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Episodes
Monday Mar 06, 2017
Monday Mar 06, 2017
Think Spot - 6th February 2017
Charlotte Bronte - “Life appears to me to be too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrong.”
What I do know is that your conscience is the faculty which is sensitive to right and wrong, and judges your actions and attitudes. Everybody has a conscience and all are sensitive to spiritual truths, whether they are immediately aware of it or not.
According to the Bible, a clear conscience is essential for inner peace and joy, confidence in prayer, good health, effective service, .right relation-ships, effective witnessing, making right decisions, and victory in spiritual battle. A clear conscience is the inner joy and peace of spirit which results from having all personal wrongs made right with those whom a person had offended - either God or someone else.
However- many Christians carry around guilty consciences due mainly to unconfessed sins, affecting relationships with God, other people and themselves. If left unchecked, a conscience which is guilty, slowly grows 'dead', cold and silent. That is until such time that the guilt has been assuaged and put right.
If at the moment you are burdened by a guilty conscience, ask the Holy Spirit to show you clearly what is affecting your conscience. Then decide, at any cost, to clear it up in the power of the same Spirit. He will help you! Pray to the Father and ask forgiveness, (1 John 1:9), and fully accept His love and forgiveness. If there is anyone else involved, then you will also need to ask for their forgiveness (Matthew 5:23-24).
Ask the Father to help you go, and the Spirit will help you, because one of the hardest things in the world to say is: “I was wrong! Please forgive me." Your conscience can be cleansed because of what Jesus did on the cross!
Hebrews 9:14 “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”
Go into this week, ready to serve the living God, being confident that the Holy Spirit living within you, empowers you, is transforming you and desires that your conscience be clear. He will help you overcome if you ask!
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Friday Mar 03, 2017
Friday Mar 03, 2017
Partakers Friday Prayers
Order of Service
Come! Let us pray together!
- Opening Prayer
- Prayer for the Churches meeting this weekend around the world.
- Prayer for the world
- Time for your own prayers
- Closing prayer
If you would like to post a prayer request in the comments below,
either named or anonymous, we will pray for you.
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Monday Feb 27, 2017
Monday Feb 27, 2017
Think Spot - 27th February 2017
We have the start of a new week! Its Monday! How and in what circumstances are you trusting God? How did Jesus Christ trust in the Father? Jesus knew that the Father was going to bring Him back to life after his death on the cross. Jesus trusted the Father in this area of His life, just as he did in all aspects of his life. How are you doing? Do you have concerns and areas of your life where you need an assurance that God the Father will help you?
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 Feb 25, 2017
Saturday Feb 25, 2017
Gems in the Gospel of John
Part 89 - John 20:28
The Climax
I think Thomas has been unfairly treated in getting his nickname of ‘doubting Thomas’. We do not know why he was not there a week earlier so we should not judge his absence as something wrong. He was clearly of a personality that wanted to be sure. Perhaps he was the sharpest mind amongst the disciples; the first to realise something of what Jesus really was. He needed confirmation, but once he had it he was the one who first called Jesus God. What exactly he understood and thought that meant we do not know. It certainly wasn’t all the things that we think as the statement has gathered so many ideas to itself over the centuries. But what ever it was he then acted accordingly.
This was only one week after the resurrection of Jesus so there will have been much talk but probably also much doubt even amongst the disciples. We cannot claim such circumstances. It is now nearly 2000 years since Jesus rose from the dead; much has been said in that time both for and against the truth of what happened. It is probably true now that virtually all those who say they do not believe because they cannot believe something so unlikely actually do not want to believe because it will upset the nice even tenor of their lives.
Thomas reacted, as he should, to the action of Jesus. He had asked Jesus to allow him to explore the wounds – a rather rash and demanding thing to do. Jesus had allowed him to do exactly as he asked. The king of all the world allowed a subject to do exactly as he wanted.! But that is the way Jesus worked and works. He does not react against our demands but meets them whenever it is for our benefit that he do so.
Thomas did as he should have done and it turned his life upside down – as it may ours if we respond to Jesus as we should. There is a museum in the town of Taxila in northern Pakistan. They have a stone tablet in the wall saying Thomas was there on his way from Jerusalem to South India. That is a guess but a reasonable one as Taxila was, in those days, the major city lying on the direct routs between those two places. Thomas is credited with the foundation of the Mar Thoma church in South India. He made up for any doubts at the end of that first week with a great, and undoubtedly difficult , journey, the founding of a church in a totally new and far away country and, probably, his eventual martyrdom.
