I was told during a lesson on flying that scanning is not the same as looking. When flying, we can take an example from the eagle. It has an eye the same size as a human eye, but each eyeball has two lenses, similar to binoculars, making the eagle’s eyesight up to eight times more powerful. It can see its prey two miles away.

The eagle is aware of its surroundings but gets intent on its object. It keeps its prey in the centre of its vision the whole time. The eagle doesn’t scan but remains focused.

We can just scan the bible, or we can look into it intently. To do so we need the will to observe. When we do that, we can see all the little things that a casual observer misses. The bible is wonderful in that it speaks to the average person at the level of their comprehension, but to the student they can plumb the endless depths of the Almighty and uncover so many hidden treasures.

Why not try cultivating a spirit of intentionality. Gems are rarely found on the surface, but a little digging brings with it great rewards.

The post The Will to Observe appeared first on Christian Vision.

I recently saw a YouTube video about a man who died and went to heaven. I am normally cautious about such videos, but he seemed like a sensible person. He said that upon returning to this earthly realm, he realised that through this experience, he learned that God loves us MADLY. 

It was his choice of wording that grabbed my attention.

‘Madly’ implied that God was crazy about us, that he had an all-consuming love for us. Something way beyond the normal, so excessive that it was beyond human logic. 

How could that be – that the creator of the universe was head over heels in love with us? That the all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent God should care for us at all? David said, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:4)

How could God love me that much? It is much more than I love myself! I know who I am, I know my faults and failings (probably not all). I can’t say I always love myself and I certainly couldn’t say I am madly in love with myself. Yet is God?

 As I pondered on this to consider if it was true, it occurred to me, how much love you would need to have for someone else, to be prepared to sacrifice your only beloved son for them. Not only sacrifice him but allow him to endure the most terrible agonising death. 

Such love would have to be beyond all human boundaries, greater, more awesome, more intense, in fact, in our terms – crazy.

It defies all reason or logic, yet it is true that God did exactly that when he sent Jesus to die for us. If ‘madly’ doesn’t correctly describe God’s love for us, it’s a pretty close description – for to the human mind it does seem mad, almost insane.

Yet God’s ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts. The Bible says that even his foolishness is greater than our wisdom.

 I feel humbled in the face of such a pure love. There are no words that I can find that begin to comprehend and grasp this. 

How can we respond to such excessive love? Nothing less than complete surrender of our will to him. Such love demands a response and to give him our imperfect love in return.

So, I am happy to rejoice in the thought that our eternal God loves us, madly.

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The Ten Commandments do not command us to worship God, yet Jesus said in John 4:23, “…true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” 

So, it’s not a command yet God is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

How do we make sense of that? 

We often attend church services where there is praise and worship. Praise is easy to understand as expressing gratitude to God for who he is, what he has done, his creation, his provision, and all the good things in life that come from him. 

But worship is another level that goes beyond praise.

Sometimes in a wedding ceremony we say, ‘With my body, I thee worship’. It carries with it the thought of becoming one flesh. A joining together of two into one, a submission of ourselves to the other. You cannot command that; it has to be given as a voluntary surrender of ourselves.

Worship, similarly, is many things – adoration, submission, surrender, and the giving of ourselves back to the almighty, our creator. Worship takes us from being self-centred to being God centred.

The fact is that God is seeking those with whom he can have this level of intimacy. If God is seeking, then my prayer is, “Lord let me be found.”

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Have you ever written a will? It’s not a nice subject, but it is important for others to know what you want if something were to happen to you, especially if you knew you were about to die. The thing that really strikes you when you do write your will, is that you are forced to consider your own mortality and who you want to pass your possessions on to.

Wills are generally written, and have to be witnessed, particularly if you have a lot of things to leave and want them to go to many different people. However, if you don’t have much, then relatives are unlikely to be arguing about it after your funeral so a verbal statement as to your wishes may be enough. 

