3oth December

Christ is the strength of our heart

Psalm 73:26 My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

"What Christian has not at times found himself ready to halt and faint by the way. Temptation seems to steal upon him like a charm. He finds his spiritual strength very low, his resolution weak and he feels as if he should give way to the slightest temptation. He finds himself empty, all weakness and trembling. Were it not that the strength of his heart interposes in time he would doubtless realise in his experience his worst fears.
But who that knows Christ has not often also experienced his faithfulness under such circumstances and felt an immortal awaking, reviving and stength taking posession of his whole being? Christ the stength of his heart develops his own almightiness within him. Christ has girded him to the battle and made strong the armso fo his hands with the strength of the mighty God of Jacob." (Finney)

December 29th

Christ our Sanctification

Christ is not the Sanctifier in the sense that he does something to the soul that enables it to stand and persevere in holiness in its own strength. He does not change the structure of the soul but he watches over and works in it to will and to do continually and this becomes its sanctification. His influence is not exerted once and for all but constantly. When he is apprehended and embraced as the soul's sanctification he rules in and reigns over the soul in so high a sense that he, as it were, swallows us up, so enfolds, if I may say, our wills and our souls in his, that we are willingly led captive by him. We will and do what he wills in us. He charms the will into a universal bending to his will. He so established his throne in us and his authority over us that he subdues us to himself. He becomes our sanctification only in so far forth as we are revealed to ourselves and he revealed to us and as we receive him and put him on.

What! has it come to this, that the Church doubts and rejects the doctrine of entire sanctification in this life? Then, it must be that it has lost sight of Christ as its sanctification. Is not Christ perfect in all his relations? Is there not a completeness and fulness in him? When embraced by us are we not complete in him? The secret of all this doubting about and oppostion to the doctrine of entire sanctification is to be found in the fact that Christ is not apprehended and embrace as our sanctification." (Finney)

Boxing Day

Governor

"We also need him revealed to the soul as the one upon whose shoulders is the government of the world; who administers the government, moral and providential of this world for the protection, discipline and benefit of all believers. This revelation has a most sin-subduing tendency. That all events are directly or indirectly controlled by him who has so loved us as to die for us; that all things absolutely are designed for and will surely result in our good." (Finney)

December 27th

Prince of Peace

"Whoever knows and has embraced Christ as his peace and as the Prince of peace knows what it is to have the peace of God rule in his heart. But none else at all understand the true spiritual import of this language, nor can it be so explained to them as that they will apprehend it, unless it is explained by the Holy Spirit." (Finney)

December 28th

Captain of salvation

"The fact is that when the soul is ignorant of Christ as Captain or Leader, it will surely fall in battle. If the Church, as a body, but knew Christ as the Captain of the Lord of Host; if he were truly and spiritually known to them in that relation, no more confusion would be seen in the ranks of God's elect. All would be order and strength and conquest. They would soon go up and take possession of the whole territory that has been promised to Christ." (Finney)


God bless


Carol

Christmas Day

Mighty God

" What is Christ to anyone who does not know him as God? To such a soul, he cannot be a Saviour. It is impossible that the soul should intelligently, without idolatry, commit itself to him as a Saviour unless it knows him to be the true God. It cannot innocently pray to him nor worship him, nor commit the soul to his keeping and protection until it knows him as Mighty God. To be orthodox merely in theory, in opinion, is nothing to the purpose of salvation. The soul must know Christ as God- must believe in or receive him as such. To receive him as anything else is an infinitely different thing from coming and submitting to him as the true and living and Mighty God." (Finney)


O come let us adore him
Christ the Lord

Happy Christmas

Carol

23rd December

Wonderful

"The soul needs to be needs to be so aquainted with him as to excite and constantly keep awake its wonder and adoration. Contemplate Christ from any point of view and the wonder of the soul is excited. Look at any feature of his character at any department of the plan of salvation, at any part that he takes in the glorious work of man's redemption; look steadfastly at him as he is revealed through the gospel through the Holy Spirit at any time and any place , in any of his works or ways and the soul will instantly exclaim, WONDERFUL!" (Finney)

24th December

Counsellor

"Until he is known and embraced in this relation it is not natural or possible for the soul to go to him with implicit faith in every case of doubt. Almost everybody holds in theory the propriety and necessity of consulting Christ, in respect to the affairs that concern ourselves and his Church. But it is one thing to hold this opinion and quite another to apprehend and embrace Christ so spiritually in the relation of counsellor as naturally to call him Counsellor when approaching him in secret and as naturally to turn to consult him on all occassions and in respect to everything that concerns us and to consult him too with implicit confidence in his ability and willingness to give us the direction we need." (Finney)

21st December

Risen for our justification

"We also need to know Christ as risen for our justification. He arose and lives to procure our certain acquittal, or our complete pardon and acceptance witn God. We need to know that he lives and is our justification to break the bondage of legal motives and to slay all selfish fear , to break and destroy the power of temptation from this source." Finney

22nd December

Man of sorrows

"The clear apprehension of Christ as being made sorrowful for us and as bending under sorrows and griefs which in justice belonged to us tends at once to render sin unspeakably odious and Christ infinitely precious to our souls. We need to have Christ revealed to us so as to completely ravish and engross our affections that we would sooner die at once than sin against him, Is such a thing impossible? No it is not. Is not the Holy Spirit able and willing and ready thus to reveal him upon condition of our asking in faith? Surely he is." Finney

Name above all names

This week has been manic so I must admit that I haven't had time for an in depth study of Leviticus. However I am also acutely aware of the danger of ignoring the one in whose name all of this activity is done and every year I look for the things that God wants me like Mary to ponder on and treasure. And this year I picked up Finney's book on sanctification and found a book full of the names of Jesus. So if I can remember to post them I will put a different name on up to Christmas Day until 12th night.

