Behaviour

 Time with Jesus - 13 Aug 2013

Hi all,

Today’s meditation is on the topic of behaviour. It was written 29 years ago as a result of my observation of what was taking place in and around where we were living. Today’s Scriptures strongly reminded me of that poem. I’d like to say things are different today.

Basically, behaviour is acting on what we think. We do what we think is right or, in some instances, what we think is wrong. Many factors influence our thinking. e.g. Teachers, parents, societal norms and God. It should be God only.

One of today’s Scriptures states: - ⁸ "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. ⁹ For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT. It’s a strange statement concealing more than it reveals.

Firstly, God states that His thoughts are nothing like our thoughts. At first glance we are tempted to say, “OK Lord, we know that. So, what’s for lunch”? It’s the sort of superficial language we use so often about things we think we know. 

We are accustomed to our own way of thinking. We want to make a decision, so we marshal all the facts in our minds; then we try and find the most appropriate course of action in the circumstances. For us, it’s our normal thought process. It’s the best we can do anyway. We are compelled to make a decision and can only do so based on what we know. In a way, it’s what keeps most of us honest.

For example, we think about robbing a bank. We decide not to do so; based on the fact that God forbids it! For those who do not fear God, His opinion doesn’t matter. So they think about the next possibility. It’s illegal and will attract the “unwelcome attention” of the police. 

It seems that “fear of repercussions” keep most of us honest. We don’t want to disobey God and/or we don’t want to end up in jail. In both cases it is a thought process. For many, the possibility of our robbing a bank has been pushed so far into the background; we don’t have to think about the “dumb” idea. This is because we know the repercussions and don’t fancy them.

The issue here is that we “know” the answer without “thinking”. Now, God knows everything. He doesn’t have to “think things through”. He knows. No matter how complex and convoluted the question might be, He can give the answer instantly, without even having to think. So what exactly are His thoughts? What does He think about? It’s a good question. We are trying to establish the thought process within the Trinity! One thing we can say. It’s nothing like ours at all.

Secondly, He tells us His ways are higher than our ways. He adds “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways. The words to look at are “as the heavens are higher than the earth”. This is also an astonishing statement. By how much are the heavens higher than the earth?

Man has walked on the moon and we have sent spacecraft into the immense void of the cosmos. Recently, on TV, there was a photograph of earth taken from a spacecraft. I can’t recall how many trillions of miles it was from the earth when the picture was taken. 

The commentator needed to point out a little pinprick of “light” behind the distant spacecraft. Without him, we would never have guessed which “pinprick” was earth. They all looked the same. We were told the spacecraft will continue on its journey indefinitely. It will never get to the end of space because from mankind’s perspective, there is no end. We speak of space being “infinite”. It cannot be infinite. Only God is infinite.

By how much are the heavens higher than the earth? Forgive me for saying it’s “infinitely higher”. I don’t have a phrase or a word to describe the difference, so “infinity” has to do. Furthermore, from our vantage point on earth, the heavens are “infinitely higher” than the earth.

What then do we conclude? God has indicated the difference between Himself and us. What's more, since He has put “thoughts” and “ways” together, It confirms He is infinitely “higher” than we are. It boggles the mind. How is it possible, for Someone infinitely higher than we are in thoughts and ways, to love us? 

If we think back to the photograph from space, where earth is little more than a pinprick of light, we begin to see the magnitude of the difference. In spite of this, He loves and has said so in His Book.

We can say we believe something because God has said so. This should be sufficient. We don’t have to understand it! We have to trust Him and do it. That is good Christian behaviour!

