“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father. Full of grace and truth.”
(John 1: 14)
This week we sang in our church service, probably one of the best-known hymns ever written, Amazing Grace. As I sang the familiar words, once again I was filled with awe at what those words meant, although written hundreds of years ago their impact has never lessened and as we approach Good Friday and think deeply about what those words really mean, our hearts are profoundly touched and just like the author we are filled with gratitude to our Saviour.
The author, John Newton, had every reason to be amazed at the grace shown to him by Jesus. He was a slave trader in a despicable time of history when humans were traded for money. It is understandable that John Newton would be overwhelmed that Jesus would choose someone like him to die for, but when we look at ourselves, we can also be amazed that the Son of God would choose us.
The also amazing thing about grace is that it continues to pour out upon us continually when we acknowledge Jesus as our Saviour.
“From the fulness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” (John 1: 16)
Paul was particularly aware of how important Jesus’ on-going grace was to us all and constantly reminded the young churches to remember this beautiful gift would bless them and of course us as well and to allow his grace to permeate their and our lives.
“May the Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and hope…” (2 Thessalonians 2: 16)
When we realise that grace is an everlasting gift, we have that feeling of being encompassed by the Saviour’s love every day of our lives and have that eternal hope that John Newton writes about in his hymn.
Yet, when this flesh and heart shall fail
And mortal life shall cease
I shall possess within the veil
A life of joy and peace.
This Good Friday, I am going to concentrate on that beautiful gift that Jesus gave us and to promise to follow the wonderful 
advice Peter wrote to the followers of Christ.
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen” (2 Peter 3: 18)
Perhaps all of us at birth are filled with zeal for self and the importance of being number one. If you have ever watched toddlers first interacting with other small children, how they relate is fascinating to see, as they wrestle toys away from one another and when they can speak, often accompanied by shouting out Mine and Me First. The poor parents constantly trying to teach that all important word, share, or “it is [your/their] turn next”. We do get taught how to lovingly live with one another from a young age.
When Paul is writing to the new churches, he adds another dimension to what this means. He tells Jesus’ followers to honour one another. I looked up the dictionary to check the meaning of this word and this description stood out for me;
Last week my family with their two young children came to dinner at my place and once we were seated at the table, my six-year-old grandson could hardly wait to tell me what they were now doing at their dinner table every night. At first, I was a little confused when he said, it was about roses, thorns and buds. When his mother explained I was thrilled at what their parents were instilling in their children. Everybody took a turn and they had to look hard at their day and find a beautiful thing that had happened (a rose) then they were also allowed to share what had been not so good (a thorn) then to end with, to find a way to encourage something good to happen for the next day (the bud).
When he is writing to the Philippians, he encourages them to rejoice and find roses to thank God for. This even more startling when Paul was writing from prison while in chains. He doesn’t mention how terrible that must be, but rejoices that amid all his agony his witness for Christ has reached the palace guard and not only that, this witnessing has encouraged other Christians to be bolder in how they share the good news;
Again, a wonderful example for us to follow to pray with joy for our families, our friends our church family
Many years ago, my husband and I bought a holiday cabin for all the family to use, on a remote lake with a water frontage. The property was an acre and was covered in stately pine trees. We fell in love with it when we first saw it. When we moved in, I was reading my Bible and came across this verse in Psalm 16 in which the Psalmist was thanking God for the pleasant and beautiful place God had allowed him to live in. When I read it, it became my prayer for this place we had just bought, and I wrote out the verse in big letters and it remained on the refrigerator the whole time we owned it.
My physical boundaries were certainly different, but emotionally I was surrounded by the Father’s love on all sides. He had surrounded me with a loving family to care for me. Loving friends and a supporting church community. I was bound to him by his love. The Lord had promised to never forsake me so he is one of my boundary lines that can never be moved
a child. I often wondered what they meant by that, was it some excuse for behaviour? Or was it some sort of dismissal of their worth? Was it a reason to ignore their contribution to life and to keep them in the background? The other familiar saying was, children should be seen and not heard. On Sunday morning we were singing one of my favourite songs and the end of every verse was this phrase
control our own lives without consulting him as the much wiser parent.
When my children were young, we were given a beautiful children’s book entitled, Love You Forever. It became a favourite (even though we all cried every time we read it), but eventually over the years we lost track of it until my daughter had children of her own and bought me a brand new copy to read to my grandchildren.
portrayed of God as a parent calming us down with his love and singing to us. I love this image and in some of my worst moments I go back and read this verse and it comforts me.
I grew up in Australia, but our culture was very much shaped by our British inheritance and one characteristic of Britain, “The stiff upper lip” prevailed in my family. Emotions displayed in public was frowned upon and if you were going through a difficult situation one did not share it in public but dealt with it privately. Just recently I have been going through a difficult time and felt that I had to pretend in public that I was coping well as my childhood upbringing had taught me.
We too can learn to share our tears with those who are mourning, or in health problems or major financial or family problems, offering them a safe place to do so.
The word, kindness, is tucked away in the list of the fruits of the Spirit and is often over looked for its importance and deeper meaning. “acts of kindness” has become a common phrase in today’s society and of course it is a positive thought to instil into our everyday activities. We have all experienced and appreciated the small gestures of a smile here, an opening of a door, a helping hand with dropped parcels. But when we look into Scripture and check a concordance, it is surprising the number of references to the word we find and the more surprising fact is that they refer to God’s kindness, so when we express kindness to another it is not to express us, but to show others the kindness of God. It is certainly not limited to that sweet smile or helping hand although that is still important.
himself and as he realises that he praises him for letting us all experience that kindness;
Kindness can take on many different forms. Sometimes we may be asked to show kindness to those who annoy us. It may be someone in our office who talks incessantly, it may be an old relative who moves so slowly we want to give them a push to get them going, it may be someone struggling with a mental illness. If kindness is one of the fruits of the Spirit, we can allow it to pervade our actions, so it becomes automatically part of our being.
The word “burden” even has an air of heaviness when we say it, and the immediate thought is something very heavy and we even get a mental picture of someone staggering while carrying a heavy load. The extension of the word, burdensome, sums up our mental picture. When I was doing some research on what the word meant, I found an interesting description of what the word meant long ago, to lay a burden against a person, implied that a court charge had been laid against that person. When one of us today feels burdened by life it can also feel like a charge of some sort or other is hanging over our heads, something worse, looming over us about to happen.
Jesus is very much aware of how life can burden us and knows that carrying that burden can result in great weariness and is willing to carry that load for us.
letter he assures believers that God’s laws were never intended to be burdensome;
Just recently I found a charming cartoon in the newspaper from the series Family Circus. It depicted the little sister kneeling on her bed with hands clasped in prayer and saying, “I think we need to talk”. It was left to the reader to imagine what had prompted her to need to talk to God, but several options came to my mind, perhaps she needed to say sorry for some bad behaviour during the day, or perhaps some thing had happened at school that had bothered her, or perhaps she suddenly realised she had forgotten lately to keep in touch with the Lord and was desiring a fun time sharing with him.
Moses has some very sound advice for the children of Israel before they entered the Promised Land and the same advice is still good for us today
Learning to sit quietly with the Lord without speaking, clearing one’s mind of extraneous thoughts cements our relationship with him, and beginning the day that way, clears the day of all the obstacles and gives us clear minds to cope with whatever comes our way. The Psalmists knew this only too well and advised us to do exactly that