EQUATIONS

It always seems so strange to me that anyone could die, For someone he had never met. It’s hard to ask, “for why”? I didn’t ask Him for it. And how could any man, Give His life for everyone. I’m sure no person can. I’m only just one person. I can’t equate to two. So I could die for someone else, but not for you and you. I’m only just a creature. My life’s not worth much more. To give it for another man, that is an equal score. But for a dozen people, it couldn’t ever do. No matter how good I have been, I’ll never equal two. It’s physically impossible. I may be canonized; Perhaps a huge success in life in everybody’s eyes. I’m only just one person. Perhaps I’ve lived sin free. I cannot give my life away for any more than me. Check the mathematics. One man is only one. Forget your university, that’s how it’s always gone. One person is one person. It’s never two or three. So only one man in this world could ever die for me. So how did Jesus do it? How can His maths make sense? Or is my way of thinking outdated and quite dense? It rests upon the value of what equates to man. A hundred thousand elephants, do you think that they can? How many goldfish must I give to pay you for your son? The blood of all the animals; could they make the deal done? Of course that isn’t possible. One man is worth far more, Than all the animals that lived back to the days of yore. If you can see this logic then kindly tell this to me. How many human beings lives equate to Deity? It seems to me that Jesus’ life is worth far more than mine. One hundred thousand Englishmen don’t equal the Divine. Which means the very life of God is more than all the men, Or people who have ever lived no matter where or when. So now my mathematics is making sense to me, Mankind can never equal the Christ of Calvary. So Jesus Christ was able to give His life for you. In fact His is the only life that possibly could do. And as He gave away His life. It was far more than mine. For that’s what God intended and that was His design. So Jesus Christ could give His life for all humanity. And He can be the Saviour of you as well as me. Jim Strickland – written Friday, 22 July 2011

CIRCUMCISION SONNETS

It only took a little tiny snip

To demonstrate that someone was a Jew.

The priest would take a very steady grip

The knife would flash - then nothing more to do.

Of course it was uncomfortable and sore.

Especially for any full grown man.

But it would show the covenant once more

According to the Father’s master plan.

This little piece of overhanging skin,

When it had been rightly cut way,

Showed to everyone his kith and kin.

A practice they are doing till this day.

A member of God’s family revealed

But from the general public’s eyes concealed.

Jim Strickland - written Thursday, 21 July 2011

-oOo-

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We wonder what the practice meant at all.

It was no benefit to any man

The evidence was visibly small

But God the Father put it in His plan,

To show His covenant to everyone.

The Lord declared it was compulsory.

Unless this “operation” had been done

A man was not a Jew, not properly.

And so the boys were circumcised when they

Reached the time of being eight days old.

That’s when this piece of skin was trimmed away.

And they could be admitted to God’s fold.

From the days of Abraham till now

Jewish men have kept this sacred vow.

Jim Strickland - written Thursday 21st July 2011

MAN OF SORROWS

He was a man of Sorrows, a man of deepest grief; A man the world was told about whose life was rather brief. You’d never know by looking that He was God Most High. That He was on a mission to come to earth and die. It seems a contradiction. Could God Himself come down? What reason was there for it? The question makes us frown. We didn’t see things happen when Adam slipped and fell. We didn’t know the difference twixt Heaven and of Hell. No person could have told us. The witnesses were few. The serpent and with Adam’s wife. No other person knew, That what had happened recently would change the world around. That in his disobedience, the source of sin was found. What were the implications? There was another king, In charge of God’s creation, and Adam did nothing. The devil had usurped him, and now he was in charge. There couldn’t be another way while Satan was at large. But God knew all about it. He knew what would occur, And that the devil’s victory would prove to be the spur, To repossess the kingdom by someone God would choose. The devil thought his victory was what he couldn’t lose. But God knew all about it. He had a plan in place, To overcome the devil and save the human race. He planned to send a Saviour no one would recognise. He would be God in overalls and He would win the prize. There’d be a minor conflict which God Himself would win. And in His overcoming, He’d smash the power of sin. God wasn’t in a hurry so He could bide His time. The devil thought that he had won his masterpiece in crime. But Father God knew better. He knew He wouldn’t lose. So just as Adam slipped and fell, God handed him the news. It wouldn’t be forever for He had set the date, When He would send His Son to Earth to settle Satan’s fate. And so six thousand years went by, all under God’s control, Then Jesus Christ came upon the scene and scored the winning goal. The devil tried to kill Him. He didn’t get it right. For Jesus had God’s Spirit and couldn’t lose the fight. He came and let His light shine wherever sin was found, And when the dust had settled, then He was heaven bound. And all of those who trust Him will reign eternally. With Father, Son and Spirit as one great family. Jim Strickland – written Wednesday, 20 July 2011

