Every Day

“You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

Matthew 5:9 MSG

We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them.

2 Corinthians 5:16‭-‬20 MSG

“It is the devil who is a troublemaker; it is God who loves reconciliation and now through his children, as formerly through his only begotten Son, is bent on making peace.”

John Stott

The strife that is being caused by people panic buying and Londoners coming to Cornwall is our opportunity to be peacemakers and bring God to troubled hearts.

May the God of peace
bring peace to this house.
May the Son of peace
bring peace to this house.
May the Spirit of peace
bring peace to this house,
this night and all nights. Amen

“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

Matthew 5:6 MSG

Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”

John 14:6 MSG

Though the cherry trees don’t blossom and the strawberries don’t ripen, Though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted, Though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty, I’m singing joyful praise to GOD. I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God. Counting on GOD’s Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. I feel like I’m king of the mountain! (For congregational use, with a full orchestra.)

Habakkuk 3:17-18 MSG

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

1 John 4:7 MSG

No and you shouldn’t either.

Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh. Exodus 7:7
Just take that in Moses was 80 and Aaron 83! And a rough estimate of Joshua’s age when starting his ministry is around 80! He entered the promised land and with God conquered the lands and then at 110 he died.

So, the challenge for you today is to decide will you rust out or go out with a bang. I have been a youth worker for over 30 years now and I have discovered that age doesn’t matter, it is not how you dress or how you speak, it is who you are. Young people need meaningful relationships and people who will empower them. Age doesn’t matter. Coolness doesn’t matter.

The best youth worker I met was a woman aged 74 who met with two young people and baked cakes with them. She was brilliant. She even baked fairy cakes with them. The surprise was that the two people were leaders of a large and violent gang and she took these two under her wing and baked fairy cakes with these gang leaders. They loved it and it didn’t matter to them that she was 74. I would not have thought that baking cakes would have brought about a transformation. She led both young people to Christ.

No God doesn’t give up on you, society might but you have work to do in God’s kingdom. He asks you to go not to rust!

As you leave this place
may the Living Lord go with you;
May he go behind you, to encourage you,
beside you, to befriend you,
above you, to watch over you,
beneath you, to lift you from your sorrows,
within you, to give you the gifts of faith, hope, and love,
and always before you, to show you the way. Amen

The Anglican church in Cornwall is going through a rather dramatic and damaging change. It has decided to create 7 ‘mega-churches’ across the county, allowing smaller churches to die. The idea is that when the small local church dies they will go to one of these larger churches, reducing running costs across the county.

But church to me is local and it is small and it is large and it is medium in size. Church is a translation of the Greek word ekklesia which means an assembly or called-out ones. The irony is that the meaning of church has nothing to do with buildings and everything to do with people. Paul refers to church as a body of believers in Romans 16 v 5, “Greet the church that is in their house.” It is a localised ministry. A number of believers gathered together under one roof.

Wherever you are today I pray God goes with you and when you are asked where did you go on Sunday you will say, “I went and met with my brothers and sisters to worship Jesus, as the church.”

In our ministry to the young people of Lerryn we hope to build an outdoor church, you read more at Raising church in Lerryn.

May the God of peace
bring peace to this house.
May the Son of peace
bring peace to this house.
May the Spirit of peace
bring peace to this house,
this night and all nights. Amen

GOD wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important—the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. GOD stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery, freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know this: GOD, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. But he also pays back those who hate him, pays them the wages of death; he isn’t slow to pay them off—those who hate him, he pays right on time.

Deuteronomy 7:9 MSG

God shows us through his deeds that he is worthy to be trusted. Faith is our attitude and response to this faithfulness. Faith is all he requires from us.
Right now, how much we need it and how firm we might be if we responded to God with faith. And when we choose faith God responds with his blessings. Choose God today and watch his response.

I lay my head to rest,
and in doing so,
lay at your feet
the faces I have seen,
the voices I have heard,
the words I have spoken,
the hands I have shaken,
the service I have given,
the joys I have shared,
the sorrows revealed,
I lay them at your feet,
and in doing so
lay my head to rest. Amen

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

James 1:19‭-‬21 MSG

There is a branch of gardening that mimics how a forest works, simply called food forest or permaculture. The idea is to observe and follow the rules of a forest. We garden following this principle, so we use a mulch to suppress weed growth, to retain water and prevent soil erosion. We live in a new estate with the soil in the back garden being of poor quality and many of our neighbours chose to fill their garden with compost and other soils to promote growth. We chose to mulch and to farm our garden in this style. Within months this approach paid dividends as we saw worms arrive from nowhere and our plants and trees took to this style of gardening.

God created me and he understands and knows the best way to help me grow and flourish. He will water and feed me through his word which I need to be reading. Co-operating with God will help me in my daily walk with him.

May you have –
Walls for the wind
And a roof for the rain,
And drinks bedside the fire
Laughter to cheer you
And those you love near you,
And all that your heart may desire

There’s more: God’s Word warns us of danger and directs us to hidden treasure. Otherwise how will we find our way? Or know when we play the fool? Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh! Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work; Then I can start this day sun-washed, scrubbed clean of the grime of sin. These are the words in my mouth; these are what I chew on and pray. Accept them when I place them on the morning altar, O God, my Altar-Rock, God, Priest-of-My-Altar.

Psalm 19:14 MSG

There is a negative interpretation for these verses but if we look at the reverse we find something much more positive.
The reverse is that our words can bring grace, healing and encouragement to the hearer whether that is God or our fellow travelers on the journey of life. In the UK today I find less and less people saying Good Morning and how are you to each other, and so as I set out each day I choose to say hello and hopefully bring a smile to people’s lives.

If there is righteousness in the heart,
If there is righteousness in the heart,
there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character,
there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
there will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
there will be peace in the world.
So let it be. Amen