we nurture can do to our inner peace of mind and harmony with God. They make us “bitter and twisted”.

Jesus says that is no way in which to go to God in prayer. He says, “Sort yourself out with God in the inner depths of your soul before you approach God in prayer. Before you make petitions and requests cast the bitterness out of your heart. Go to the person concerned. Tell them that what they did or said hurt you and that you have resented them deeply, but that now God wants you to forgive them. Ask them if they are able to accept your forgiveness.

Relationships that have gone wrong are one of the most damaging and difficult causes of inner turmoil that we can have. They will distort our thinking, jigger up our emotions, and make us difficult to live with. They will make us irritable, bad-tempered and prejudiced, biased and miserable. Resentments are one of the major causes of depression. They make us less than mature, adult people. They bring out the worst in us and destroy our creativity. Healing comes through forgiveness.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to forgive those who have wronged me.

Saturday 20th October

PRAYER AND FORGIVENESS

“When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father

in heaven may forgive you your sins”.

Mk 11:25 NIV

P rayer is an important part of the life of a Christian believer. “Nothing will be achieved without prayer, as Mark signals

elsewhere in his gospel. Prayer is the highest sign of faith commitment, since the time is most completely wasted if there is nothing in it. The other side of the coin is that for this very reason it is crucial to true discipleship.

Yet although ‘prayer changes things’ it is not an exercise in magic. It, like everything else in the disciple’s experience, has its proper environment. The ‘culture’ for prayer is the forgiving spirit. Since God’s forgiveness of us is the essential ground over which we approach him in prayer, a lack of a forgiving spirit on our part destroys the atmosphere in which prayer is offered and answered. So the line through faith and prayer to forgiveness is clearly recog-nizable” (D. English, The Message of Mark, p190).

We stand, that is to say, we live, under the grace of God. Stumbling, fumbling, and bumbling along we go, often unaware where we hurt people, or oblivious to the trouble we cause. But once we have committed our lives to Jesus and accepted his forgiveness, then we are “covered” by his grace. That means that when we unconsciously do or say something untoward or that is sinful, God wipes it out of any record against us. Being human we do sin, despite our best efforts to steer clear of wrong. He still accepts us, forgives us within his grace - and commissions us to witness, to care and to love in his name.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to accept your grace, to care and to pray.

Sunday 21st October

THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY

“The chief priests, teachers of the law and the elders came to him. ‘By what authority are you doing these things?’ they

asked. ‘And who gave you authority to do this?’” Mk 11:27 NIV

It might occur to someone to ask the question, “What is there to stop any old Tom, Dick or Harry getting up, pretending to know

and teach the Bible and yet talk a load of utter poppycock?” Well, any old Tom, Dick or Harry might do just that - but in a church which is properly run and controlled, steps are taken to prevent exactly that sort of thing from happening. The ceremony of ordination in fact authorises a person who has been trained, educated, qualified and approved by the church’s regulated bodies to teach in the name of the church.

The three groups who came questioning the authority of Jesus were all members of the Sanhedrin, the governing body of the Jewish faith. They were “heavies”. For them, as for church bodies today, it was essential to ensure that the people were not led astray by “fly-by-night” teachers who had no authority at all. People can go off on their own, gather a few followers and teach utter nonsense. And, since Jesus was not teaching the law as they taught it, they saw him as a dangerous heretic. Of course it was the call and appointment by God that authorised Jesus to teach “and do these things”.

Since the people questioning him were missing the thing they should have been doing - giving the people abundant life and enabling them to have a closer walk with God - then the way was open for Jesus to give the people “the goods”. And his teaching has become the standard for all Christian bodies.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to discern true gospel teaching in my church.

Monday 22nd

October

WHERE IS OUR SOURCE OF AUTHORITY?

“By what authority are you doing these things?” Mk 11:28 NIV

T he question posed by the priests, teachers and elders to Jesus raises an important issue that is relevant amongst the disciples

of Jesus today. Various matters cause confusion and church bodies often contradict one another in giving guidance to their members.

For many believers you look no further than the Bible. For them the Bible is simple, clear, definite and authoritative. For other people the problem with this is that different people give different interpretations of the Bible and they are not always sure what a particular passage means because of this. Then some say, “Ordinary people can’t be expected to fathom out the nuances in different parts of the Bible and so we need to listen to the church fathers. They have studied long and deeply and they should be able to guide us in difficult and complicated matters. We will go by whatever the church says the Bible means”.

