G’day and welcome to Partakers Christian Podcasts! Join us for uplifting Bible teaching, inspiring readings, heartfelt worship, powerful prayers, and fascinating church history. Whether you’re new to faith or growing deeper in your journey, we’re here to encourage and equip you. 🎧 Tune in, interact, and be inspired—wherever you are in the world.
Episodes
Saturday Jan 30, 2016
Saturday Jan 30, 2016
Part 18: John 4:48
Signs and wonders
In this, verse 48, “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” He was not speaking exclusively to the royal official and worried father for the ‘you’ is plural. At first the words sound like a rebuke, but Jesus went on to heal the boy that was so ill so his intent was more subtle than that. These words are used quite often by big meeting preachers to justify their claimed miracles and command people to believe. But that is not the intention of these words either and a sometimes very dangerous use of them.
It is much safer and wiser to take these words of Jesus as a comment on what happens, neither particularly encouraging or discouraging those who would rely on signs and wonders. It is important to note that exactly the same phrase is used in the Bible as a pointer to deceptive practices to be avoided (Matt 24: 24; 2 Thess 2: 9). But, positively, this episode is described as a sign in verse 54, the second one performed in Cana of Galilee. Jesus heals the boy. The NIV translates the crucial sentence as “your son will live” when it should more literally be “your son lives”. The action of Jesus is strong positive and instantaneous. So is that of the man. We are clearly meant to understand that he came to a strong, positive and totally valid faith as a direct result of this particular ‘sign and wonder’.
What should we make of this somewhat ambiguous situation? Surely this is actually the danger in signs and wonders – they focus attention on what Jesus can do for us, rather than on who he is. The royal official had a considerable advantage over us: he had met Jesus and could assess who he was. He knew both what Jesus could do and who he must be.
Who was, and is, Jesus? The Son of God; the Saviour of the world; the Lord of Glory; the Judge of the ages. Is that enough to be going on with? Of course we need to become convinced of these things which are not automatically obvious. And that is where the Resurrection comes in. Peter said, (Acts 2: 32, 36)“God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. … Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” Paul’s comment on that was (1 Cor 15: 20), “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead,”
We are but human. We are quite capable of believing something today and its opposite tomorrow! Make sure your faith is grounded not on your subjective experience of the things that have happened to you or other people but on the objective facts of the word of God. The former may have brought you to faith as it did the royal official but work hard to transfer your true grounding to the latter, to his written word, the Bible and its sure testimony to the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Resurrection of Jesus that is the one and only sure, unmovable foundation for your faith and for mine. All other possible logical bases for our faith are secondary and derivative.
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Friday Jan 29, 2016
Friday Jan 29, 2016
Partakers Friday Prayers!
29th January 2016
We pray together and when Christians pray together, including across the internet and from different times, different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity!
Grant, Almighty God,
that since under the guidance of thy Son
we have been united together in the body of thy Church,
which has been so often scattered and torn asunder, —
O grant, that we may continue in the unity of faith,
and perseveringly fight against all the temptations of this world,
and never deviate from the right course,
whatever new troubles may daily arise:
and though we are exposed to many deaths,
let us not yet be seized with fear,
such as may extinguish in our hearts every hope;
but may we, on the contrary,
learn to raise up our eyes and minds,
and all our thoughts,
to thy great power,
by which thou quickens the dead,
and raises from nothing things which are not,
so that though we may be daily exposed to ruin,
our souls may ever aspire to eternal salvation,
until thou at length really slowest thyself to be the fountain of life,
when we shall enjoy that endless felicity,
which has been obtained for us by the blood of thy only-begotten Son our Lord. Amen.
Amen.
(A prayer of John Calvin)
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Monday Jan 25, 2016
Monday Jan 25, 2016
Think Spot - 25th January 2016
Here are some simple steps which may help you maintain a trust in God.
- Pray, casting all anxiety on God. He cares for you because you are His personal concern (The great apostle Peter, one of Jesus' closest friends wrote this in 1 Peter 5v7 "Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.")
- Accept and thank God that His peace has filled that area (Another great apostle, Paul, wrote this in Philippians 4v7 says "Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.")
- Learn to be content whatever your circumstances are, resting in God (Paul goes on in Philippians 4v11-12 "Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.")
- Allow the Spirit to control your mind for life and peace (and again from the pen of the apostle Paul, this time in Romans 8v6 "So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.")
