There's Somebody at the Door!

May 2021

We have all heard it said, or said it ourselves - " drop by anytime, we would love to see you" or "call me and we will set up a time to get together" and it just never happens.  Maybe you don't really think they mean it, they are just being polite. After all, look where they live and I only rent a small apartment. While the person who lives in that nice place who would love to get to know you feels ignored, not relevant when they would love to bless you with their hospitality and their life experiences and just hang out.

I know that I have sometimes wondered what would have been different in my life if I had taken up some of those offers.  What would I have learned from other people's experiences and wisdom that may have saved me from learning the hard way.  And then there are those others whom I would have loved to help and give guidance to because I could see ahead of time the sadness they were heading into by doing those things that were not a good choice.

There is another person who knows exactly how that feels.  The Bible says in Revelation 3:20 “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.(NLT). Yes, Jesus wants to come and share his life and love and wisdom with us.  He wants a one on one relationship with all of us. He came to earth as a baby, and grew to manhood and showed by demonstration of his daily life, how much God our Heavenly Father loves us and wants the very best for us.  We read the story of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John where we see Him welcome the children, heal the sick, challenge those who thought they had it all together, and lift up those who were down trodden.  He said that he came to the world to preach the message of good news to the poor in spirit, to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the burdened and battered free and announce that it was God's time to act in the lives of his people. You can read that in Luke 4:18.

Jesus is waiting at the door of your life to bring good things to your life.  To release you from guilt and remorse and sickness and give you a hope for the future because God's plan for your life is to bless you and give you a future to live for.  But he always waits for you to open the door. God respects your right to say Yes or No. That's the way he designed it.

David and Cherie Rodway

How Relevant is the Bible and God in the 21st Century?

April 2021

Have you noticed how fashionable it is for the younger generations to quickly dismiss the relevance of how life used to be in recent generations. "Well we don't do it that way any more"' "we have an app for that now". Their eyes seek only the screens of their devices.  Is it really true that thousands of years of history should now be discarded for the fast moving yet unsure future of cyberspace? The current directions of this new thinking is that we discard tradition and culture that has been the glue that held mankind together through wars and famine; through good times and bad; through revolution and triumph; but now? God is who or what we want to create in our mind? How can that be an anchor to life when it is a product of finite minds?

Hebrews 13:8 states that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and I don't believe we have arrived at the end of forever.

When the Creator of the heavens and earth is still vitally interested in the peoples of this earth.  When He still longs for the gift of His Son to be accepted by us and bring us to a place of open fellowship with God again. When He will move circumstances and people and events to ensure we have opportunity to hear or read or see the good  news of Salvation, you can be certain of this one thing.  God is still on His throne above the Heavens and His eyes are still going to and fro above the earth looking for those whose hearts have a longing to embrace His love and follow His Word and find the life that is eternal.

Yes, the Bible and God are intrinsically intertwined with today and today's people. The truths of the Bible are totally relevant to our lives today.  We still get into trouble; we still have disappointments; we still have despair and sickness and broken relationships and crushed dreams. These were the problems that the children of Israel faced time and time again, and Psalm 107 says that they cried out of their distress and God heard them and delivered them.  And then look a few years later and they have turned their back on God and followed their own dreams again only to find disaster and out of their distress they called on God and He heard them, saw their remorse and delivered them. 

And today, with all our immense knowledge and modern statements, we still get into messes and have disasters and disease and disappointments and out of the midst of all this we can call on God and invite Him into our mess and He will move in our lives in love and direction and His strong hand will lift us up to life in Jesus; reborn and reshaped by the power of His Holy Spirit and He will deliver us.

David and Cherie Rodway

Exchanging our Impossible for God’s Possible.

March 2021

What pushed and shaped us into the life we find ourselves in today? Was it our intention to be where we are right now? If not, what seems to be the cause? We graduated from the education system,; possibly fell into a job, and into a variety of influential people relationships.  Perhaps with a short-term goal of having a good time or, in some of our cases the future seemed to have no relevance, and as for preparation for it we had no encouragement or ignored the advice of others.

We all long for what many today call lucky breaks. Just one would be enough. It seems our mind sees these opportunities as being out of our control and if they do exist, they rarely come along.

On the other hand, books with titles like the ‘Power of Positive thinking,” “Move ahead with Possibility Thinking,” abound. They point to our mind as the make or break point to achieving in this life. Teaching of this kind identifies systems of thinking which topple obstacles and enable answers to flow from right attitudes.

But there is another source of achievement, the spiritual, where the Bible states with God nothing is impossible. Jesus Christ defined this further when he said that our wants which are beyond our reach, impossible for us to obtain, are possible with God.

What is the right way to live? How do we get God on our side? How do we get to believe right? What is faith in God? Can God answer all our wants in this life? Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith we will never please God. Whoah! Sounds serious.

That is when we turn to Romans 12:3 and find that God has already given equal measures of faith to everyone. So our problem is not to find faith but learn how to use it.  How we should operate this faith of God.  Romans 10:17 advises that this faith comes strong in us by hearing the Word of God.  This means reading it; speaking it; listening to messages unravelling the truths contained in scripture.  John 1 tells us that Jesus himself was the 'Word' come in the flesh. He spoke only what he heard his Father speak and did only what his Father instructed him to do. And when it was time for Jesus to return to his Father, the Holy Spirit was released to teach us and guide us in the knowledge of God through the written Word.  We will know how to use the faith God has given us when we ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding when we read. To give us listening ears when we hear sermons and encouragements spoken.  He, the Holy Spirit is the umpire in our heart that keeps us in the game.

David and Cherie Rodway