There is no record of Jesus leaving anything after he died. Even his clothes were distributed among the guards. However, what he did leave behind was a wealth of wisdom and knowledge about the true nature of God, about salvation, and a message to save the world. 

It is far more important that we leave behind an impact on those who know us, rather than just ‘things’. Those memories and the experiences will be remembered long after all the ‘things’ have gone. Jesus left behind a message that changed the world, and today there are millions of Christians who love him and embrace his message. 

For a will to be effective, there has to be a deceased person and there has to be beneficiaries. Jesus, of course, died, and we are the beneficiaries of his death – if we comply with his will. 

It is so important when we have a will that we leave it to trusted persons (trustees) to carry out our wishes. Jesus entrusted us with his instructions. In Matthew, he tells us to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

The dead will never know whether or not their wishes have been carried out, however, Jesus is alive, and he will know. We need to be sure that we are acting as responsible trustees.

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As Christians we are encouraged to read our bible every day. But what about the patriarchs? Abraham never had the Torah, neither did Moses. In fact, Moses had to write a sizeable chunk of it, yet they all had an incredible relationship with God.

What about King David? Remember, the Torah was a huge scroll that was kept in the temple. There were no synagogues in his day. So, how could he be a man after God’s own heart when he never read God’s word daily, and he committed some of the most appalling sins in biblical history. His psalms give us the answer.

 “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” (Psalm 119:11)

Talking of a blessed man, David said in Psalm 1:2; “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

 David had learned and memorised the scriptures. He couldn’t carry a huge scroll around with him, but because he had memorised them, he could meditate on them continuously.

 I believe meditation is something we don’t do enough of. We should commit scripture to memory then think about their meaning. You will be surprised at some of the gems that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you when you do so.

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I recently read this expression and thought it was worth passing on: ‘A thermometer tells you the temperature, a thermostat reads the temperature and regulates it’.

The thermometer simply reads and reflects the temperature, without any ability to change it, while the thermostat can adjust the temperature to regulate it and bring balance.

In today’s world, the values and beliefs that Christians have held for centuries are being challenged and threatened. We can either be like the thermometer and complain that the temperature is getting too hot (or in reality, too cold to the gospel). Or, we can be like the thermostat that tries to bring balance by standing up for Christian values and pushing back against the changing culture.

It seems like these days, the enemy is coming in like a flood to challenge our Christian values.

In Isaiah 59:19 it says, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.”

 Who is this standard? In who resides the Spirit of the Lord? 

The Spirit of the Lord is in those of us who truly follow Jesus. I believe it is time for Christians to speak up and try to bring back the values by which a nation is exalted.

Don’t expect to be popular if you speak the truth. In John 15:18 it says, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.”

There is something wrong if all men speak well of you. 

In Luke 6:26 we read, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”

There are so many voices from pressure groups who represent a minority of the population who have claimed the agenda. It’s time for Christians to speak up, and not be ashamed of our beliefs. We might just be surprised at how many of the silent majority actually cheer us on.

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Pilate spoke those immortal words in John 18:38: “What is truth?”.

This question is one that many of us ask ourselves every day as we watch the various media channels, where there is an abundance of fake news and deliberate misinformation. People are often referring to “their truth” not absolute truth.

In the bible, we read, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) 

In Matthew, when Jesus was asked about the end times, he said, “Take heed that no man deceives you.” (Matthew 24:4)

Deception is a hallmark of the end times.

 In 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11, it says, “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”

The point here is that they didn’t love the truth and because they didn’t love the truth, they were sent strong deception.

This is what we see happening today. Those who hold to biblical values are called bigots or hypocrites. Then there are those, as the bible says in Philippians 3:19, “Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.”

The devil is at work with greater urgency than ever before. In Revelation, we read, “For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has but a short time. (Revelation 12:12) 

So, what is the Devils plan? How do we know he’s at work?

1.   Division. When was the first division? In Heaven! The Devil caused the first division in the universe. That is why God cannot bless division – it tore Heaven apart. But it is also the reason why where there is unity, he commands the blessing. When we see division on every hand, we know the Devil is at work.