Then others are more sceptical about the church (since it is composed of sinful and fallible human beings). They say, “The only way to get to the bottom of any of these things is to ask the Holy Spirit for his guidance. After all, Jesus said the Spirit would guide us into all truth”.

Often controversies develop between advocates of these different sources of authority (Bible, church and Spirit). Then sometimes people find that their reason doesn’t allow them to agree with their church or the Bible and they can’t trust themselves to be guided honestly by the Holy Spirit. And the culture in which we live pulls us in this direction or that. Within the guidance of your church seek an understanding of what source of authority you should recognize.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to find your guidance in all things.

Tuesday 23rd

October

PAYING TAXES TO CAESAR

“Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Mk 12:14 NIV

I t was a tricky question. One very strong political group refused to pay to Caesar. Another political group supported the status quo.

Probably many bystanders were against paying to, and therefore supporting, the Roman authorities. Potentially Jesus’ answer could stir up arguments among the crowd. Since they were benefitting from the services and advantages the Roman occupation brought, they should contribute to the national exchequer? That is how we would see it. But it had implications.

Jesus asked them to bring a coin. “Whose portrait is this?” he asked. “Caesar’s” they replied. “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” Jesus answered.

Despite the fact that the state is always a strange mixture of good and evil, Christian disciples should honour their commitment to it. They receive security, education, street lighting and many other facilities and therefore have an obligation and a civic responsibility. They also have a responsibility to God. He gives everybody the nature in which their existence is rooted, as well as his redeeming love.

“Never did anyone lay down a more influential principle than this. It was a principle which conserved at one and the same time the civil and religious power. Lord Acton, the great historian, said of this saying of Jesus, ‘Those words … gave to the civil power, under the protection of conscience, a sacredness it had never enjoyed and bounds it had never acknowledged, and they were the repudiation of absolutism and the inauguration of freedom’. At one and the same time these words asserted the rights of the state and the liberty of conscience” (W. Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, p299).

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to be both a responsible citizen and a dedicated Christian disciple.

Wednesday 24th October

THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

“A teacher of the Law came to him with a question: ‘Which commandment is the most important of all?’”

Mk 12:28 GNB

T he whole of Jewish life and society was based on the Ten Commandments which were referred to as “the Law”. In fact, in

one sense “the Law” was more than the Ten Commandments. Over time the teachers of the Law had expanded and spelt out in tiny details what most of the laws meant in various situations. This body of teaching was studied by the “Teachers of the Law” and passed on. They became the experts in telling people what this or that law meant in different situations. It had become a massive body of teaching, a subject all of its own. The teacher who asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment was probably trying to trip Jesus up, expecting that Jesus, like most people, didn’t know more than a fraction of what this expanded law said.

Jesus did not come to give people commandments. They had too many already. But there was one supreme dominating law. The people could have dispensed with the labyrinth of regulations that had grown up. But they needed something simple, something all-embracing, something strong, positive and true.

We all find a few simple laws helpful. They guide us in the big and little situations of life. They need to be simple and they need to be easy to remember. They must not be watered down or oversimplified. We need something different from a philosophical formulation that requires a complicated academic explanation. It must be something a child can understand - and something that is related to life in the real world. And it must “fit”. Nevertheless, the life of discipleship is about something more than laws

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to know and live the great Commandment.

Thursday 25th October

THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

“Jesus replied, ‘The most important (commandment) is this: ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength’”.

Mk 12:29, 30 GNB

T he great Christian saint of the late fourth century, St Augustine, said, “Love God and do what you like”. Of course, if you do

love God intently, it will manifest itself in love for others. But love for God does come first.

Jesus had been brought up a strict Jew and he knew the commandments. He also knew that underlying them all was the principle of love. He knew that if you get the first principle right, then all the rest fall into place. Love for God was supreme. But if you make some other god or idol the object of your love and adoration nothing will come right. If you love money and make that your idol, loving it with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, then you have turned a false god into the object of your love. If you love sport - as many do - that too can take you over and become your idol. A hobby - even a good one - is another contestant for your love and idolization.

The Christian knows only one God - and that is the triune God, Jesus Christ the Son, God the Father and the Holy Spirit the comforter. Christian disciples search their hearts continuously, examining themselves to see if any false god is beginning to displace the living God in their affections. They need to be ruthless in their discipline about this, and constantly affirm their love for God - every day, in every way, never failing.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord God, help me to love you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.