- Trust God to fulfil your every need (Matthew records these words of Jesus in Matthew 6v32-33 "but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need." )
- Obey and follow God's commands to love God and love others (Jesus is recorded in Matthew 22v37-40 "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.' The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.")
- Finally, be prepared to be obedient to the Father, in supplying the needs of others you meet and therefore showing you love God and other people! One way to show you are trusting and loving God is to be the answer to the prayers of somebody else and showing that love to them! Ask God to show you, how you can help somebody else in need this week and showing your love.
Go in peace this Monday, into this week, knowing God is worthy of your trust! God will take care of you, but not always in the way you expect! Expect Him to allow circumstances and situations to arise where you are to trust Him fully! He will help you if you ask! After all, He knows you better than anybody! And don't be afraid to help somebody else because by doing that, you show you are loving and trusting in God!
Father, I pray that You would help us to trust in You and that You would supply our needs, calm our concerns and help us to love You and others more fully. I ask this through the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside all those who have peace with you. Amen
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Saturday Jan 23, 2016
Saturday Jan 23, 2016
Part 17: John 4:26
You are … ( I AM …)
That the resurrected Christ made himself known first to a woman (John 20: 11, 14 – 16) is relatively well known and often commented on. That he made he made his true nature known first to a woman, this woman, this unnamed, unknown, member of a despised race is much less well-known and seldom commented on.
He said to the woman (4: 26), “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” The translations here tend to be a bit misleading. To make better sense in the immediate story of the two words ‘I am’ the only ones in the original Greek, they have added a third word, called a predicate, ‘he’, to give ‘I am he’. Again it is well known that Jesus described himself seven times with different substantial predicates: ‘ I am the bread of life’, ‘I am the light of the world’ , ‘I am the gate’, ‘I am the good shepherd’, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ and ‘I am the true vine’. What is not so well known is that Jesus said ‘I AM” without a predicate on another seven occasions. This is the first of these.
When Moses asked the Lord God what his name was at the burning bush he was given three answers. The third was “The Lord, the God of your fathers —the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” which identified him as the right God, the one that their ancestors had been worshipping all those hundreds of years they were stuck in Egypt. The first name they were given was the mysterious one ‘I am who I am.’ The second one is the most useful one and the one that we are interested in here ‘I am’, somewhat hidden in the answer “I am has sent me to you”. The words ‘I am’ in Hebrew are closely related to the personal name of God, YHWH, which we vocalize as Yahweh. This is the name for God used by Isaiah when he wrote in 43: 10 and other places, ““You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he” where again a ‘he’ has been added to what should read simply ‘I am’.
So what?
Jesus says very clearly to the woman is ‘I AM’ or ‘I AM God’. Whether she fully understood what he was saying we do not know – she may have done so since the Samaritans only used the first 5 books of the Bible and she will have been very familiar with just about every word of, at least, the story parts of those books. Later in John’s gospel when Jesus said to a crowd at 8: 58, ““Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am!” their reaction was, “they picked up stones to stone him” so they clearly understood the implications of what he had said.
Jesus was part of the Triune God – God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit. He had temporarily
“made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant … he humbled himself” as Phil 2: 6 – 8 says. But he was still fully divine, still part of the Triune God, “the Word was God” and would be again as Thomas realizes when he calls him, “My Lord and my God” (John 20: 28). He had only allowed his divine nature and attributes to go into temporary eclipse so that, as the writer to the Hebrews says, (2: 16 – 18) “For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
What a wonderful saviour we have!
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Monday Jan 18, 2016
Monday Jan 18, 2016
Think Spot 18 January 2016
Matthew 5:9 records Jesus speaking these words "God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God."
All over the world, people share a common desire for peace! But what is peace? The peace the world wants varies from the peace the Christian knows. The world sees peace as the absence of conflict and people being generally ‘nice' to one another. Peace in the Christian context goes further, saying peace is perfect harmony with God, other people, circumstances and self. Therefore perfect peace will not come until Jesus Christ comes again, and takes Christians to be with Him.
That doesn't give us as Christians a mandate to sit around not doing what we can for peace, because we are commanded to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), our God is a God of peace (1 Thessalonians 5:23), and the Kingdom of God is about peace in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). Peace is to be our business! In a world full of conflicts, such as conflicts between nations, conflicts between neighbours, conflicts even within families and conflicts within and between churches, Christians are to be peacemakers!
