Partakers Christian Podcasts

Friday Prayers 11 August 2017

Partakers Friday Prayers!

11th August 2017

 

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 Clement of Rome (First Century)

We beseech you, Master,
to be our helper and protector.
Save the afflicted among us;
have mercy on the lowly;
raise up the fallen;
appear to the needy;
heal the ungodly;
restore the wanderers of your people;
feed the hungry;
ransom our prisoners;
raise up the sick;
comfort the faint-hearted.
Amen

 

 

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Think Spot 7 August 2017

Think Spot 7 August 2017

"God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God." Matthew 5:9

 

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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Gems in the Letter of 1 John - Part 108

Gems in the Letter of 1 John

Part 108 - 1 John 2:20
The Truth

John said, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.” Oh, dear – that sounds difficult!
He then goes on to say, “I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

That is all rather bluntly put. John kind of ‘shoots from the hip’ as they say. Depending on the culture we are in we may not be used to people saying what they mean quite as bluntly as that. There are two factors here. One is that John lived in a society where people spoke out very bluntly. In those days it was normal to call your antagonist in an argument by all sorts of not very nice names. The other is that John saw very clearly that you are either a Christian, a follower of Jesus, a believer in him, or not. We have a tendency in many cultures today to think it is very important thing not to hurt anyone’s feelings. So we wrap our opinion of someone’s status in faith up by saying things like ‘not yet a follower of Jesus’, ‘ a fringe member of the church’, or ‘she is a real believer underneath’. John did not do things like that.
The give away word for how important all this is is ‘antichrist’. That means that the problem in John’s church was not simple – it was of deeply spiritual significance. When we join a church or fellowship we become part of it and it is deeply significant if we leave it; it is not a case of changing membership of one local organisation for another.

We do not know for sure what happened in John’s fellowship. John describes it by saying that those who left “denied that Jesus is the Christ, or Messiah”, presumably by thinking that someone else was. Our modern equivalent of that is getting into problems with the concept of the Trinity. Time and again in the history of the church somebody has thought they are the first to realise it is difficult to understand the Trinity. They have rejected the accepted idea of the nature of Christ, and led other people after them. There is no space here to go into detail about this but, perhaps rather simplistically: if Jesus was not human he would not have been able to die on the cross in our place; if he had not been something more than human – God himself walking this earth - he could only have died for himself, not for you and me. So if he had not been fully human and also fully divine his death would not have been an effective atonement for our sins and we would still be un-reconciled to God the Father and without hope for this world and the next.

Then there is the further problem of how the Spirit fits into the Godhead and what his presence means in terms of how we know what we know about things spiritual. There are hints of that here: “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth”. … ” As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.” We all have a problem of being sure when it is the Spirit talking to us and when it is us talking to ourselves. John resolves that problem by refering to “what you have heard from the beginning”. That phrase is exactly the same as the one in the very first verse of the epistle, in other words he goes right back to the things that actually happened and the things that had been written down about them.

And we should do the same. Our understanding of what the Spirit is saying to us is subject to the vagaries of our self-understanding. The events of the faith and the things written about them, the Bible, are not subject to the same problems. Cling to Scripture. Test all other ideas, thoughts, even what we think are visions and words from the Lord by Scripture, particularly the New Testament, the words of Jesus and his closest apostles. They alone are sure, certain and to be completely relied on.

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Friday Prayers 4 August 2017

Friday Prayers

4 August 2017

 

 A prayer of John Wycliffe

A prayer for faith and courage

2 Corinthians 12:10 - That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

O loving Christ, draw me, weak as I am, to your side,
for if you do not draw me, I can never follow you.
Give me a brave spirit,
so that it may always stand ready and strong.
And when my flesh is weak,
let your grace go before me,
come beside me,
and follow after me,
for without you, I can do nothing —

least of all suffer pain or death.
Grant me a fearless heart,
a true faith,
a firm hope,
and a perfect love,
so that for your sake
I may lay down my life with patience and joy.
Amen

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