Today’s Scrip-Bit   1 October 2023   1 Corinthians 3:11.

01 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 Corinthians 3:11. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

And a fine welcome to all you faithful believers in Christ Jesus on this bright, warm and sunshiny Sunday morning, the first day in the month of October! And what a day it is to join with other believers to praise and worship our great God! And to open our celebrations, today we’ll be singing an oh so important song, so relevant to these times of apostasy, of turning away from Christ, of significant bickering and division in Christ’s church. It’s aptly titled, ‘The Church’s One Foundation.’ So, with sincere, heartfelt emotions, let’s raise our sacrifices of praise to high heaven in a soulful mid-tempo version of this marvellous and ever important of our Christian hymns. 

Singing: ‘The Church’s ONE foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord, She is His new creation By water and the Word: From Heav’n He came and sought her To be His holy bride, With His own blood He bought her And for her life He died. – She is from every nation, Yet one o’er all the earth; Her charter of salvation, One Lord, one faith, one birth; One holy name she blesses, Partakes one holy food, And to one hope she presses, With every grace endued. -The Church shall never perish! Her dear Lord to defend, To guide, sustain, and cherish, Is with her to the end: Though there be those who hate her, And false sons in her pale, Against both foe and traitor She ever shall prevail. – 

Though with a scornful wonder Men see her sore oppressed, By schisms rent asunder, By heresies distressed: Yet saints their watch are keeping, Their cry goes up, How long? And soon the night of weeping Shall be the morn of song! – ’Mid toil and tribulation, And tumult of her war, She waits the consummation Of peace forevermore; Till, with the vision glorious, Her longing eyes are blest, And the great Church victorious Shall be the Church at rest! – 

Yet she on earth hath union With God the Three in One, And mystic sweet communion With those whose rest is won, With all her sons and daughters Who, by the Master’s hand Led through the deathly waters, Repose in Eden land. O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we Like them, the meek and lowly, On high may dwell with Thee: There, past the border mountains, Where in sweet vales the Bride With Thee by living fountains Forever shall abide!’ 

Ah mih people, that was a wonderful rendition of the song, but do we ever for a moment stop and truly think what it’s all about and how it came to be written. Let’s answer the last part first. ‘”The Church’s One Foundation” was composed as a primary answer to the division within the Church of South Africa generated by John William Colenso, first Bishop of Natal, in the mid-19th century, who denounced much of the Bible as untrue.’ There we have it again, foolish divisions within the church, just like we are having today. Now, if a Bishop of Christ’s church can say that the Bible, on which the faith is built is untrue, what do we expect from ordinary believers eh? 

‘When Bishop Colenso was dismissed for his teachings, he pleaded to the higher religious authorities in England. It was then that Samuel Stone became included in the discussion. It sparked him to draft a set of hymns based on the Apostles’ Creed in 1866. He titled it, Lyra Fidelium; Twelve Hymns on the Twelve Articles of the Apostles’ Creed. “The Church’s One Foundation” is based on the ninth article, The holy Catholic Church; The Communion of Saints. Music by Samuel Sebastian Wesley 1810-1876.’ So that’s how the hymn came to be born. 

And what’s it about? ‘”The Church’s One Foundation” is a Christian hymn written in the 1860s by Samuel John Stone. This hymn describes the church’s relationship to its “foundation” being Jesus Christ. The church is represented as the collective Christian fellowship of the earth as it is wholly united by its Saviour, the Son of God.’ And that’s the gospel truth friends! Yes, we all know that the Church is ONE BODY…at least it’s supposed to be. And whom is it supposed to be built on? Obviously Jesus Christ, the one who founded it! 

Remember Jesus’ statement to His disciples when He asked who they thought He was, and Peter admitted ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter (Petros – little rock), and upon this rock (Petra – large rock) I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ (Matt. 16:16-18) 

And we all know the controversy as to whether Christ was referring to Peter himself as the rock, although in the original Greek it seems to use two different words, Petros and Petra, meaning small and large rocks. The important thing though is that Christ was going to build Himself a strong and powerful rock-like church, in which Peter and the other apostles would play a large part. 