Shalom,

Jim & Phyllida Strickland

Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give		Time with Jesus – Tuesday, 13 August 2013			Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give
©	These devotionals are the intellectual property of Jim Strickland and copyright protected. You are welcome to copy and distribute them to anyone provided it is for non-commercial Christian purposes					©
	BEHAVIOUR - 1		DAILY LIGHT EVENING SCRIPTURES	BEHAVIOUR - 2
There's such a contradiction in things that I have seen. The sinners love each other and say just what they mean. When something doesn't please them, they speak and spit it out. Perhaps they're not God's children, but that's what love's about! They do not judge each other. They know they all fall short, Of how they know they ought to live. They do not resort, To sifting through the Bible to find out what it says, And then draw a comparison with all their brother's ways! They do not use The Word of God as some form of excuse, For leaving people helplessly to suffer man's abuse. They do not spend their waking hours, holding in their fist, Some doctrinal barometer or spiritual checklist. Few of them are hypocrites; They do just what they feel; Following their consciences with fervency and zeal! It's true they are not 'Christians'. They do not 'Praise The Lord', But sometimes it occurs to me, THEY should get the reward! We Christians have missed it! We've heard all about love, But in our 'willingness to serve', we push and pull and shove Anyone who's different right out of the way. We cannot help each other because we have to pray........! We have to go to 'meetings', organised at 'Church' And leave our friends and neighbours alone and in the lurch. It seems that all that's missing are our phylacteries, For most of us behave like the Scribes and Pharisees. Even all the artefacts and clothing that we wear Are frequently selected to make the sinner stare; And gaze in admiration as we walk proudly by, Pretending that we're 'holy' with noses in the sky. The language we keep using is pious and a pain. The sinners know we're different and most of them complain, About the way we witness. They say it’s 'verbal stones', Thrown by 'whited sepulchres, filled with dead men's bones'. It seems there's little difference between the things You saw, When, Lord, You dwelt among us. Except, perhaps, we're more Adept at self-deception. Religiosity, Is just as much in evidence, as what You used to see. It's just the mode that's altered; our ways are more refined; Our 'brand' of legalism's doctrinally defined;			28 God chose things despised by the world; things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 1 Corinthians 1:28 NLT	All is compartmentalised, clinical and pure, Organised and marketed and packaged to ensure, That everything is perfect; designed and guaranteed, To meet specifications, religious men decreed! O Lord! Where is Your Spirit? Why have we gone so far, From what, in the beginning, You wanted? Lord, we are, Exactly what men stated ... Pious, pompous freaks, Peddling religion and stealing from the weak; Living as it pleases, in immorality, While paying our lip service to what we know should be. Only You can change us. Only You know how, To help us see what we should be, right in the here and now. Lord please consecrate us to being what we could; To live as men and women, who really love You should. Father, dedicate us to being, day by day, The love of God incarnate to all along the way; To crucifying everything that doesn't glorify, The God of all Creation. Lord Jesus, please draw nigh And take away religion. Replace it with a verve, To serve You, Lord and Master, with sinew, bone and nerve. All that we comprise of, Lord, please purify, In order that, in what we are, with You, we do comply. Mould us by Your Spirit; Bring us to our knees; Modify our attitudes and make us what does please. Until the final product is Christian in fact. Not Religious Thespians whose life is just an act! Jim Strickland – Written 1984
			9 Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people--none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT
			1 Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. 2 You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil--the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. 3 All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God's anger, just like everyone else. Ephesians 2:1-3 NLT
			5 He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. 6 He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Titus 3:5-6 NLT	This 1984 poem seems as fresh today as it was 29 years ago. Almost nothing has changed. Sadly I find myself stumbling into this sort of thing too often. What makes it a bigger problem is we fail to see our own behaviour in this light. The English say, “The pot is calling the kettle black”. Recently the Lord has been whispering the word “rebellion” in my ears. First Samuel states: 22 Samuel said, (to king Saul) "What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. 23 Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the LORD, He has rejected you as king."1 Samuel 15:22-23 NLT. I rather suspect The Lord is asking all of us to check out our behaviour. Are we in any form of rebellion and/or stubbornness? Jim & Phyllida Strickland 13th August 2012
			8 "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT

DEATH SENTENCE

Time with Jesus - 12 August 2013

Hi all, 

WWI Soldiers

For Phyllida and me, the Bible is the most wonderful book ever written. What makes it so important is the author. Sure, lots of men and women argue about who wrote it. We have no fight with them arguing about the man or woman, who held the pen or whatever was used to write with. For us, the human author is irrelevant. We know that the one, who held the pen, was so “tapped in” to God the Holy Spirit, every word in the original language was His.

WWI Graves

Please don’t ask us how it was done. If we could answer that question in such a way that others could also “do it”, we’d be able to spend what little time is left for us, feeding all the world’s hungry people! Not being able to “do it” is very comforting. It proves that we are very ordinary people. We have no illusions of grandeur. We are fully aware that if the Lord tarries, one hundred years from now we will be forgotten. We will be little more than a microdot on discarded pages of history.