With that in mind, here are some thoughts on what the Bible has to say on peace, to help you this week be a peacemaker:
1. Peace with God
Justified by faith (Romans 5:1-2)
Christ is our peace between God and man and between men (Ephesians 2:13-18)
2. Peace with others
Live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:17-20)
Do everything possible which leads to peace and mutual encouragement (Romans 14:13-19)
Be a peacemaker - a sign of real wisdom producing a harvest of righteousness (Matthew 5:9, James 3:17-18)
3. Peace within/circumstances
Peace is a gift of God (John 14:27, 2 Thessalonians3:16)
Worldly peace requires manipulation of circumstances, God's peace comes regardless of circumstances
We have peace in troubled times - an untroubled, unfearful heart and mind (John 16:33)
Go in peace this Monday, into this week, knowing that the God of peace lives inside you if you are one of His children! Yesterday churches around the world celebrated the feast of Pentecost - the coming of the Holy Spirit as promised by Jesus. If you desire peace with God, with others and in all circumstances, ask this Holy Spirit who lives inside you to help you! If you would not consider yourself as one of His children, ask Him to help you become one!
Father, I pray that this week we will do all we can to be peacemakers and make a difference in world in conflict. I ask this through the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside all those who have peace with you. Amen
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Saturday Jan 16, 2016
Saturday Jan 16, 2016
Part 16: John 4:7b
You are … ( I AM …
Two people meet up in this amazing story. We will think about the first, the unnamed woman, here and the other, Jesus, in the following study.
No wonder she was surprised by the question Jesus asked, she was a woman – second class citizen in the thinking of those days; she was a Samaritan – long antagonistic to the Jews; she had a somewhat doubtful moral background – having had 5 husbands and now living with a man she was not married to (although there is no word of condemnation from Jesus so she may just have been a very unfortunate lady). On the positive side she was able to carry on a vigorous and effective conversation with a strange man and the village people gave her enough respect to come out to see Jesus at her suggestion.
We must not overlook the fact that Jesus treated women quite differently from that expected by the culture of his day. That is not immediately clear from the Biblical accounts that we have, but that may be because they were all written by men! But there are many easily overlooked hints that women had a considerable role to play in the early church. The news that Jesus had risen was entrusted to women (John 20: 1). As we shall see in the next study the news that he was God came first to a woman – this woman! Junia was an apostle (Romans 16: 7). Phoebe was an important and highly trusted member of the church in Cenchrae (Romans 16: 1). Women participated in the church services in Corinth (1 Corinthians 11: 5). The passages in which women’s participation in the church services are restricted (1 Corinthians 14; 1 Timothy 2) are both rather odd since they appear to contradict things Paul says elsewhere.
It would be nice to be able to claim that Jesus started a trend that has lasted through the 2000 years since but that would probably be overdoing it! Paul said (Gal 3: 28), “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Jesus had already amply demonstrated the truth of that, showing that neither race, nor status, nor gender is of any significance in the Kingdom. To those we should add for our world skin colour and education level. There may not be a clear trend through the many years since but Jesus made a statement that set a target. Only now as with modern sophisticated machinery nimble fingers and a quick mind become more important than brute strength is the equality of women being increasingly recognized.
The sharpness of the contrast John has drawn by his choice of Nicodemus: well known, named, respected, male and this unknown, unnamed, doubtful, female for his two stories close together is a warning to us just how easy it is to slip into an attitude of ‘not one of us’. There is no ‘them’ and ‘us’ in the Kingdom.
The ground is level at the foot of the Cross.
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Friday Jan 15, 2016
Friday Jan 15, 2016
Partakers Friday Prayers!
15th January 2016
We pray together and when Christians pray together, including across the internet and from different times, different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity!
My Heavenly Father,
I thank You,
through Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son,
that You kept me safe from all evil and danger last night.
Save me, I pray, today
as well, from every evil and sin,
so that all I do and the way that I live will please you.
I put myself in your care, body and soul and all that I have.
Let Your holy Angels be with me,
so that the evil enemy will not gain power over me.
Amen
(A Morning Prayer of Martin Luther)
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Monday Jan 11, 2016
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Think Spot 10 January 2016
Have you ever wondered what constitutes a growing church? Do you know that it isn't just a list of names on the church roll or a social club. Neither is it a large number of people who have made "decisions for Christ". So, what constitutes a church which is living and growing in both spiritual quality as well as numbers?