Friday 26th October

THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE

“The most important (commandment) is, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second

is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’”. Mk 12:29, 30, 31 NIV

It has often been pointed out that the English word love has far too many meanings. It is used to describe brotherly affection and

the bond between husband and wife; for sexual aberrations and for the concern of God for humankind. Of the four Greek words which may be translated by the word love, the first Christian writers in the New Testament took one, agape, which meant little more than ‘respect’, gave it a deeper, richer meaning and used it to describe the love of God for men and women and of people for God. It thus became a special word, denoting a firm quality of the will; strong, deep, high and good; not natural to men but given by God. This quality is at the very core of Christian experience.

In the opinion of a recent writer, Norman Pittenger, sin is best defined as a ‘disorder in loving’ - a thought-provoking idea. He writes, ‘Sin consists in man’s failures … to become really what in possibility he is made for’ and continues, ‘nobody can earn his way out of this disorder. … It is of grace. I am accepted in the great words of Paul Tillich; and because I know that I am accepted I can accept both myself and others … I can begin by sheer gratitude to re-order my love; or better to let the divine Lover teach me how to love aright’ (The Soldier’s Armoury, 1971, p81)

The love Jesus calls us to exercise emanates from the love he shows to us.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to love others as you love me.

Saturday 27th October

TO LOVE LIKE JESUS LOVED

“Love your neighbour as yourself”. Mk 12:33 GNB

L ove in the Christian sense is more than sentimentality. It is not the same as “liking” - although it could include that. It is giving

yourself to another person in seeking that person’s higher good and spiritual maturity.

The German preacher-theologian, Helmut Thielicke, spells out what Christ’s kind of love can mean. He says, “One of my friends was a military chaplain with the beleaguered troops at Stalingrad in Russia in World War II. Since he had a large family, was frostbitten, and was also in great pain, he was among those who were to have been flown out of the doomed area along with the wounded. But he refused to be rescued because he wanted to remain with his comrades, with that congregation of the condemned. We heard nothing more of him, and we don’t know if he died in that battle of Stalingrad or somewhere in Siberia. But we do know one thing. Even if he could only whisper, and even if his weak words had lost all their rhetorical skill and flair, they nevertheless penetrated hearts as messengers of life and were able to comfort the despairing and gently accompany the dying on their last journey. Here was a man who was in earnest, a man whom one could believe. For he had let himself be closed in with the besieged troops in Stalingrad. In doing that, he had lived up to the word of his Lord: no man has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends” (H. Thielicke, I Believe, p100).

Christian love is also giving oneself in little things - the way Jesus did .

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to show the kind of love Jesus did.

Sunday 28th October

SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS AND LOVE

“Love the Lord your God (and) Love your neighbour as you love yourself”.

Mk 12:30, 31 GNB

F rom time to time various spiritual movements sweep through the Christian community. In the last quarter of the twentieth

century the charismatic renewal took place. This caused many believers to be filled with the Spirit and gifts such as speaking in tongues, healings, and being “slain in the Spirit” were witnessed.

Discussing this renewal Tom Smail questioned to what extent it had brought the kind of love Jesus called for - and himself manifested. He said, “What heals is not esoteric techniques, or even special supernatural endowments as such; what heals is Calvary love. The charismatic renewal strays furthest from its own best insights and becomes most nearly gnostic in its seemingly endless search for the effective technique, the method, the panacea that will release the power of God to deal with all the ills of his people. The sesame key to wholeness is not speaking in tongues, or the healing of the memories, thanking God for everything or asking him for anything; it is not having your demons cast out, still less being “slain” in the Spirit or reliving your traumatic birth experience, or any other of the fashions that have followed one another in quite fast succession over the past twenty-five years. All these can at best offer subsidiary assistance to some people in some situations, but the ultimate key to the wholeness that God purposes for his people and his world is far more central to the gospel than any of these: it is Calvary love” (T. Smail, The Love of Power or the Power of Love, p28).

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to stick to Christ’s example of love.

Monday 29th October

LOVE IS CRUCIAL

“The teacher of the Law said, ‘… to love God with all your heart …and to love your neighbour as yourself, is more

important than to offer animals and other sacrifices to God’”. Mk 12:33 GNB

It is possible to get deeply involved in the activities of a church and to miss the vitally important element of loving God. Some

people “fall in love with the church” - or with the minister! Many of the activities are interesting and even engrossing. Some people even develop secondary ambitions to become important within the structures, committees, and minor power-struggles within the body. Denominational bodies can claim big amounts of peoples’ time. And Jesus, or people, can get relegated to minor importance. It is easy to forget that it’s all about loving God and other people.