There is one other thing to notice here. It is that little word that appears twice in what Thomas said, ‘my’. He didn’t say ‘The Lord and God’, he didn’t even say ‘our Lord and God’. No, he said, ‘MY Lord and MY God’. He recognized that in front of him was the invitation to have a personal relationship with the Lord God in Jesus. God was no longer a far away abstract idea, to be worshipped and venerated but scarcely loved. He was to be spoken to almost as an equal, a senior equal to be sure, but someone to be treated in a quite different way from that which everyone had used previously when they were speaking to a far-off infinitely superior being
Good on you, Thomas. Would that we all would react like that to the call of Jesus.
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Friday Feb 24, 2017
Friday Feb 24, 2017
Friday Prayers
Prayer from the Vanuatu Churches
Today on Partakers we are praying a prayer from the Vanuatu group of islands. The origins are unknown. Come on in, download the mp3 and pray with us!
O Jesus,
Be the canoe that holds me up
in the sea of life;
Be the rudder that keeps me
in the straight road;
Be the outrigger that supports me
in times of temptation.
Let your Spirit be my sail
that carries me through each day.
Keep my body strong
so I can paddle steadfastly
on in the longvoyage of life.
Amen
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Monday Feb 20, 2017
Monday Feb 20, 2017
Think Spot - 20 February 2017
One of the natural outcomes of trusting God is joy - often an unspeakable joy that bubbles within you! A joy resulting from overcoming all that life throws at you, and overcoming those hurdles! It involves taking a daily commitment to follow Jesus Christ and not just a one off. It takes commitment, not comfort, to throw off hindrances and barriers. True joy results from being willing to allow the Holy Spirit to work in you, transforming you into the image of Jesus Christ, to the praise and glory of God the Father.
All of these things being done daily in your life lead to what I am convinced is the key to the reality of a successful Christian life - that key being joy. As you grow closer to Jesus, living in peace, trust and obedience, then your spiritual life will be your natural life and your natural life be your spiritual life! Your joy will abound and shine a light giving people a reason to ask "Where do you get all your joyous hope from?". You will then be able to· share Jesus as your source of joy. A joy that is anticipatory, expectant and true! Joy comes from putting Jesus first, others next and then yourself! Go practise it this week!
You can show this joy by singing, laughing, smiling, shouting praises to God, lifting hands in worship', and crying, but that is only the external part of joy. True joy also incorporates an internal joy. Real joy is when you can believe in: the mountain top when you are in your deepest valley. Abundant joy is being surrounded by darkness and still believing in 'the light'. Anticipatory joy is when amidst total confusion you still believe God has a plan of love for you. It was this type of joy that Jesus had, when in the garden praying, the night before he was betrayed, when full of mixed emotions and anguish he said "Not my will, but yours, Father!"
As sons and daughters of God, we have many reasons to be full of joy. Yet how often we forget! Here are some reasons for joy!
- Psalm 51:8 & 12 - Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me-now let me rejoice. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.
- Jeremiah 15:16 - When I discovered your words, I devoured them. They are my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God of Heaven's Armies.
- Luke 15:8-10 "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbours and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.' In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents."
- 1 Peter 1:8-9 - You love Jesus Christ even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.
Do you desire to be' overflowing with joy today and this week? Go into this week with a joy that is anticipating and expectant! Do you need to hand over to Jesus a particular area of your life' where Jesus does not fully reign and have control?
I pray that the Father will reveal more of Himself to you, as you daily seek His face, overcoming all hindrances to living a successful and joyful-Christian life. May the Holy Spirit who lives within you, if you are a Christian, continue to transform you into the image of the Son Jesus Christ, and all to the praise and glory of God the Father. Amen.
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Saturday Feb 18, 2017
Saturday Feb 18, 2017
Part 88 - John 20:21-23
The Great Commission and the Spirit
In 3 short verses John 20:21 - 23, John covers what took Matthew 4 long verses and Luke 47 verses, Those are the great commission of Matthew 28 and the giving of the Spirit in Acts 2. Here is John’s version: “Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
As has happened before John seems to have not been the least bit concerned about when things happened, only in their theological significance. So the fact that he says the disciples became Spirit filled on the day of the resurrection while Luke says it happened 50 days later should not worry us.
