Over the past week these are the Thoughts that were shared with our church community at Montrose Baptist Church. Every week we have done this since March 23, and it has become an important part of our shared life. It will continue beyond the current crisis.
We have resumed services, with all health measures in place, and are adapting to the strangeness. But whatever the limitations, there is something deeply hopeful about us gathering to pray, to read Scripture, to see each other, and listen to music and word.
Thought for the Day
Monday
2 Corinthians 1.3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort…”
Compassion and mercy have their origins and starting point in the heart of God. Jesus taught us to call God our Father, and Paul gives praise that the God and Father of Jesus is one whose compassions never fail, and whose presence is comfort enough, because it is the presence of eternal love in the daily time scale of our lives.
Tuesday
Romans 15.13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Read that verse again. Pick out the big words. Hope. Joy. Peace. Trust. But the first one is hope. Hope is so closely tied to God, that God is described as the God of hope. All hope starts in the eternal purpose and inexhaustible love of God. And as we trust in Christ who is the hope of God incarnate, so joy, peace, trust arise in our hearts.
Wednesday
Hebrews 13.20 “Now may the God of peace…equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.
The God of peace has his work cut out, in a world that is fragmented and divided by all kinds of differences, prejudices, hatreds and inequalities. But all the resources of eternal love, infinite grace, and creative power came together in our Lord Jesus, crucified and risen. The God of peace is at work through the church, and through every follower of Jesus who shines like the stars on a dark night, as we bear witness to the Gospel of truth and life.
Thursday
James 1. 17 “Every good and perfect gift is from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
“Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One who brings out the stars by number and calls all of them by name.” (Isaiah 40.16) If God is the absolutely trustworthy curator of the stars, he can be depended on to look after us. In all the shifting shadows of life circumstances God is the one true constant. “Great is thy faithfulness….thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not.”
Friday
John 4. 24. “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
The Bible is very clear about what true worship is. “Surely you desire truth in the inward parts…” cried David. He went on to pray, “Create in me a pure heart O God.” Integrity is when what we say to God in our hearts, is lived out in our actions, spoken in our words, and thought in our minds, so that our prayers and actions are integrated. That is true worship, the integration of prayer and life.
Saturday
I John 1.5 “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
Light is one of John’s most used ideas. If we want to know what it means to live in the light of God, John said that very clearly in the Gospel: “Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” In the end truth isn’t only about telling the truth, it is about living the telling truth, that we are followers of Jesus, and witnesses to the love of God.
Sunday
1 John 4.16 “God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in him. In this way love is made complete in us…”
‘God is love’ doesn’t mean we have a free ticket. If we say we love God but hate someone, we are not doing the truth. If we can’t bring ourselves to love people we see every day, family, fellow Christians, neighbour or colleague, how can we say we love God whom we haven’t seen? To ask the God who is love into our lives, is to commit to being a person through whom the love of God is there for all to see.
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