He who is greatest among you shall be your servant.

Read Matthew 23

“But he who is greatest among you 

shall be your servant.

“And whoever exalts himself 

will be humbled, 

and he who humbles himself

 will be exalted.

                                                                         Matthew 23:11,12
A subtitle in my New King James Bible for this chapter reads, “woe to the Scribes and Pharisees.”
Jesus made it clear that the religious leaders of his day, had placed so many rules and regulations in place around worship, that the meaning God had intended was being lost.  They were even being hypocritical themselves in how things were done.
God intended the laws to point the way to Him.  He wanted to have a relationship with mankind, not rule him like a slave.  The religious leaders of Jesus’ time had placed all these regulations around, that had to be followed so precisely, that it made man a slave to the law.  God had never intended it to be so.
God knows the heart of man.  He knows what we are like on the inside.  God knows if we bring a gift to the altar, whether it is from the heart, out of duty or to impress those around us.
He wants our faith and our love.  It’s really that simple.
God wants to be in our lives and His ways are not the ways of man.  God wants us to be humble, and He in His time, will give us the acknowledgment we deserve.
“But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.” States Jesus here in Matthew 23.
It is only when we have a servant’s heart, that we can succeed for God. Even those, most successful men and women in the secular world have a servant’s heart.  I’ve spoken to many, and they all say, “I provide a service people want.”
These people are successful because they find ways of providing the service better than anyone else.  They are constantly working on how they can improve that service.
As Christians, we must always remember that we are God’s servant and that we cannot do that if we are trying to exalt ourselves.
It is all about God and others, not about us.
Someone once gave me this analogy.  She said:
“Serving God is almost like being the manager of an exclusive hotel.  God is the owner.  He had put the investment into the place.
He has a plan and the best hotel in the world.
We are His managers and it is our job to go out there and implement the plan.  To bring people into the hotel.
In order for us to do this, we must first catch the vision that He has and then go out there and show the people how God can meet all their needs.
       We must show the people that we are willing to serve them for in doing so, we are serving God.”
Something to think about:
All too often, we loose track of the fact that even God humbled Himself and became a man.  That the creator of the universe came down to us, lived among us, served us, and died for us. That he became a servant setting the example for us.  Thus we should do the same.

Christ's Ministry/ Our Ministry

"Then Jesus cried out, “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only,

 but in the one who sent me.  

When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me.  

I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. 

“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. 

For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.  

There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words;

 that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.  

For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.  

I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” 

John 12:44-50

Points to ponder about what Jesus says about himself.
• when someone believes in Him they also believe in God who sent Him.
• He as come as a light to the world.
• Anyone who hears Jesus’ word and does not keep them, Jesus at least while on this earth dose not judge him, because he came to save the world.
• There is a judge that will judge in the last days
• Jesus spoke not of his own accord but of the Father
• The words of Jesus leads to Eternal life.

I hear a lot of preachers especially in the media condemning the world and those who espouse different beliefs or lifestyles. This aught not to be.
We as Christians are called to present the Gospel of Christ. To point people to heaven not to judge them. That is God’s job not ours.
I firmly believe that in screaming hell fire and brimstone at people you only push them away.
I have seen too many ministers in the media pointing to a persons or group of person’s sin and telling them that they are going to hell.
I at one time was heading to hell as was every preacher that has ever lived.
Fortunately for me I had a wonderful pastor who accepted me for what I was. He slowly pointed me in the right direction and let the Holy Spirit work in my life, showing me where I was going wrong.
The climax came for me at a Doug Oldham concert in Hamilton Ontario Canada when he was led to ask people who wanted to give their life to Christ.
I stood and while I didn’t go to the front, I became a believer that night and have never looked back.
That was close to forty years ago now.
Today when I look to the best way to present the gospel I look to the Apostle Paul when speaking in Athens, Acts 17:16-32.
He was invited by Stoics and Epicurean to speak in the Areopagus.
Paul simply started at a point they were familiar with and presented the unadulterated message of Christ for them to accept or reject.
He never once condemned them for their beliefs or way of life. As a result some believed some sneered but others wanted to hear more on the subject.
And I think the key here is some actually wanted to hear more of what Paul had to say. Which many times is all we can hope for.
Think about it.