December 20th
Substitute
"It is one thing for the soul to regard the death of Christ merely as the death of a martyr and an infinitely different thing as every one knows who has had the expeirence to apprehend his death as a real veritable and vicarious sacrifice for our sins, as being a substitute for our death. The soul needs to apprehend Christ as suffering on the cross for it so that it can say, "That sacrifice is for me, that suffering and that death are for my sins, that blessed Lamb is slain for my sins. If a full apprehension and appropriation of Christ cannot kill sin in us, what can?" (Finney)

God bless

Carol

Christmas Rush

I suddenly realised that is is almost two weeks since I posted but like everyone else I'm caught up in the whirlwind of Christmas and all the extra stuff that happens.

There is a lot going on and sometimes it all seems such a hassle and then you get those lovely moments that make it all worth while. Here are just a few.

Dave, a "gentleman of the road" turned up this weekend. He usually does this time of year and has spent a number of Christmas Days with us. The good news is that he won't be with us this year. I am delighted not because he is bad company, (in fact we will miss him) but because he is going to spend Christmas with his Dad. This is fantastic news. Please pray he won't get drunk and blow his chances of repairing this relationship.

Jack, aged 12 and a junior soldier did his first stint of carolling this year, having been learning to play tenor horn for the last 8 weeks. OK so he isn't ready for the ISB but he did really, really well considering how long he has been learning. He stood proudly in his army hoody, refusing to cover it up with his coat and enjoyed himself so much, he can't wait for next year!

There was something quite wonderful about singing "Who is he in yonder stall" on Sunday morning. It was one of those koinonia moments when Jesus really is at the heart of the worship.

Today someone put a donation through our door today. It was for a £1000!!!!

We have had an email from fellow God's Messenger, Major Joan Gibson who is a senior midwife at Howard Hospital, Zimbabwe. The good news is she has got her work permit for another 3 years and her students have done really well but there are lots of challenges. She writes of just a few.
" The hospital continues to be very busy and although the official statistics show that the national HIV rate is down to 18% we are still seeing a lot of people who are postive. At present we have around 600 patients on anti-retro viral treatment and another 300 waiting for drugs. Drugs have been in short supply recently and as a result we have not been able to start any new patients on treatment. The situation changed last week and we have now been informed that we can start 6 new patients per week. The drugs make a huge difference to peoples lives so it great to have them again.

A couple of months ago a the police brought us a little boy who had been delivered down a Blair toilet not far from the hospital. He had been fished our the pit by a man who had been passing by and heard the baby crying. The poor baby was very cold and extremely dirty but the staff cleaned him up and I was able to provide clothes and some powdered milk. We called him Makonborero, (Blessing) and everyone loved him. I was concerned that he might have brain damage from being cold but this did not happen and very quickly all his bruises healed and he started gaining weight. I just hope he is not infected with HIV. He has now gone to a children's home in Harare, where I hope he does well. It was sad to see him go but we couldn't keep him on the labour wared forever.

Inflation is extremely difficult to deal with. Last Friday I bought some groceries and by Tuesday of the following week they had all more than doubled and them by Friday of this week they were up again! When you receive your salary you spend every cent because tomorrow it will not be worth very much. It is extremely difficult for the hospital to survive in this climate with food and cleaning materials rising every day. We spend the whole week phoning round looking for need drugs but they are no where to be found. This week there is no milk."

Think I know where our Carol Service collection might go this year.

God bless

Carol

Skint

Earlier in the year my daughter Hayley and I really got hooked on this TV programme about people living in poverty in the UK. It was not that we enjoyed watching other people's misery but that the characters in this brilliant documentary were so wonderful.

Yesterday I bought my Big Issue and noticed that there is a new series starting on Monday on BBC 1 at 10.45pm Don't miss it.

The Big Issue article about the series points out that whilst there are less people sleeping on the streets than there were ten years ago there are still 100,ooo people who are moving endlessly between hostels, B&B's and sofa surfing friends houses. They have a roof most nights but no security, stability and are often forced to live in very difficult conditions among sometimes dangerous people.

I know that this is true I hear the stories from prisoners most weeks.
For example there is Dave(not his real name) who having suffered abuse from his family as a child ended up with a speech impediment. He left home to escape but found it difficult to form friendships because of his lack of social skills. Through loneliness he got into a drinking culture with his work mates. He couldn't handle this and when drunk and overwhelmed by the memories of his past he got angry and committed an act of vandalism. On release from detention he was sent to a bail hostel where he was introduced to speed and ecstacy. He is now once again a guest of her majesty. On release he will probably have to go to another hostel with other people with a drink problems or addiction. Will he cope? Will he reoffend? What do you think?

The Big Issue ends its article by saying that the solution to homelessness is never just a roof over someones head but addressing the problems that got them there in the first place. How right that is.

God bless

Carol