Offering animal sacrifices played a large part in the religion of the Israelites. An elaborate system of sacrifices grew up with regulations for all the different kinds of sacrifice. These regulations had to be observed to the last detail. The teachers of the Law and the priests had these sacrifices as their special preserve. The man who came to see what Jesus thought about the all-embracing law knew that under it all there was something deeply spiritual. There was more to it than “playing religious games”. Supreme in it all was the one really big thing - loving God and loving other people. The scribes and other teachers often engaged in debates with each other asking each other what they thought was the one big law en-compassing all the other rules and regulations.

Be careful you don’t lose sight of this great teaching. Study Christianity as much as you can. Serve in your church with dedication. But never lose sight of the greatest thing of all.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to keep in view your great commandment.

Tuesday 30th October

HOW FAR ARE YOU FROM THE KINGDOM?

“Jesus noticed how wise his answer was, and so he told him, ‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God’”.

Mk 12:34 GNB

M any people live close to the Kingdom. The teacher who posed the question to Jesus was one. He knew the Law and taught

it. But he had penetrated deeply into who God was and what faith was all about. He knew that it was more about the God of the Law than just the Law itself. Maybe he wanted to know God and walk with him? He was no hypocritical religious professional. He had come to see that a big commitment was needed. The observance of external duties wasn’t enough. And he had been trying “to go the whole hog”.

Some people are diligent in their attendance at religious functions - worship, Bible Study, fund-raising, and serving “those less fortunate”. They are often wonderful people. Many of them are “not far from the Kingdom”. Others are good people. They never wander from the pathway. They do an enormous amount of good and people think they are “the salt of the earth”. Most of these are “not far from the Kingdom”. Yet others know a lot about religion. They can quote verses from the Bible, they know most of the teachings and love to delve into the history of the church and follow the goings-on. They too, are “not far from the Kingdom”.

But they have never cast themselves on Christ in faith, repentance, and complete trust. They are trying to “do it all”, to win the approval of God, the admiration of their fellow church members, and to “get past the tape”. Are you one of these? If so, will you think carefully and prayerfully about taking the final step?

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, help me to step over into the Kingdom of God .

Wednesday 31st October

COME INTO THE KINGDOM

“You are not far from the Kingdom of God”. Mk 12:34 GNB

To some outward appearances it is difficult to tell the difference between those who are “in the Kingdom of God” and those who are “so near and yet so far”. If you are “not far” make the decision to “come right in”.

The major difference is that you need to make a decision. You must first recognize that you have been trying to do it all on your own. Stop. You cannot qualify, win points, or earn your place in the Kingdom. You need to say, “Lord I have tried hard all these years, but I have not succeeded. Now I give in. From now on I resign from this struggle and acknowledge that in your infinite grace you accept me, just as I am. My good deeds count for nothing. My many religious observances count for nothing. I can do nothing to impress other people, nor to win your approval. I cast myself on Jesus, like so many people in Palestine did when they needed healing. Cleanse me from the self-conscious pride in which I have congratulated myself all these years. Forgive me for thinking that I could win my way into your Kingdom, secure for myself a special place, and bask in my self-glory.

I hand over to you, Lord Jesus Christ, all that I am and all that I have. I am no longer my own, but thine. Make of me what you will. Use me however you will. I yield all things to your use and service. Be my Lord and master, my Saviour and my King. And let me live for you alone. Let me find my full happiness in you. Now and always.

PRAYER THOUGHT Lord, open the door and let me into your Kingdom.

LOOKING TO CHRIST

Stephen Poxon

I look to Christ this day

For strength in my weakness,

For healing in my sickness.

I look to Christ this day For hope in my despair,

For love in my hatred.

I look to Christ this day

For peace in my restlessness

For forgiveness in my sin .

I look to Christ this day

For fullness in my emptiness

For life in my death.

I look to Christ this day

And pray that Christ will look upon me.

(Reproduced from “Look to Christ”)

ONE SOLITARY LIFE

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a

peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village. He worked

in a carpenter’s shop until he was thirty, and then for three years

he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never

held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He

never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city.

He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he

was born. He never did any of the things that usually accompany

greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do

with this world except the naked power of his divine manhood.

