Scripture Treasures

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God ~ Colossians 3:1 How easy it is to lose our focus on what should be our focus – Jesus, Conqueror, High Priest, Lamb of God, Great Advocate, King of kings! Instead, we look at the world around us and see what I wrote about yesterday – hearts that are heavy and burdened. I needed to read this verse today! I hope it gives light to your soul too. We serve a God that is above all others – there is none beside him, he said so himself (Is. 45:5). He created the heavens and the earth, and though we have science trying to put names on how the earth came to be, they still have no solution. God created! Our hearts then, as Paul says here, are to be set on those things from above! Those things are the love of God, the knowledge that his purposes will not be swayed by any human, or disaster, or pandemic, or anything else. Those things are the perfection of God, and his ...

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength ~ Deuteronomy 6:5 In these long days of covid, with all our in’s and out’s of being able to function in our world, I find there is a heaviness around me and in me. Covid is tiring for our whole world, and it feels as though some days all my strength is gone. Perhaps you feel this way too. Perhaps you feel as though another day of hearing all the bad and sad news of covid will just put you right over the edge of your sanity. You are not alone. But I want to remind you of what this verse says. Moses assured the Israelites who were living in the desert places that God was their strength. They were not where they were going yet, and they had come from a place which had held them prisoner and in slavery, yet still in this place in the “in-between” they had trouble seeing ahead. We have trouble with that too. When will we reach the place of endemic? When will we reach the place of speaking face to ...

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy ~ Matthew 5:7 We all need mercy! I know I do. There are times when I just plain mess up. I say something I shouldn’t have said, or I behave in a way that gives the wrong impression, or I just lose control. I am as imperfect as they come! And when I do one of those things that I just mentioned, I need and want mercy. In the same token, I need to be merciful, for as I am not perfect, neither is anyone else. So how I look at you is how I want you to look at me. Mercy is different than grace. Mercy forgives when harsh treatment could be expected. It is to be kind to someone when they don’t deserve it. Grace too is unexpected, but it has more to do with favor which has not been earned. We have the grace of God in our salvation. We have the mercy of God in that we do not get our just punishment. So, if you are merciful, you will overlook and forgive me when I mess up, and I will do the same for you. We need more mercy in our world toda...

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ~ Matthew 28:19 Christ has commissioned us to go and be his Ambassadors in our world to share the good news of life everlasting. We don’t need to put on our preacher’s hat to do this, just be willing to share what Jesus has done for you and for me in our life. How that looks in your life will be different than what it looks like in mine. I know where Christ has brought me from and though I cannot see the end point of my life, I know that what has transpired in the last almost 23 years of my life is much different than what had taken place in the 42 years prior to that. My life was changed drastically when Jesus came into my heart, and so will the lives of those I share his good news with, if they too will receive it. We cannot force people to receive what we share, but we do have a responsibility to share! Matthew 10:33 reminds us of this. Jesus spoke and tol...

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast ~ 1 Peter 5:10 Have you gone through a time of feeling that you have let Jesus down? It may be a situation like Peter’s, where he denied knowing Christ, or it could be that you kept your belief in Him in the background for some time and have neglected to sit with him? Or perhaps you are suffering because of your verbal defense of Jesus and those around you are putting your faith down into the gutter. For whatever reason, you find yourself in a desert place of suffering and you are wondering how you will make it through. Remember that the God of hope is with you always. It is his strength we are to rely upon, and it is in him that our restoration will come. The world may try to defeat us, and the enemy of our soul will play havoc with us at times, but we are more than conquerors through Christ who was victorio...

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17 The Apostle Paul calls us “Ambassadors” for God, for God makes his appeal to those around us, through us. We no longer are to look at each other in the way we did before, but to look at each person as someone Christ died for so to raise them to a new life! We all have a ministry now. We were raised up by him who died for us, and now our life is to be an example to those around us so that through Christ’s power, we can raise them up as well. Our life, our choices, our words, our responses are all ways that we have been given the opportunity to allow Christ’s light to shine through us. God knows our world needs it. Not only in these continuous days of covid, and due to the isolation of this disease which thrusts itself upon us, but these are dark days in this world in general. People in greater margins are turned against God. Even some Christians feel there are many way...

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it ~ Psalm 24:1 This world was created by God! It was created by him, for him, and we are his creation meant to worship him. There is no one above him, as this verse declares. Many today do not believe God created the earth, there was a big bang that suddenly happened and little microcosms began to form together and eventually transform themselves through evolution to walk, and breathe, and communicate. I cannot believe in that type of worldly formation. I know this world was formed by the God who spoke and moved. We have as humans figured out a great deal of scientific information and understanding, but we have never figured out how to create the world. Science cannot tell us why the earth was formed, or what was there before that formation? Especially science cannot tell us how we became a conscious creature, a self-aware creature? Only God can answer those questions! He created us to love us, he created ...

