As of Dec 6th, 2009 the invitation to the gospel meetings below are now over. Over the six weeks (4) souls professed faith in Christ. To God be the glory! May their lives prove they are indeed possessors of Eternal life.
Our regular Sunday night gospel meeting will continue every Sunday night at 7pM.
When was the last time you prayed for specifically and directly for wisdom? If you are like me, you don’t do it nearly often enough. Just imagine what a day would be like if you could go through it having perfect wisdom to act on every situation that arose. You would make no mistakes in judgment or action; that would be wonderful! But we don’t have such perfect wisdom, do we? Even though God promises us that he will give us wisdom if we ask Him for it (James 1:5). Our lack of wisdom and our failure to ask God for wisdom when we need it makes us prone to mistakes and failures. But when we turn to God, we find that He is wisdom, and therefore will and can never make mistakes. In the great organizations and corporations around us, leaders are those who make the most decisions while making the fewest mistakes. We need to hand over leadership to God, because He makes every decision without ever making any mistakes.
What decisions do we need to make regarding our lives? We tend to go with our own feelings and desires when we make up our mind about something. If we would commit the matter to God, we would make the decision without error. This applies to matters in our personal and family life, to matters concerning our work or school, to issues relating to God’s Assembly, to our thought and prayer life, to our Bible study, to the issues on which we need to have firm convictions. These things all require wisdom. And it is possible to make the right decisions about them all. Our text speaks of the only wise God. He is the only One who is always wise. And He is willing – and desirous – to share that wisdom with us.
I have a decision to make, and so do you. Decide with me that you will begin today to regularly and specifically ask God to give you wisdom. Whenever decision time appears, pray for wisdom. And expect things to be different. -Jim MacIntosh
Though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly, but the proud He knoweth afar off. Psalm 138:6
When K.C. Irving died, an incredible variety of people showed up at the funeral home to pay their respects. Mr. Irving was a billionaire industrialist who made his fortune in the energy, forestry, and services industries, and during his 92 years encountered many thousands of people, most of whom he knew on a first-name basis. I was sent to interview some of the people in the lineup at the funeral home. The premier of the Province of New Brunswick was there. So were many of the current and former government ministers, and the heads of the largest companies in the city and in the province. But so too were some of the ordinary people with whom one would never associate the name with that of a billionaire. I spoke with a retired janitor whose job was the clean the floors of Mr. Irving’s headquarters. He told me Mr. Irving never passed him in the hallway or encountered him on the street without pausing to chat about family, weather, and the issues of the day. Other people of humble means told me the same types of stories. Mr. Irving apparently never encountered anybody who was beneath the dignity of his company. Mind you, he was also comfortable in the company of great leaders and men of power, and he skillfully used his friendship with them to his advantage. So he was only partly like the God of Heaven in His relationship with people.
Compared to God, Mr. Irving was a pauper. The One Who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and the wealth in every mine is the holder of all resources and power. He is the only One who is worth knowing, and yet, to know Him, we must not aspire to wealth and power, but to humility and poverty. Those of us who can make a case for getting no respect in this world can rest assured of the respect of the Almighty.
This is not a small thing to know and understand. This is a tremendous lesson for us to grasp. As those about us engage in name-dropping, bragging about the wonderful people who they know, we can send up a little prayer of thanks that we know the One who is greater than all.
Pride is the greatest sin. It’s also foolish to be proud because we have nothing to be proud of. God appreciates the lowly, because they are honest about themselves. Are you? -Jim MacIntosh
Written by Murray McCandless
The first Italian bus to boast an atheist advertisement rolled out earlier this year, or should I say, tried to roll out. No sooner had the bus — carrying the message, “The Good News Is There Are Millions of Atheists in Italy; The Excellent News Is They Believe in Freedom of Expression” –- hit the streets of Genoa when it suffered battery problems and had to go straight back to the depot for repairs.
”It was by pure chance, a freak thing,” the newspaper quoted a member of the Italian Union of Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists. He went on to say the vehicle left the depot bright and early but had to go straight back because of a ‘curious’ problem with the battery system.
The group’s new ads are a variation on their original campaign launched in Washington, London and Spain, which read — “The Bad News Is God Doesn’t Exist. The Good News Is You Don’t Need Him.” King David said in Psalms 53:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.
Some of you may remember Dave Dravecky, former pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. At the peak of his career in 1991 he lost his pitching arm to cancer. Those who watched his 1989 comeback will never forget the Montreal game. Dave’s left arm snapped with a deafening crack that could be heard in the stands. The comeback quickly ended. It was a devastating experience. It is bad enough to have cancer, let alone face the amputation of an arm, but then on top of that, to lose a promising career as a major league baseball player. Naturally Dave was filled with many questions.
During his struggles, letters of encouragement poured in from all over the country. Most were letters of encouragement. Some were looking for answers to life’s questions. They had seen him keep his faith, and they wanted to know how he had done it. But one day he received this letter:
Dear Mr. Dravecky, If there is a God who cares so much about you, why did he allow you to have the surgery in the first place? I have lived 41 years in this old world and have yet to see any piece of genuine evidence that there is anything real about any of those religious beliefs you talk about. God certainly does not love me and has never done a single thing to express that love for me. I have had to fight for everything I ever got in life. Nobody cares about what happens to me and I don’t care about anybody else either. Can’t you see the truth that religion is nothing more than a crutch used by a lot of weaklings who can’t face reality and that the church is nothing but a bunch of hypocrites who care nothing for each other and whose faith extends not to their actions or daily lives but is only just a bunch of empty phrases spouted off to impress others?
A cruel letter, isn’t it? How would you have responded to it? He sent a letter to the man and said that he had faced his own doubts and that faith was not always easy. He wrote, “I am convinced that there is a God. That no matter what happens to me, there is a purpose for it and behind that purpose stands a loving, caring God.” Dravecky had come to know the same Lord who came back for Thomas. The same resurrected Jesus who stood before all the disciples and said, “Peace be with you.”
Personally, I question whether any one has ever believed there wasn’t a God. Sure, they may deny him, at times doubt his ways, but deep down, people we have been built as human beings with clear evidence stamped all over our bodies and minds as to who our maker is!
I love the words of John’s gospel in John chapter 17 and verse 3 ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’
Murray A. McCandless 2070 Route 121 Norton NB E5T 1E9 mmccand@nbnet.nb.ca