While he was still a young man the tide of popular opinion

turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him.

He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery

of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he

was dying his executioners gambled for the only piece of property

he had on earth, and that was his coat.

When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed

grave through the pity of a friend.

Twenty wide centuries have come and gone and today he is the

centrepiece of the human race and the leader of the column of

progress.

I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that

ever marched and all the navies that were ever built, and all the

parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put

together have not affected the life of humankind upon this earth as

powerfully as that one solitary life.

(Author unknown. Contributed by Jean Totman).

YOUR SEPTEMBER BIBLE READINGS (As supplied by and with grateful acknowledgement to the I B R A)

WHO CARES? (cont.) A community of care. Saturday 1 1 Corinthians 8:1 – 13

HOSEA

Sunday 2 Hosea 1:1 – 9 Monday 3 Hosea 2:1 – 10 Tuesday 4 Hosea 2:14 – 23 Wednesday 5 Hosea 4:1 – 10 Thursday 6 Hosea 5:8 – 15 Friday 7 Hosea 6:1 – 6 Saturday 8 Hosea 7:1 – 10

Sunday 9 Hosea 8:7 – 14 Monday 10 Hosea 9:10 – 17 Tuesday 11 Hosea 10:1 – 15 Wednesday 12 Hosea 11:1 – 11 Thursday 13 Hosea 12:2 – 9 Friday 14 Hosea 13:1 – 16 Saturday 15 Hosea 14:1 – 9

BALANCING WORK AND LIFE Work and rest Sunday 16 Genesis 2:2 – 3, 15 Monday 17 Genesis 3:17 – 19 Tuesday 18 Exodus 5:1 – 18 Wednesday 19 Exodus 31:12 – 17 Thursday 20 Leviticus 25:8 – 12 Friday 21 Psalm 127:1 – 5 Saturday 22 Proverbs 6:6 – 11

Work Sunday 23 Proverbs 14:23 – 24 Monday 24 Ecclesiastes 3:9 – 14 Tuesday 25 Ecclesiastes 4:6 – 8 Wednesday 26 Ecclesiastes 9:7 – 10 Thursday 27 Matthew 25:14 – 29 Friday 28 Luke 12:22 – 34 Saturday 29 2 Thessalonians 3:6 – 13

Rest Sunday 30 Exodus 33:12 – 23

YOUR OCTOBER BIBLE READINGS (As supplied by and with grateful acknowledgement to the I B R A)

BALANCING WORK AND LIFE (Cont.) Rest (Cont.) Monday 1 Matthew 11:25 – 30 Tuesday 2 Matthew 14:13 – 21 Wednesday 3 Philippians 4:1 – 9 Thursday 4 1 Timothy 6:6 – 10 Friday 5 Hebrews 4:1 – 11 Saturday 6 1 John 2:15 – 17

READINGS IN PROVERBS

Sunday 7 Proverbs 1:1 – 7 Monday 8 Proverbs 1:8 – 19 Tuesday 9 Proverbs 1:20 – 33 Wednesday 10 Proverbs 2:1 – 15 Thursday 11 Proverbs 2:16 – 22 Friday 12 Proverbs 3:13 – 26 Saturday 13 Proverbs 4:1 – 13

Sunday 14 Proverbs 5:1–14 Monday 15 Proverbs 5:15 – 23 Tuesday 16 Proverbs 7:1 – 5 Wednesday 17 Proverbs 7:6 – 23 Thursday 18 Proverbs 8:1 – 12 Friday 19 Proverbs 9:1 – 6 Saturday 20 Proverbs 31:10 – 31

Sunday 21 Proverbs 11:28 Monday 22 Proverbs 15:1 Tuesday 23 Proverbs 17:1 Wednesday 24 Proverbs 21:13 Thursday 25 Proverbs 25:12 Friday 26 Proverbs 25:28 Saturday 27 Proverbs 26:14

READINGS IN MARK (3)

Sunday 28 Mark 13:1 – 8 Monday 29 Mark 13:14 – 27 Tuesday 30 Mark 13:32 – 37 Wednesday 31 Mark 14:1 – 9

CONTINUED FROM INSIDE FRONT COVER

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ABBREVIATIONS

KJV - King James Version (= Authorised Version)RSV - Revised Standard VersionGNB - Good News BibleNIV - New International VersionNEB - New English BibleCEV - Contemporary English VersionEHP - The Message (E.H. Peterson)WB - William Barclay

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