The greatest among you will be your servant ~ Matthew 23:11 What is it to be famous? What is it to be a person that makes a difference in the world around you? Is it to climb the ladder of success, stomping your way up and over any who come in the way? I will reach for the top, so move on over? Perhaps it is to work until I drop showing my boss I am willing to do anything. Not a bad idea…other than the “anything.” If it means you sell your soul, it is not a good idea at all! If I want to be a great preacher, do I have to have a mega church to be one? Only then will I be great? There is in all of us the urge to be important. It is in us from the time we are little. A young child thrives in the “watch me!” atmosphere of being the centre of attention. Within all of us, is there still not that urge, even though we are grown? Yes, it is, unless we have learned from Jesus the art of humility. He is the great teacher of greatness! He who knelt at the feet of his disciples and washed each di...

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love ~ Ephesians 4:2 We are all subject to the grace others may have in their heart. What I mean is that because we are all weak and frail human beings, we are sometimes misunderstood and judged by another, or we just mess up when it comes to what we say and do. As Christ followers, I don’t think we intend to be boisterous in a harmful way toward others, but it may happen. Too often it is easy to become offended by another, or for them to become offended by you. It takes patience and the commitment to slow down and understand where that other may be coming from in their life, for when we do that we can love each other in the way we are told to do. No one can know what is in my heart completely, just as I cannot know what is in another's. I know that I have at times said things knowing what I meant even though I could have explained it deeper but did not. I thought they would know what I meant. But because th...

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them ~ Matthew 18:20 God is with us when we pray in secret and alone. When we come in groups, two or three, or more, there is greater power for it is multiplied! Why then would we not gather together to pray? Yet many do not join with a prayer group to pray. We need the power of God especially in this day and age. To gather together and know that our prayer requests are multiplied in strength because Christ’s power is with us should set us on a trajectory of praying together! How many today are sick, dealing with multiple issues of cancer, mental health problems, isolation? How many are lost, not knowing the love and grace of Jesus Christ and instead are trying to find their way in a world which cannot lead to the truth because it does not know the truth? Our time with God is precious, whether we are alone with him or not, but when it comes to gathering together under the authority of Jesus Christ would we not wish to join wit...

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord ~ Romans 6:23 “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” These are some of the lyrics to Robert Critchley’s song, and this morning they ring in my ears. My hope, our hope if we are believers in Jesus Christ rely solely upon the blood of the cross which wiped away our sin. I cannot trust in the world to save me, nor can I trust in the world to give me truth. It is full of lies and deceit leading those who turn to her astray and away from God the Creator. We were created to be in relationship with God, to love him and be loved by him. The world cares nothing for this kind of love, for it is selfless whereas the world’s love is self-fulfilling. God’s love looks outward, the world looks inward. The world does not believe anymore in the word and actions of sin, but sin is still alive in our world. Sin...

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you ~ Isaiah 60:1 Isaiah lived centuries before our Saviour was born, yet so many times he prophesied, and they were all fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the light of our soul, the light of our life! When he came and walked among us he told us about hiding a light under a bushel – that was something we would not naturally do. We would want the lamp to fill our home with its light, to take away the darkness, to allow us to find that which might be lost if we did not have a lamp to light the way. If Jesus is our light, then he must shine out from our heart, and display his glory in our life. We should not hide the light he shines into our spirit, the truth which we are called to live out. He is the only way to heaven, he is the guiding spirit of our life. There is no other pathway to follow, no other “light” in this world or in other religions. Only by knowing our Light has come in Jesus Christ, in following...

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken ~ Psalms 55:22 God will sustain you…it does not say that God will remove your burden but that he will hold you through it. That is a great relief when we are going through distress in our life. It gives us hope that though today may be dark, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we just must keep walking toward the light, believing that God will work it out for us. We, when we are young Christians in the Lord, sometimes think God will remove our testing times, but when we are more mature we know that is not so. God knows this is where we grow. If life were all roses then our life would become weak, our faith would falter at every step that challenged us. It is when we are sustained by God through the difficult struggles that our faith will grow because those are more often the times when we will turn to God for help. When life is easy it is too easy for us to forget that our streng...

Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously ~ 2 Corinthians 9:6 Have you ever watched the TV show, “Hoarders”? The show gives us an inside look at how some people just have to hang on to every little thing they get. It isn’t because the things they hang on to are valuable to anyone else, but they are to them, and so, it is very hard to part with whatever it is, including garbage. It is due to a mental health impairment, and it is very sad as most of them have destroyed every relationship they have because of their hoarding. When we take this to the verse above, if we hoard all that we are as a person to ourselves, we have the same outcome as those who hoard stuff. We do not give our compassion, we do not lend a dollar to anyone, we do not go out of our way to help – instead, we want it all to come our way. And then we stock it up in our own heart. We miss out on so much when we live like this. The Apostle Paul ...

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God ~ Philippians 4:6 God always has a better plan. We may not see it immediately, we may not see it until we look back over time, but it calls us to trust in Him. What we need to remember is that if our belief and trust is in Him, and our life is committed to Him, then His plans will not be thwarted, but will come to fruition. I don’t know how many of you may have plans in store, but I know that I did, and for several months that plan seemed to be moving ahead, until at the last moment it came to a sudden halt. A brick wall was placed in the way that was not to be moved. I had thought God had put it all in place, but if He had, He suddenly closed the door. It was a shock and a disappointment at first, but deep down inside I know God had something else in mind. I still do not know what that may be, but I will wait, and I know I will see. In that sudden wall, t...