And I like how Dan Doriani puts it in his article on the subject. ‘Jesus blesses Peter’s confession, “for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” God’s revelation gives Peter “holy joy.” Jesus continues, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. Jesus will build his church on Peter’s confession… Thus, Jesus is saying that hell’s defenses will not thwart the church’s progress. The church will advance and prevail through the confession that Jesus is Messiah and Son of God. Jesus is the church’s founder and builder, yet Peter has a role.’ 

And on that solid rock we stand my fellow saints! And furthermore, Jesus also made it clear that His church would not only be for the Jewish people, but for the Gentiles as well, when He said: ‘And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold (flock), and one shepherd.’ (John 10:16) And that’s why Bruh Paul taught that ‘The Christian church is like a human body. It is one individual organism made up of many different parts that serve a wide variety of functions. All those functions matter.’ (1 Cor. 12:12-14) 

And that’s what we have to understand and accept friends, that we all are important in our own way, but our ONE devotion is to build Christ’s church. And how we do that? By using Christ our founder and leader as our cornerstone. Thus, as Peter filled with the Holy Spirit declared (yesss!!!) to the Jewish council that had arrested him and John for preaching Christ crucified and healing a lame man: 

‘Be it known unto you all, and to the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of (rejected by) you builders, which is become the head of the corner (the chief corner stone). Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.’ (Acts 4:10-12) 

Oh my people, how I wish that in these evil and ungodly times we could be as bold, brave and courageous as Peter was back then, and stand up strong for Christ. And we ought to be, because we have the same Holy Spirit dwelling in us that enabled Peter to stand up before the Jewish Council, who had authority to put him away and even kill him. But no such body exists today in our society, so why are we so passive and uninterested in standing up for Jesus eh? Why are we allowing Christ’s church to fall apart eh, with so many divisions and disunity, when we’re supposed to be ONE, united body, built on one foundation, as Bruh Paul writes to the Corinthians. ‘For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.’ (1 Cor. 3:11) 

Please friends, let’s remember that as we go about our business this week and do our best to bring unity back to Christ’s church, if we sincerely want the gates of hell not prevail against it! Much LOVE!

…behold …I lay in Zion…a chief cornerstone…elect (chosen) and precious…and he that believeth on him…shall not be confounded (put to shame)… (1 Pet. 2:6) 

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Today’s Scrip-Bit   6 May 2023 Matthew 28:19a.

06 May 2023 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Matthew 28:19a.       Go ye therefore and teach (make disciples of) all nations,

Well, at long last a sunny day without any foreboding clouds! Glory be my people! And there couldn’t be a better day for it than this lazy-day Saturday which is all consumed with the crowning of King Charles and Queen Camilla. Brother, that will be fodder for the news mills and social media for weeks to come. Especially since they’ve now become a somewhat dysfunctional family through the public spectacle that’s being brought on by Andrew’s and Harry’s antics. 

Now that’s not totally true, for like any other family, they’ve always had problems, remember the days of Princess Margaret, who flouted a lot of the royal traditions. But I guess back then, the news media was not as nasty, vituperative and greedy as they are now, neither were there the many current outlets of social media. Everybody will have their own take on the subject, and every real or imagined scandal will be dragged back into the public’s eye, though very few will ever know the true reality of the situation. 

And what we all fail to realize is that they are people, and people don’t always get along, although they might have close ties together. They’re no different to any other dysfunctional family in our society, though they hold a loftier position than most, but that doesn’t make them immune to the problems that befall all of us. And not everybody can keep a stiff upper lip and strong backbone for as long as the late Queen did. And though we expect the Royal Family to meet a higher standard than ordinary families, the saying, you make the children but not their minds, goes for them as well as for all of us. 

Times change and so do people. And we’ve become such full-fledged hypocrites, that we just LOVE to criticize others, when we’re doing the same thing, or even worse. Yes, we’ve become a weak, over-critical, permissive, compassion-less, entitled, drama -filled society. And unfortunately, it will only get worse, unless and until we supposed believers in Christ Jesus, develop some kind of unity and stand up and fight the evil and nastiness that’s overwhelming our world. 