Here are 4 pointers for you as a Christian to go into the week thinking about how you can contribute to the church you attend:
1. Full of 'Kingdom of People' - people who declare Jesus is Lord, reflecting His values in word thought and action.
2. Full of people who are filled with the Holy Spirit, that is people who allow their lives to be totally controlled by the Spirit, and letting the Spirit flow through them.
3. Full of people involved within their local community, utilizing their spiritual gifts for the glory of God.
4. People whose lives are oriented around
Commitment to Jesus Christ - following Jesus' commandments, and learning daily hww to be more like Him.
Commitment to the Body of Christ, the Church; Loving the Body and Bride of Christ just as Jesus loves the Church.
Commitment to working within the local community - utilizing the gifts God has given them (and everybody has them you know!) for the glory of God and exhortation of the other people.
There is no such thing as a full Christian life without those three things in the above set priority - Jesus, church, community. If the priority is shifted in any area then our priorities are wrong. Christians aren't to just to be Christians on a Sunday but 7 days a week. Not just to associate with other Christians, but to affect their local community throughout the week for the glory of Jesus Christ. To do this, this week, think about these questions:
Am I fully committed to Jesus and His teachings?
Am I fully committed to working within my Church?
Do I want the Church to grow in quantity and quality?
Am I fully committed to my local community and seeing Jesus glorified within it?
Go into the week, knowing God can use you to help extend His kingdom in your local community. Thank you.
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Saturday Jan 09, 2016
Saturday Jan 09, 2016
Part 15: John 3:17 – 21
The journey of faith
Emphasis in this chapter has traditionally fallen on the beginning of the Christian life. Being ‘born again’ has concentrated attention on how we start. But the next few verses after the famous 3: 16 turn the emphasis onto the continuing life and the end of it. Here they are: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But 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.”
Our Christian life is a journey – as indeed is every sort of life.
I like to think of the end of it as that part of a journey that is arriving in a foreign country or returning back home to one’s own country. At the airport there are two major hurdles to overcome. The first is going through passport control; the second is going through the baggage check area to make sure that we have only good and permissible things in our cases.
The first of these is a good analogy to being born again. Jesus said “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again from above”. We want to enter the country that is our destination. We must have a valid passport. Paul says we are “citizens of heaven” (Phil 3: 20). We have dual citizenship! We have two passports. We are citizens of our earthly country and we are citizens of heaven. What a privilege!
But we must have the right luggage too. Our first and most important luggage is believing in Jesus. Three times the word ‘believe’ appears in verse 18. Positively – we must believe. Negatively - if we do not believe we are condemned to perish as verse 16 has said. What exactly perishing consists of we are not told and it is not really possible to work out the details from the rest of the New Testament. Perishing, hell, fire and other uncomfortable things are all mentioned – many of them by Jesus himself. It is certainly not that “being with Christ” that Paul says is “better by far” (Phil 1: 23). It is like being a stateless person, rejected from the country we want to enter and condemned to travel endlessly round the world, not finding anywhere prepared to take us in. Not a nice experience.
Our luggage needs to be light – not light in weight but glowing with light, radiant with light, bursting out through every crack in our case. Our deeds must be good. We must want to come into the light; not afraid that our deeds, which will be exposed at this grand final checkpoint, will be anything to be ashamed of. We must live in the truth – in the light of God and his Christ, so it may be seen plainly who we are and that we have walked in the light of God through the journey of life since we gained our passport for the kingdom of God..
My apologies if you have never travelled that far and flown into the airport of a foreign country; never needed a passport and never had the unwelcome experience of going through baggage control. I hope you still get the vision of how this illustrates our journey as Christians and encourages you to make sure you have your second passport with you and have packed your bags very carefully as you have lived the journey of the Christian life.
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Friday Jan 08, 2016
Friday Jan 08, 2016
Partakers Friday Prayers!
8th January 2016
We pray together and when Christians pray together, from different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity! Come! Let us pray together!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A Prayer of Thomas a'Kempis (1380-1471)
Grant me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know,
To love what I ought to love,
To praise what delights thee most,
To value what is precious in thy sight,
To hate what is offensive to thee.
Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes,
Nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant people;
But to discern with a true judgement between things visible and spiritual,
And above all, always to inquire what is the good pleasure of Your will.
Amen
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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