Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Passing on the Baton

Genesis 35v2-3 “So Jacob said to his household … come let us go up to the ‘House of God’.’” (NIV)

In our survey of the main characters of Genesis, we find that Abraham leads Isaac into a relationship with God based on God’s promises, then Isaac leads Jacob, and Jacob in this verse leads his family.

Each of us carries a responsibility to lead, as best we can, the next generation into the presence of God. For Jacob, he takes them to “Bethel” which means “House of God”: it is where he had met God previously. In the context of the above verse (35v1-12), you will notice the following:

1. Jacob obeys God’s call to Bethel.
2. Jacob exercises his authority and tells his household to get rid of idolatry and be pure.
3. Jacob builds an altar to worship God (and presumably offers sacrifices in the presence of his family).
4. God appears to Jacob (and presumably the others in his household saw this).
5. Jacob sets up a reminder for the family going forward of this encounter.

Joseph, who we will be looking at this Sunday, was probably aged about 7 or 8 at this point. I wonder to what degree this encounter influenced his attitudes in later life.

There is a limit to what each of us can do, depending on our circumstances, and we are each answerable to God. But let us endeavor to embrace the next generation in the things of God.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Let us go right into the Presence of God

Hebrews 10v19-22  “And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus … Let us go right into the presence of God.’” (NLT)

Last Sunday we looked at Jesus’s call for us, the church, to return to our “first love,” and for us not to be tepid and lukewarm, but to be full of passion for God. This coming Sunday, we return to our mini-series looking at the key characters in Genesis. The lives of these characters are summarized in Hebrews 11 in terms of their faith in God. The writer lists these people as “witnesses” to the faithfulness of God. He is saying in effect “Look at Noah, Abraham etc. See how they lived by faith in God and God ultimately proved faithful. On the basis of their testimony, enter right into God’s presence. Now.”

While the NIV translation has “Let us draw near to God”, the more paraphrased NLT has, “Let us go right into the presence of God”, which brings out the force of the overall text. Don’t just pussyfoot around on the edges, don’t be shy, don’t think you are unworthy, don’t think it is too risky. Get right in, yes right inside, boldly, holding nothing back, with total confidence.

When Charles Wesley was converted from Christian religion to Christ relationship on 27 May 1738, he wrote these words as his first hymn,

“No condemnation now I dread,

Jesus and all in Him is mine!

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach the eternal throne,

And claim the crown through Christ my own.”

He had earnestly pursued after religious practice for years, but now he had met Jesus and was able to enjoy the very presence of God. Where are you today?

Enter into the presence of God each day this week whether in prayer, Bible reading, worship, meditation …. Let’s get right in!

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

You are the God who sees me

Genesis 16v13  “She [Hagar] gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are the God who sees me.’”

In this day and age, we may be concerned about the degree to which we are seen and recorded: CCTV’s abound and our phones can be portals for organisations to know about us.

When Hagar had been ill-treated by Sarah, she ran away (16v1-8). It is by a spring in the desert that the “angel of the LORD” finds her and speaks to her. The Lord is fully aware of her situation: He sees the wrong that Sarah has done, the situation Hagar is in, and what Hagar should do going forward. The LORD’s instruction is a correction:  Hagar should return to Sarah, which is not going to be easy.

The correction is blended with words of comfort and encouragement as well as uncomfortable prophecy. What is Hagar’s response to all this? For her, this was an encounter with God – the God who sees her – and she is encouraged and is obedient to God’s instruction.

God sees your situation perfectly. He comes alongside you and wants you to share with him what is going on. He wants to encourage, but he will also correct so that you may journey on His road.

What is the LORD seeing in your situation today? What words of encouragement is he giving you? What words of correction?

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

God opened her eyes

Genesis 21v19  “Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”

It is strange how we do not see what is in front of our noses!

Hagar had been the maid for Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Hagar and her son Ishmael were turfed out because of friction between her and Sarah. She thought she and her son were going to die in the desert. They desperately needed water. Interestingly, the appearance of a well for her was not about God making a well, but simply him opening her eyes to it.

In 2 Corinthians 4v4, Paul writes, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” It is not that Christ has not come, it is not that Christ has not died for our sins, it is not that Christ has not been raised from the dead or sent the Holy Spirit. It is simply that minds are blinded to it.

God has chosen a two-pronged approach to this – there is us announcing the truth, and there is the Holy Spirit illuminating hearts and minds. As Paul writes in the same passage “[We] set forth the truth plainly,” and, “God… made his light shine in our hearts.”

Next week is the Admaston Fun Week – a week when we put on different events for people in our community for them to enjoy. But in it too we will be sharing elements of the truth of the gospel with people.

Let’s pray together that during next week God would “make his light shine in people’s hearts.”

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Noah Walking with God

Genesis 6v9  “Noah … walked with God.”

This week I want to follow on and expand one of the things we noticed last Sunday in the life of Noah. In the Genesis accounts so far, there are two particular terms used to describe the “righteous” as differentiated from the “wicked”: the righteous “call on the name of the LORD” and they “walk with God”.

God walked in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve (3v8).  Enoch walked with God and as a result avoided death (5v22-24). And here in 6v9, Noah walks with God.

To walk with someone implies two elements. The first is an intimacy. As you walk with one other person, there can be a personal sharing of time and thought, concerns and hopes. It is one-on-one. But the second element is that the walk is not behind walls, but out in the open where others can see and indeed others may be met. It is public.

Our relationship with God is to be both intimate and public. We need those times of personal one-on-one with God where we share time, thoughts, concerns and hopes together. What does that look like for you? Maybe it is to sit quietly, to read and to listen, to hear God’s Word in the Bible, to pray and to worship, to pray in tongues or to sing out loud.