More WWI Graves

I mention this is because we have been watching a DVD series of six episodes about World War I in colour. Watching it is a very humbling experience. Next year will mark the centenary of the outbreak of the “war to end all wars”. The DVD includes pictures of masses of nameless people; those who have “strutted and fumed their hour upon the stage and now are seen no more.” (Shakespeare - Macbeth – courtesy memory!)

Their Name Liveth

The DVD’s does not mention many people by name. Some of those mentioned were well known; perhaps prominent in their day. Men like Asquith, Kitchener, Ludendorff, Joffre and “Kaiser Bill”. Many other names are only remembered by the words or names on their gravestones or written up in a sea of half-forgotten people.

Just after the retreat from Mons and the victory of the Marne, the English Poet, Laurence Binyon wrote his well know poem, “For the Fallen.

A "Sea" of Names of
The Fallen

He recounted, “I was set down, out of doors, on a cliff in Polzeath, Cornwall. The stanza "They Shall Grow Not Old" was written first and dictated the rhythmical movement of the whole poem. The following is an extract: They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.

The line he was referring to inspired the establishment of “TocH” an international Christian movement. The name is an abbreviation for Talbot House, 'Toc' signifying the letter T in the signals spelling alphabet used by the British Army in World War I. The founders were Neville Talbot, then a senior army chaplain, and the Reverend Philip Thomas Byard (Tubby) Clayton. Talbot House was styled as an "Every Man's Club", where all soldiers were welcome, regardless of rank. It was "an alternative for the 'debauched' recreational life of the town". (Courtesy Google)

TocH Memorabilia

Sadly, we don’t remember them. We set out with good intentions. We erect monuments and mausoleums dedicated to remembering them. But, we don’t remember them.

Personally, I’d like to visit the WWI cemeteries. They are sanctuaries dedicated to the fallen young men and women in the fields of Belgium, France and elsewhere. No doubt Phyllida and I will read some of the names on the graves and on the monuments erected in their honour. Don’t ask me who they are. I haven’t a clue. Perhaps we will find our surname or my wife’s maiden name engraved somewhere?

The real tragedy is, in spite of our best intentions and the cunning of our minds and hands, we do not remember them. We cannot. We do not live in the past. We live in the here and now. The only thing we seem to learn from history is that we don’t learn from history!

Rev P T B "Tubby" Clayton

I suspect that God’s word was written with this in mind. We are mortal. We do not live forever. We do not have “living memories” of the things which transpired 100 years ago and more. This very problem is why God inspired men and women to write the Scriptures. Without the Bible, Jesus Christ would be little more than a half forgotten name on someone’s wall of remembrance. The Bible changes that completely. Thank you Lord.

Shalom,

Jim & Phyllida Strickland

WWI Soldiers 1914-1918
By now all will have departed

WWI Photograph
Mud, Snow, Disease & Enemy Guns Took Them

The Risen Lord Jesus Christ
He Lives Forever!

Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give		Time with Jesus – 12 August 2013			Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give
©	These devotionals are the intellectual property of Jim Strickland and copyright protected. You are welcome to copy and distribute them to anyone provided it is for non-commercial Christian purposes					©
	INTRODUCTION		DAILY LIGHT EVENING SCRIPTURES	DEATH SENTENCE
Heroes and super-heroes. We live in a world which admires heroics and shuns cowards. It’s not really surprising in a world that has gone through two world wars in the past 100 years. If we try and add to these the other “international conflicts” we notice that our world thrives on conflicts and death. Anglo-Boer, Korea, Viet Nam, Arab-Israeli, Kosovo and the rest, we begin to ask if there has ever been a time when war has not been in vogue. It’s strange that we shout and sing about peace. But the one thing this world does not experience is peace. The world established the League of Nations and later the United Nations with the intention of attaining peace. But peace is still a pipe-dream. Satan thrives on man’s inhumanity to man, greed and torture. So while he runs the world, the only place we will find peace is in the hearts of believers and in the dictionary. As a youngster, my hero was Superman. Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Gotham City were more familiar to me than most world leaders. Mom even made me a Superman outfit for the local fancy dress contest. I didn’t win. There were probably other boys wearing the same outfit. Then we had the Saturday morning “bioscope”. The youngsters from all over Port Elizabeth would meet at the “Grand” to swap comics and watch the latest edition of our hero. Mostly it was Tarzan, Batman and Robin, Superman and the inevitable Western. Who remembers “High Noon” starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly? It came out in 1952. I’m not sure how many times I sat through it. Later it became standard viewing at least once per year on British TV during the Christmas season. For many years I wondered why we had such a fascination for superheroes. After Becoming a Christian in 1960, the “penny dropped”! Everyone is looking for a superhero. But there is one! His name is Jesus Christ. As God, He is the superhero of all superheroes! Suddenly the deeds of many of the Biblical heroes began to make sense. Every one of them in their day stood against evil and oppression of some sort. In today’s Scriptures, four are mentioned by name. Ehud, Shamgar, Gideon and Zerubbabel. What the first three did is recorded for us in the book of Judges. No doubt most are familiar with the deeds of Gideon and Samson. These are firmly etched into our memory. But what about the deeds of the other Judges? How many can you remember? I have to refresh my memory by going back to the Bible! To find the name Zerubbabel among the list of superheroes is a bit unusual. What was so special about him? His name is one of the very few men in the list of Jesus’ ancestors after the Babylonian captivity. Two lines are quoted in Luke and Matthew. The one line lists Mary precedents. The other Joseph’s precedents. What is so important about this? It illustrates the difference between what is important to man and what is important to God. Zerubbabel is important to God. We think in terms of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and other little men who litter the pages of history. Men who we think have achieved great things. To God, the most important people are those through whom Jesus descended. Thus Zerubbabel is the most important person to Him from the Babylonian captivity to the birth of Jesus! Jim & Phyllida Strickland			27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27 NIrV	Ehud; Shamgar; Gideon; were Judges in their day. Ehud was left handed and killed Eglon in this way. Shamgar killed the Philistines, six hundred with a stick, That’s used for herding oxen. It wasn’t just a trick, Gideon was hiding in a winepress threshing wheat; There wasn’t any other way his family could eat. But they were all assisted, when God was on their side. The enemy discovered that it was their time to hide. Throughout the book of Judges, the story’s much the same. God came to deliver when people called His Name. The problem was their lifestyle. They’d slip and would backslide. The enemy would then return.  They couldn’t be denied! Right through the Old Testament the story changes not. And when they’d been delivered, they very soon forgot, That God came to their rescue. Just like a round-about, The story was repeated. The cure was, “Be Devout”! The kings they chose to rule them were very much the same. Some of them were very good. The bad ones got the blame. The problem was idolatry; they broke the Lord’s commands; So they were invaded and went to foreign lands. The Father brought them back again, so that they could restore, A sample of the glory they’d known so long before. Kings were not permitted. A governor would do. They built the temple once again, the walls rebuilt as new. Zerubbabel was leader; he would have been their king. But they were not permitted to have that very thing. They’d learned a great big lesson while in captivity. Don’t pursue the things that will annoy our Deity! Idols were forbidden, and images were out. The priests had all concluded, it was far beyond a doubt, That it had been idolatry that had led them all astray. They vowed it wouldn’t happen to them again that way. Instead they started worshipping God’s pure and Holy Law. They added several fences in ways not done before. These became traditions, which they would never break. Then Jesus came and told them that they should all forsake, These little bitty extras than none of them could do; Unless they had the money to help them see it through! Of course, they were offended. “Get rid of Him they cried!” And this became the reason why God was crucified! How sad to be a people who worshipped God Most High And through their misplaced zealousness, to sentence Him to die! Jim Strickland Written 12th August 2012
			15 Again the people of Israel cried out to the LORD. Then he gave them a man to save them. His name was Ehud, the son of Gera. Ehud was left-handed. He was from the tribe of Benjamin. The people of Israel sent Ehud to Eglon, the king of Moab. They sent him to give the king what he required them to bring him. Judges 3:15 NIrV
			31 After Ehud came Shamgar, son of Anath. He killed 600 Philistines with a sharp stick used for herding oxen. So he, too, rescued Israel. Judges 3:31 GW
			14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!" 15 "But Lord," Gideon replied, "how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!" Judges 6:14-15 NLT
			2 The LORD said to Gideon, "You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to Me that they saved themselves by their own strength. Judges 7:2 NLT
			6 Then he said to me, "This is what the LORD says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of Heaven's Armies. Zechariah 4:6 NLT
			10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Ephesians 6:10 ESV