The Strongest Bulwark

Faith in God is the strongest bulwark of a free society.  Human freedom began when men became conscious that over and above society and nature there is a God who created them...who fashioned them in His likeness, and that they are, therefore, possessed of intrinsic and independent significance and are endowed, as individuals, with original and irrevocable rights and authority.
                                  Abba Hillel Silver
All societies around the world believe in an afterlife, weather their governments or the intellectuals of their society believe it or not. Likewise the majority of people believe in God. Some in many god’s.
I wonder without God would mankind even be around today?
Think about it. In order to exist mankind needs a set of morals to live up to. A set of guidelines to live by.
I grew up in the “do your own thing” era. As long as is didn’t hurt anyone you could just do what you wanted.
Still even those who espoused this kind of lifestyle realized there was a basic of rules we had to live by. Do not murder for example, don’t bare false witness. Be honest in all you do.
Which begs the question where did our morals come from?
Was it possible for the cave man to write a universal set of morals? A moral code that even the most ardent atheist follows today thousands of years on?
It seems to me that the basic moral code all people live by is with us from the moment we are born. Perhaps proving it is part of our very make up as human beings. Psalm 139:13 hints at just such a thing,
“For you created my inmost being;you knit me together in my mother’s womb”
For me I cannot believe that all of what we have today is by chance or random acts in the universe that just happened to result in us. There has to be a creator.
As I look at what Atheist and many scientist believe I wonder who has the greater faith, them, or me?
I think it takes greater faith to believe there is no God or Creator of the universe than it does to believe.
I see the world as carefully crafted. Very much in the same way an engineer would build it.
Just looking into something as common as a tree leaf fills me with amazement knowing that beyond what I can see with my naked eye are intricate arrangements of cells. All of which work together to make the leaf what it is.
Such structure to me cannot be mere chance. There has to be a God.
It is my firm belief that given enough time and provided scientist keep an open mind they will one day prove there is a creator. That the universe is not just chaos and random chance.
I see such proof coming to light as scientist study fractals. Its something that has been around for several centuries but only recently, with the advent of modern computer capacity has it started to be studied in depth.
I have a definition of Fractal’s that comes from, what is .com, it states,
“The term "fractal" was coined by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975. It comes from the Latin fractus , meaning an irregular surface like that of a broken stone. Fractals are non-regular geometric shapes that have the same degree of non-regularity on all scales. Just as a stone at the base of a foothill can resemble in miniature the mountain from which it originally tumbled down, so are fractals self-similar whether you view them from close up or very far away. Fractals are the kind of shapes we see in nature. ...
We find trees, mountains, rocks and cloud formations in nature, but what is the geometrical formula for a cloud? How can we determine the shape of a dollop of cream in a cup of coffee? Fractal geometry, chaos theory, and complex mathematics attempt to answer questions like these. Science continues to discover an amazingly consistent order behind the universe's most seemingly chaotic phenomena.”
I like that last sentence “Science continues to discover an amazingly consistent order behind the universe's most seemingly chaotic phenomena.”
Science is an on going process. It is not complete. All good scientist are continually asking questions searching for answers.
Much of humanity is looking for answers this is most prominent when they are near death or someone close to them is near death.
Sadly today all to many people are looking for the answer to life in all the wrong places.
They need to turn to the Bible and learn about Almighty God and the saving power of His Son Jesus Christ.

Eternal Condsequences

Read Titus 2

But as for you, 

speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine:

that the older men

 be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience;

the older women likewise,

 that they be reverent in behaviour,

 not slanderers, not given to much wine,

 teachers of good things–

that they admonish the young women to 

love their husbands, 

to love their children.

To be discreet,

 chaste, homemaker’s, good, 

obedient to their own husbands, 

that the Word of God may not be blasphemed.

Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded,

in all things showing yourself 

to be a pattern of good works: in doctrine

 showing 

integrity, reverence, incorruptibility,”

sound speech that cannot be condemned, 

that one who is an opponent maybe ashamed, 

having nothing evil to say of you.”