Ah friends, I know that seems like a huge and somewhat impossible task, but we know that with Jesus in our corner, ALL things are possible. And furthermore, it wouldn’t have been this bad if we had come together earlier and stood up as one and fought the enemy mano-a-mano, instead of sitting on our fat fannies through, fear, indifference or whatever caused our lack of involvement. Now, though the task has become more difficult, it’s still not too late to begin doing something worthwhile. 

But we have to begin RIGHT NOW! We can’t put off our serious involvement in Christ’s LOVE Revolution any longer. And the first and possibly most important move is becoming a unified, rather than divided church. For the enemy will just keep dividing and conquering us, if we don’t unify and stay unified. Whatever happened to Jesus’ promise that upon the rock, the body of believers, He would build His church eh? 

When Jesus asked the disciples: ‘But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. and I say unto thee, That thou art Peter (a stone), and upon this rock, (large rock) I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ (Matt. 16:15-18) 

Now, contrary to popular opinion, Jesus didn’t mean that He was going to build His church on Peter, but on all the disciples, the work and doctrine that they would go out and make known to the world. And this is corroborated by the fact that Jesus said the same thing to them all later on when teaching them how to deal with a trespassing brother. ‘Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ (Matt. 18:18) 

Oh my fellow believers, Jesus is depending on us to build the church. He is the rock or solid foundation on which we are to build. It’s all based on Peter’s confession, that Jesus is indeed ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And His promise that the ‘gates of hell shall not prevail against it,’ ensures us that death and evil will not permanently overpower the Church. But to accomplish His wish, means we have to go out and continue what the disciples begun; to spread His word, His doctrine, His wonderful philosophy. In other words, carry out the Great Commission which He assigned to His church, to His followers right down through the ages, until whatever time He returns. 

And we all know what the Great Commission is, but just to refresh our memory, (smile) let’s proclaim it again nuh. Jesus instructs the disciples. ‘All power (authority) is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach (make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ (Matt. 28:18-20) 

And it’s obvious that as the body of Christ, His church, we have sadly fallen down on carrying out that commission, otherwise the world would not be in the sad and sorry, evil and ungodly state its currently in. And we’ll close today with a couple of definitions and explanations by the scholars of the church and the Great Commission. As per the church, they say: ‘The word church is a translation of the Greek word ekklesia, meaning “called out” or “assembly.” In the New Testament it usually refers to a local group of Christians. 

In this sense a church is an assembly of baptized believers under the discipline of the Word of God. They are organized to carry out the Great Commission, the administration of New Testament ordinances, and the exercise of spiritual gifts. When a group of Christians today follows this example, it is a church in the biblical sense of the word. In the New Testament, Christians assembled as churches for fellowship, instruction, and worship, and to carry out the Great Commission. Every Christian should follow the example of New Testament believers by identifying with a local church, and getting involved in its ministry.’  That tells us we can’t be true believers unless we are associated with a local church and are involved in its ministry. 

And as per the Great Commission, the scholars say: ‘The controlling purpose of the local church is to make disciples of all kinds of people. Those who are evangelized and converted should then be baptized, attesting to their identification with Christ and the local body of believers. The final phase of the Great Commission is to train disciples in Christian knowledge and for effective service. A church cannot choose one aspect of its responsibility and neglect the others. The Great Commission is a simple command with three steps – evangelism, baptism, and education. Every Christian should determine that his ministry for Christ in the church upholds God’s objective for that institution.’ 

And now that we are more enlightened as to the purpose of the church and the Great Commission, (smile)  let’s spend some time today pondering if we, and the local church we belong to are indeed following the ideals noted above. And if not, let’s do our best to bring them into line. Much LOVE!

…each chain is as strong as its weakest link…the same goes for Christ’s church… 

 Hear our podcast at https://open.spotify.com/show/3aVfqIC1CqwGybISs9dZ