THE BIRTH

The silence had been deafening for many, many years. Malachi had prophesied and then he disappeared. Four hundred years of silence. No word had come from God. They’d thought about their homeland and thought that it was odd. Why had the Lord been silent? Where was His awesome power? Had He gone on a journey? Too long they’d had to cower, Subjected to the foreigners who ruled the Holy Land. There had to be a better way to follow God’s command. Yet deep down in the spirit of only just a few, There was a kind of buzzing, suggesting God would do The thing which He had promised so many years ago. Messiah would be with them as God had told them so. The daughters of the nation; the ones who were not wed; Were asking, “Could I be the one of which the prophets said?” The virgins who descended from David’s royal line, Were hoping they would be the one, their child would be the sign. Not many young girls qualified. A handful; little more; Their son could be Messiah. It thrilled them to the core. But most were disappointed. There was no reason why. They only knew that one of them would carry God Most High. And then one night it happened. A little teenage girl, Was doing what she had to do, her mind was in a whirl. Before her was a visitor. The Angel of the Lord. He told her she was favoured; and great was her reward. For soon she would be pregnant; her child would be God’s Son. She knew that it would happen, but how would it be done? She would be overshadowed by the Spirit of the Lord. The baby Whom she would bring forth was Israel’s great reward. Did anyone believe her? Let me put it this way. If your young teenaged daughter came up to you to say, That she was impregnated; This is what God had done. I think I’d tell her quietly to pass me the shot gun. I’d go and find the scoundrel who’d treated her this way. And when I get my hands on him, he’ll surely rue the day. I’m not sure I’d believe her. All babies have a dad. To blame the whole thing on the Lord, I think you must be mad! Would that be your reaction? It proves you’re not a Jew. The nation was expecting it. But would my daughter do? Would she be favoured highly? Or was she just a slut. She better soon get married was churning in my gut. Two thousand years have come and gone since Mary heard that day The message of the angel. It all worked out that way. Indeed she was the woman; Messiah was her Son. The news the angel brought to her indeed it had been done. Creation’s great designer had chosen Mary’s womb. To break into this sinful world and spell out Satan’s doom. Jim Strickland – written Tuesday, 19 July 2011

BEING A SHEEP

It’s really not important what we think about the Lord. There’s all sorts of opinions that people could afford. But do they really matter? Oh Yes indeed they do. But God is not the subject of either me or you. I may think He’s a tyrant with a face as black as sin. I may think He is beautiful locked up inside a tin. But all of my impressions don’t alter Him at all. He’s Lord of all creation regardless of my call. But if I want to follow Him, I need to understand, I have to think about Him the way that He has planned. It’s not so much a question of what I think of Him. What is much more important is what He thinks of Jim! He says He is our shepherd. This means I am a sheep. It’s isn’t complimentary but something I must keep, Constantly before me as I follow where He leads. If I wander off then I will miss out on my feed. It means I’m very stubborn. My hearing’s rather poor. He knows there’s a solution that will absolutely cure, The problem of my waywardness. He simply breaks my paw. Then picks me up and carries me till its no longer sore. He winds me round His shoulders. My head is on His heart. I listen to it beating until it is a part, Of living where He takes me. He feeds me from His hand. And when He puts me down again I’ll never leave His band. He takes me to still waters that will not go up my nose. He only has to say my name, then everywhere He goes, I’ll follow him no matter where He is leading me. And when I am in danger He protects me constantly. He keeps me from the lion, the eagle and the bear; And when I am in trouble, I know that He is there. He keeps away diseases caused by insects, bugs or flies. He keeps me warm in winter under cold and dark blue skies. He leads me to green pastures; to verdant fields of grass, Where I can graze in safety and the predators can’t pass. This is the sort of picture that Jesus has of me. He knows my every weakness and how foolish I can be. But even in rebellion I know that He is there; And that He never ceases to hold me in His care. This is the Lord’s opinion. This is the man He sees. A creature with a stubborn streak of vague anxieties. A man who has no talent apart from what He gave, Who’s on a lifetime journey from the cradle to the grave. A man who has a need for Him I do not understand. A man whom He has rescued from the journey of the damned. Who doesn’t understand it. Why He did this for me? He thought I was important. His reason I can’t see. Jim Strickland – Written Monday, 18 July 2011

JONAH

Of all the Bible stories that we hear about today, The strangest of the lot of them is all about the way,

A prophet of the Israelites was sent to Nineveh,

To tell them their ungodliness had gone a bit too far. The people of Assyria were exceptionally cruel. The masters of the Middle East is where they had their rule. They attacked and murdered those who tried to tell them “No!” They seemed to have no pity wherever they did go. Any who resisted them were killed a special way. Impaled upon a stake until their life had drained away. They treated victims dreadfully with hooks pushed through their jaws, And many other cruelties, the Word of God deplores. The nation was a bully. They did just as they chose. And very few survivors remained when they arose. Then God spoke to His prophet. To Jonah and He said. Go and warn the Ninevites that soon they will be dead. In forty days I’m planning to tear the place apart. They’d better start repenting for judgement soon will start. Now Jonah was reluctant. He didn’t want to go. “If God destroys the Ninevites, that’s what I want to know. So if I go and warn them and they turn their lives around. The Lord God will forgive them and in safety they’ll be found. We know about the story of just what happened next. He took a boat to Tarshish which made Jehovah vexed. God thus made an arrangement with a big fish in the sea, To take the prophet Jonah to the place he aught to be. The story is a strange one but God got His prophet there. He walked into the city and they listened to his prayer. God would not bring judgement if the people would repent. They’d better all get on with it for God said what He meant. We know that Jonah stood aside so he could get a view Of what the God of heaven to Nineveh would do. He really couldn’t wait to see the city torn apart. For that is what he wanted way deep down in his heart. Then when it didn’t happen he was madder than a snake. The Ninevites deserved it for all their victim’s sake. So Jonah was disgusted. His word from God had failed. They all had been forgiven and their prayers had prevailed. Jonah wasn’t happy. He wanted them to die. He couldn’t wait to see them individually fry. His journey had been fruitless. The Lord had let them go. And in his intercession he even told God so. For they had been forgiven Just as he thought that day. He thought it was the proper thing for God to do His way. But Jonah was reminded of God’s mercy and His grace. And those who have repented, God’s judgement will not face.

Jim Strickland – written Sunday, 17 July 2011