The Trekkers Bible Blog

Today's service can be found here

Baptism of Nikki Gould and Christine Coakes. 24 June 2007. Mark 2:13-17. Includes Nikki and Christine's stories. Graeme talks about what Jesus offers us - and how accepting his offer will change and expand and enrich our lives.

Saturday's reading is Revelation Chapters 21 and 22

He said to me: It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. - Revelation 21 vs 6 and 7

I shall ponder this today, and post some thoughts later. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Tim

Thursday's reading is Philippians 2 vs 5-11

We talk about 'being humbled'. It's not something that we usually have any control over. Infoplease gives the meaning of humble as "to lower in condition, importance, or dignity; abase."

But Jesus humbled Himself. He lowered His own condition, took Himself out of the continual presence of God the Father,and became a man. Not an important man, not a king or a priest, or a teacher; he became a normal workman.

But that was not the end of the humiliation. He was then humbled still further when He was handed over for arrest, when the crowds called for His death, when He was executed with common criminals.

He gave up all His glory and lay in a borrowed tomb, somewhere for the body to rot. It wouldn't take long in that hot climate, the owner of the tomb could bank on the process being completed long before he needed it back.

But that is not the way it worked out. Jesus did not rot in the tomb. He was not forgotten as a criminal, he was not left on this planet. God raised Him back up to His right hand. And it is this exalted Jesus that we worship, the Jesus that was not ashamed to die a criminal's death so that we might live with the Father in heaven forever.

Tim

Thursday's reading is Ephesians Chapter 1

This is a truly wonderful passage! There's so much in it. God chose us before the world began (4). He gives us redemption by the blood of Christ (7), forgiveness of sins by God's grace (7 again!). Adoption in God's family (5), the gift of the Holy Spirit (14). Verses 3 to 14 in one way read like the index to a theology book. Themes are introduced and dismissed in two sentences, with a desperate hurry to get on to the next theme. And yet there is nothing list-like or indexy about the passage. It is full of the most amazing passion. This isn't a theological text, this is pure passion for Jesus shining through!

Paul goes on to tell the Ephesians about his prayers for them. He constantly gives thanks for them (16) - there's a challenge for us. How often do we simply give thanks for our fellow believes. He prays that the Holy Spirit might help them to know God better (17), and understand better the calling that they have (18).

Paul devotes the last 5 verses to the headship of Jesus. Christ was raised from the dead, and now sits at God's right hand (20) There has never been, nor will there ever be, anything or anyone more powerful than Jesus (21). He rules over everything (22) and He is the head of our church, which is called to be His body (22-23).

I doubt if there are another 23 consecutive passages in the bible that cover so much of our faith. If I were to be washed up on a desert island, and were to find one page of the bible washed up with me, my hope would be that it was this page.

Only three more days to go for our reading plan. Have people been finding this helpful? Would anyone like to carry on, maybe with choosing a book of the Bible to work through? If you have any thoughts, drop me an email.

Wednesday's reading is Acts 2

Jesus had been risen from the dead, and the apostles had all seen Him. This was not some theoretical debate, they knew, they had seen it with their own eyes, and the Holy Spirit was moving amongst them, given them power to reach in to people's hearts.

Peter's words, backed up with the miracle of the Holy Spirit, convicts many listening of the truth of the gospel and their need to repent and be baptized. 3,000 people came to Christ that day. Were they all Baptized that day? I don't know. If they were, then it would have been a massive event that no-one could ignore.

Are verses 42-47 meant as a blue-print to how we should live our lives now? Some believe so, others say that they lived that way because they believed that Jesus would return within a few weeks. What do you think?

Tim

Today's reading is John 1 vs 1-18

Here we have detailed in a few verses exactly who Jesus is, and what the impact of Him coming to live with us is.

Jesus was with God the Father before the world was created, and was a involved in that creation process, and yet, when he came into the world He had created, that world did not recognize Him. But verse 12 goes on to say that anyone who does recognize Him, who receives Him in to their lives and believes in Him, will become a Child of God, born again, but this time of God.