• Pro EU, anti-EU 
• Pro Brexit, anti-Brexit
• Woke
• Climate change
• Extinction rebellion
• Pro vax, anti-vax 
• Pro Israel, anti-Israel, etc.

2.   Deception. The Devil deceived Eve. He is a liar from the beginning and the father of all lies. We need to be very aware that he will attack our unity with deception as he did with God and Man in the garden.

      3.  Delusion. Eve, and then Adam, believed a lie. We must be sure that we don’t also buy the Devil’s lies. We need to do as Jesus               did and confront the Devil with scripture. We have a choice to believe his lies, which is what the world says or thinks, or we can             believe in the word of Jesus.

 In Deuteronomy 6, we read that the Jews are instructed to bind God’s word on their forehead, between their eyes, and on their hand. This covers what they think, see or do.

In Psalm, David said, “Your word have I hidden in my heart.” (Psalm 119:11)

My message is simple. The enemy knows his time is short. He will attack us with division, deception, and delusion. We can resist all of this if we know the truth, Jesus and his word, and LOVE the truth, Jesus, and his word.

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Love cannot be measured by the pound, the kilo, the yard, or the metre. However, Jesus has given us a clue as to how we can measure love in John 15:13. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

What he was saying is the measure you apply to love is what you are prepared to give up for it, in this case his life.

 As a father, if I had the choice to give up my life in place of my son, I would do it. It would be easier for me to die, than to watch him die. Yet God so loved the world that he gave his son. (John 3:16) 

Note it says that GOD so loved the world. I’m sure Jesus did too, as he is also God, but when you read the Bible, it only mentions Jesus loved those that God gave him. 

How could God conceive such a plan that would involve the death of his son, his only son? It is impossible for me to comprehend. Such was his pain, that on the cross God couldn’t bear to look at his son suffering. This seems like a love even beyond what Jesus mentioned.

 But the wisdom of God was that by causing one son to suffer and die, and be resurrected, he gained millions of sons (and daughters).

In Hebrews, we hear that, “For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” (Hebrews 2:10)

 In the face of such love, such sacrifice, it is understandable that God would be angry at those who spurn and reject his son, and those who openly mock, and curse him.

However, for those who receive him, the Bible says, “But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to them that believe in his name.” (John 1:12)

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Deception is when someone else causes you to believe something that is untrue. Delusion is a false or irrational belief that you hold yourself.

 In these days of ‘fake news’ and deliberate misinformation, we are all subjected to propaganda, and it is hard to determine what is true and what is false.

 It is understandable for people to be deceived when so much false information is given to us, but the best defence against deception is the truth. 

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life” so when things don’t accord with his word, reject it! If things sit uncomfortably in your spirit, then doubt it. Check it out with the word of God and trusted friends.

In some ways delusion is self-deception. You convince yourself that something is so because you either want to, and it suits you to believe it, or because you haven’t taken the time to check it out.

The Bible talks about this further in 2 Thessalonians 2:10 where it explains that deception is used to fool many people on their way to destruction, as they don’t want to accept the truth which will save them.

The antidote to deception or delusion is the truth. Jesus is the TRUTH.

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The story of Christmas has captivated people for centuries. It tells of the birth of Jesus and has quite a few main people and groups involved.

1. Mary and Joseph
2. The innkeeper
3. The wise men
4. The shepherds
5. King Herod

All of these characters represent the different attitudes that people have toward Jesus today.

1. Mary and Joseph: loved Jesus – as Christians love him today.
2. The innkeeper: was indifferent and only thinking about his business.
3. The wise men: understood that the birth of Jesus was an important event that would change history. They travelled a great distance to find the baby, because they wanted to see him, and be involved in some way.
4. The shepherds: just happened to be there and were fascinated by the spectacle.
5. King Herod: hated him and wanted to kill him.

WHICH ONE ARE YOU?
Heaven is reserved only for those who love him and seek him.

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