It also means that in the public square, we do not wander away from God, but very much stick with him. We are not ashamed to be seen with him. We are recognizing that he is seeing and hearing everything we do. We know that he is with us and supporting us as we live for Him. What does “walking with God” look like in your daily context?

May you and I truly “walk with God” 24-7.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

God’s Heart filled with Pain

Genesis 6v6  “The LORD was grieved … and his heart was filled with pain.”

God has emotions. He feels it when things are not as he would like them to be.

In Genesis 6, God is grieved that mankind whom he made and appointed has become so wicked. God appointed man as a ruler, under God, over the earth. God intended that man would live in his way and exercise “rule” in the way God exercises rule, that is with justice, love, grace, and goodness. When man declines to submit to the rule of God, God suffers in his heart.

This is of great value for us to understand. We think of Jesus suffering on the cross as he took our sin and suffered the sin and abuse of those who illtreated him. But God the Father also suffers.

This leads to three key questions:

• How does God feel about what is going on in the world today?
• How does God feel when I suffer injustice or evil?
• How does God feel when I do evil?

Several hundred years after the passage above, David is described as “a man after God’s own heart” (see 1 Samuel 13v14 & Acts 13v22). This seems to include that he shared God’s feelings towards what is good and what is evil.

Do the emotions of my heart mirror those of God?

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Being Encouraged from Old Testament Characters

Hebrews 12v1 Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles …”

The writer of Hebrews wants to encourage us in faith. In chapter 11, he names fifteen Old Testament persons as examples of faith. They are quite a mix of characters, but in the verse above, he identifies these as witnesses to the truth and faithfulness of God. As we read the fuller Old Testament accounts, we find that it portrays both their successes and their failings in a candid way.

This Sunday we will be launching a new 5-week series to look at five key characters in the book of Genesis – Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob & Joseph. We will see elements of ourselves in them and we will also ways that they point to Jesus and lay a foundation for the gospel.

On a Sunday morning, we will only touch the surface of their lives and what God is saying to us through them. I hope that you will be encouraged to explore deeper in your own time by reading the fuller passages for yourselves. To that end, I will also provide some further reflective thoughts and questions to help in understanding and applying them .

May God encourage you in faith today for all you encounter.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Excelling in the Grace of Faith

Luke 17v5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our Faith”

Faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” Hebrews 11v1. It is not an absence of questions, concerns or doubts, but it is a confidence sufficient to result in action through the doubts and the questions.

“Without faith it is impossible to please God” Hebrews 11v6. Faith is the bedrock of any relationship and most notably our relationship with God. We need the faith to believe in his existence and in his desires for us.

Faith is based on evidence and so John writes, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.” John 20v31. The reality is that the more we live by faith, the more evidence we have in our memories to go on, because God is faithful!

Faith is “not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” Ephesians 2v8. The disciples were right to ask the Lord to increase their faith (Luke 17v5) because he is the one who gives faith. Faith is a grace – it is his free gift to us. Give him thanks for the faith he has given to you and ask him for more!!

Faith is a whole life thing. The disciples asked for more faith, not so that they could do great miracles, but so that they could forgive those who sinned against them (see Luke 17v1-6). Is my response to those around me a response based on faith in God? –  Does my action result from faith that God loves those around me; he has forgiven me; he is willing to forgive them; that each of us are ultimately accountable to him; …

Jesus continues to encourage the disciples by stating that their faith does not need to be huge, it only needs to be enough to act (Luke 17v6). I am convinced that God will answer your prayers for increasing faith!

May God, in his grace, give you sufficient faith for today and all you encounter.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Excelling in the Grace of Giving

2 Corinthians 8v7 “See that you excel in this grace of giving”

Grace in the Bible is when something which costs greatly, is given freely to someone who does not deserve it. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor…” (v9)

I wonder why we are sometimes provoked to give and other times not? Paul states that giving is a “test [of] the sincerity of your love”(v8). True “agape” love is going to result in a desire to give to another person rather than spend on myself. Thus, my giving or not giving is an outward sign of the condition of my heart. What are my heart’s desires? Do they lead to a willing, generous giving? Hence Paul says in 9v7 “Each person should give what he has decided in his heart to give”. Giving is more heart than head!

But the head does also come into it as this passage also emphasises proportionality:

• V3 “they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability”
• V12 “if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has”
• V13 “our desire is that … there might be equality”

There is to be some evaluation of the other’s need and our own ability to give.

There are certain points in our lives where we make big decisions and we establish our incomings and outgoings for some time to come. Someone I know moved to lower cost housing so that they could give more. Jesus decided to come to earth to give his life for us. When is the next time we are going to set up a commitment for some time to come? This could be regarding time or wealth. Is that a point to reflect first on how much we want to give, and then let that giving commitment impact our other commitments?

May our hearts be filled with such gratitude to God that it overflows in a grace of giving.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Avoiding godless chatter

1 Timothy 6v20 “Turn away from godless chatter.”

How much of what we say, read or listen to is “godless chatter”? Let me define “godless chatter” as conversation which does not have its basis in God. It is conversation that:

• is not truthful: I forget that I am accountable to God for telling the truth.
• is not helpful to others: I forget that God calls me to build others up.
• breaks confidence: I forget that I am accountable to God for keeping confidences.
• lacks hope: I forget that God is my Father and he is watching over me and will provide for me.
• makes plans and boasts: I forget God is in charge, not me.
• judges others: I forget that we are all accountable to God as judge.

In a similar vein, Colossians 4v6 says, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.” “Grace” is not judgmental, but gives the benefit of the doubt. “Salt” is not going to bring what is bad or destructive, but rather be wholesome and will endure and be healthy.

May the Lord enable us to avoid godless chatter and have conversations seasoned with salt.

With love and blessing,

Roland