                                        Titus 2:1-8
Take a good look at the words above in
* all things showing yourself
* to be a pattern of good works in doctrine showing
* showing integrity,
* sound speech that cannot be condemned
* having nothing evil to say of you.”
All too often, people do have evil to say of Christians, because the example they have seen is negative.
Some groups of people don’t feel welcome in our churches.  They feel they are being condemned.  As a result, they run the other way, when asked to come.
    The world sees self-appointed Christian leaders and speakers, pointing fingers in judgment at various groups. As a result they call all Christians hypocrites, and hate mongers or worse.
The world sees Christian businesses as a Christian version of the secular world.  They see no difference between us and the world.  How sad.
“Judge not” said Jesus.
While Paul here, tells us we should be an example of integrity, reverence, incorruptibility and sound speech that cannot be condemned.  (Titus 2:7)
Something to think about
 I think the key in all of this is that we should be vigilant in what we say and do. We should be very different from the world.
Our churches should be a place where all are welcome regardless of who they are or their lifestyle.
Our Christian leaders should be held to a much higher standard than that of the world. And we should be willing to stand up to those leaders who are in error and correct them in accordance to scriptural principles.
All to often this does not happen but it must.
For if we do not live up to the standards of God. If we do not make our leaders both in the churches and in the media live up to the standards God has ordained for them it will have eternal consequences.
Eternal Consequences for those who don’t live up to the standard and those who were turned from Christ because of them.
Think about it.

Think about it.

“He spreads out the northern  skies  over empty space; 

he suspends the earth over nothing.” 

                                                                                                        Job 26:7
You can think of the Bible what you want. I have always maintained that it is not a science book. It is a book calling people to have faith in the one true God.
Job obviously believed that God created the heavens and the earth as to do I. And  it matters little to me weather the world was formed in six days or six millennium or six trillion years. It does not affect my faith.
Throughout the bible however God reveals Himself to us. He takes a man like Job and inspires him to write the above statement.
On Christmas of 1968 as someone has put it “Apollo 8 discovers the earth,” taking the first ever photograph of earth from space as they orbit the moon.
God is very real and he shows himself in a myriad of different ways to us.
The Psalmist writes,

"The heavens declare the glory of God; 

the skies proclaim the work of his hands." 

                                                            Psalm 19:1                          Astronomers have a place they call the Goldilocks zone. It is the place they look for around distant stars. The place where the right conditions exist for possible life.
The place is like where we are located around the sun.

Our planet is exactly the right distance from the sun. It is exactly the right temperature, (a few degrees either way and we couldn’t live on earth). It has exactly the right balance of gasses, liquids and everything else we need to exist.
That is one of the reasons I firmly believe God exists and that he made the earth the heavens and everything in them.
I firmly believe it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian. I also believe that given time man will see that everything is connected and that connection leads to God.
One just has to look at the complexity of something as simple and everyday as a tree, a blade of grass or an ant climbing on them.
Intricately detailed bio-mechanisms that point to a divine creator.
                                                                                 Think about it.

Where’s your treasure?

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” 

Matthew 6:19-20

The other day someone commented that my care was quote “ageing”. I drive a 1991 Honda station wagon.
They told me I needed a new one.
I noted that it’s still in good shape. That with just over two hundred thousand kilometres on it’s just about broken in.
I noted that I never buy new and that I hardly ever pay more than five hundred dollars for a car. With obvious repairs to pass the government’s mechanical fitness requirements the total cost of the car is generally around seven hundred or so.
Usually the cars last me a couple of years, five if I’m lucky.
Still the person thought that me buying a new or nearly new one would look better.
It was then I realized that we were at different ends of the spectrum as far as material things go.
He was very much upper middle class Canadian with a lot of the toys. The nice fifteen hundred square foot house. Manicured lawns, nice up to date cars, designer clothes, flat screen television, computers and so on.
In order to get them he worked long hours and while he  a Christian he quite often missed church on Sunday. Even during the week he would skip bible study in favour of work or looking after his property.
I on the other hand have an illness that at times prevents me from working. Still I own my own business and can choose when I work. Thus I schedule my work around what’s happening at church.
I did this even when I was employed in a so called normal job. I’m far from perfect but I firmly believe that God must come first in my life. It is something I’ve instilled in my children and both are very active in their churches today as adults.
While it would be nice to have millions of dollars. I’m happy with my ninety-one Honda and my tiny nine hundred square foot home that was built in 1949. My second hand lap top computer, a stereo record player, that plays real vinyl records. O and there’s a wind up and a small battery powered radio in case of emergencies.
It’s more than most people in this world have and my situation gives me the opportunity to serve my Lord better.
Isaiah the prophet wrote,

A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” 

“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. 

The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” 

                                                                                                           Isaiah 40:6-8.
What we have in this world will wither and ultimately pass to someone else eventually turning to dust.
It’s only what’s done for Christ that will last.
Are you more into the “toys” of life or Christ?
Think about it.