We don't always like the term 'Born Again Christians', but that is all the New Testament has to offer, there is no other way of being a Christian. Jesus tells Nicodemus

"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

In our society, being a "born again" Christian is usually taken to mean playing guitars, clapping in church and insisting on turning every conversation round to Jesus. But this is not the Bible's view of being Born Again. To be Born Again is to place Christ central in your life, to die to yourself and to live for him. It's got nothing to do with what songs you sing or the style of worship you enjoy.

Being born again is like having a heart transplant. You no longer live for yourself, but Christ lives in you. But the practical outworking of this can be a slow process, slowly becoming more like Jesus. How-ever, we do need to ensure that our progress, whether slow or fast, is in the right direction!

Tim

Monday's reading is John 20

"Who is it you are looking for?" That was Jesus' question to Mary Magdalene, and also the question that the gospel asks us today.

Mary knew exactly who she was looking for. She just was able to recognize Him when she saw Him. Why was that? Was it because Jesus, who she had seen dead with her own eyes, was the last person she expected to see. Was there some protocol that said women do not make eye contact with strangers, which kept her from looking and seeing. I don't know, but for a couple of seconds, Mary did not recognize her Lord, but when she did, she was filled with joy and rushed to tell the other followers.

And what about us? Who are we looking for? Oh, we know that the person we are looking for is Jesus. The key question is, are we looking for the Jesus that Mary and the disciples knew, or are we looking for some idea of Jesus that we have made for ourselves? Are we looking for a Jesus who will tell us to take no purse on the journey, or one who will tell us to play it safe. Are we looking for a Jesus who will over-turn the tables in the temple, or one who won't impact too much on what we choose to do. Are we looking for a Jesus who demands we give our lives to Him, or one who makes us feel good about ourselves on a Sunday morning?

Today's sermon can be found here.

A Father's Legacy. Lynn Green (17 June 2007). 1 Kings 1:1-12. On Father's Day, Lynn examines David's advice to his son (and successor as king), Solomon. It is important to remember the advice we have been give, but it is more important to filter that advice through our knowledge of what God wants for us. Sometimes we are less than perfect in our fatherhood, we don't meet even our own expectations. But God loves us, understands us, and is with us - he understands us and is able and willing to help us bridge the gap between reality and our expectations. So we can have hope for the future.

Sunday's reading is Matthew 26 vs 17-29

These are some of the most familiar verses in the Bible, repeated weekly in churches around the planet, it is hard not to become over familiar with them.

Here the true purpose of Jesus' life and ministry become clear. Finally the disciples should have understood. Jesus' body would be broken, his blood shed for the forgiveness of sins, and the result would be that his followers would celebrate with Jesus in Heaven.

These words have a massive impact on our lives, on what will happen to us, and on how we should live our lives as a result. We should never grow comfortable with these words. This is where we have to be open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can present you with a bible passage that you have literally read a thousand times, and present you with a new, deeper understanding of it.

Tim

Todays readings are Matthew 26 vs 36-38 and Matthew 27 vs 11-54

It is hard to believe that this is the same Jesus that the crowds were following in such great numbers that he had to get in a boat, or climb a hill so that everyone could hear. This is the same Jesus that the crowds had watched raising Lazarus from the tomb, and the same Jesus that they had thrown palm branches in front of on the road to Jerusalem.

Now it was clear that the powers that be had turned against Jesus, and so it was far safer to play follow-the-leader and turn against him themselves.

This is a very real choice for some people in the world today. In the last century it was a choice for the people of Russia and China, give up your faith because that is what the government decrees. Now in parts of the world it is dangerous to remain a Christian as Islamism, the radicalization of Islam, takes over the function of government.

We live in a time when it is very easy to follow Jesus. No one excludes us from school because we follow Jesus, health care is not denied us. My prayer is that if this situation changes, my faith may be firm and I will not deny Jesus - whatever the cost.

Tim