The way he has put it has highlighted the connection between the 2 things and, in particular, the importance of the Spirit for true evangelism. We are to be small copies of Jesus! Mark tells us in 1:14,15 that “Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.’” John never puts what Jesus did in quite those terms but it is clear that that is a good summary of what John records with his emphases on particular incidents in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus did not spend all his time in direct evangelism. He did a lot of teaching and healing as support for the direct challenges he gave to people like Nicodemus and the woman by the well. We are not all called to be evangelists in that direct sense. That is just as well because surveys in our culture seem to suggest that less than one believer in ten is likely to be a good and effective evangelist by directly talking to strangers. It is the job of the rest of us to teach, to disciple, to heal, to do the more and greater works that Jesus said we should in 14:12 - and to support and pray for those who have a true gift in direct person-to-person evangelism. And they may need it. It is easy to mix up the natural ability of the born salesman and the Spirit filled gift of evangelism. If you are one of the gifted ones you need to be careful because you may well have a natural gift for salesmanship as well but only what comes from, and is guided by, the Holy Spirit himself is going to be spiritually effective.
If a big white man with a strong personality tells unsophisticated villagers in an underdeveloped country to jump, they will jump. If he does not understand their culture and then goes home and boasts about how many converts he has made he has done more damage than good. (I have seen this happen!) Let us be careful and wise.
The last of these three verses is difficult for it seems to say that we here on earth can decide whether someone’s sins are forgiven or not and that heaven will then fall inline, always agreeing with our decision. That is a very simplistic way of thinking and you will probably have reacted against it when I put it in those blunt terms. The forgiveness of sins is the privilege and prerogative only of the heavenly realm. When, in Mark 2:5, Jesus said to the paralyzed man ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’ the surrounding people were rightly shocked because they said, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
That is an entirely healthy and Bible honouring reaction, both in Old and New Testament terms.
In all our dealings with other people, particularly those who are not yet believers, we need to be extremely careful, recognizing that only the Holy Spirit himself can forgive those who repent and give them the gift of new life and the Holy Spirit.
Indeed we need to be sent by God himself, as Jesus indicates when he tells the disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Note too, that the words immediately before that command are about the peace that the presence of Jesus brought to them. We too shall know the deep peace of the presence of Jesus particularly when we obey his command to go where he sends us.
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~
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Friday Feb 17, 2017
Friday Feb 17, 2017
Friday Prayers
Thomas Ken
Today on Partakers we are praying a prayer of Thomas Ken (1637-1711), Chaplain to King Charles II. Come on in, download the mp3 and pray with us!
To God the Father,
who first loved us
and made us accepted in the Beloved;
To God the Son,
who loved us, and washed us
from our sins in his own blood;
To God the Holy Ghost,
who sheds the love of God
abroad in our hearts
Be all love and glory,
From time and for eternity.
Amen
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Monday Feb 13, 2017
Monday Feb 13, 2017
Think Spot 13 February 2016
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)
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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~
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Saturday Feb 11, 2017
Saturday Feb 11, 2017
Part 87 - John 20:17
The ultimate Purpose
Mary eventually recognised Jesus. Her initial failure to do so is in line with what happened when other people met the risen Jesus. Luke reports that the couple who met him on the road to Emmaus also failed to recognise him, at first. It seems that he was at one and the same time both recognisably the same Jesus and distinctly different.
This ties in with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15: 42 - 44, “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (I find this very encouraging. Perhaps we will be raised not with the bodies in which we die which may be old and bent and wizened but with something a bit more like the way we were in our prime!)
Matthew says that the women, presumably Mary as here, clasped his feet as they fell to the ground in adoring worship. But Jesus, although he might be touched as happened with some others, did not want to be held. That would have suggested a too permanent relationship when he was due to ascend back to his Father. And his ascension was a vital part of the journey he was on. He had left his heavenly home, descended to earth to be a man as well as God, completed his work in his death on the Cross, announced ‘it is finished’ and was now on his way back to the right hand (the place of honour) next to his Father. There it would be as the writer to the Hebrews says in his 8: 1, 9: 24 - 25, “We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary … now to appear for us in God’s presence. … to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”
This is the ultimate purpose for which Christ came and died - that he might make continual intercession for us in the judicial throne room of heaven and we should have total confidence in him. Nothing must hinder that, not even the heartfelt worship of Mary, the most faithful disciple of them all. Let us rejoice and be glad on what has been done and is being done for us - even now.
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