MONDAY 14 SEPTEMBER
Proverbs 31.10-31
The wife of noble character

What is one of the most wonderful of all vocations in life? It is surely the vocation to be a mother. It is so valuable that it is worth more than rubies.

Reader, if you are a mother, read through this passage of scripture. It has some very good advice for you. It encourages you to work very hard to look after your family well; to feed them and clothe them and manage the household for them. You are also encouraged to be concerned for those who are in need outside the family. Your vocation in life is to care for people and to look after them. As you pour out your love on your husband and children, you make such a difference to their lives. You help to shape their characters and they become wonderful people. You make the world a much better place.

It’s so important for all of us to really show much appreciation for our mothers. They give out so much and it is so easy to take them for granted. We should go out of our way to show them how much we love them and be ever so thankful for all they do for us. Husbands, especially, can do so much for them by telling them they love them and showing them how much they value them.

Let’s all go out of our way to reward them for all they do as much as we can.

PRAYER: Father God, thank you for all mothers. Pour love into their hearts to enable them to carry out their tasks as they care for their families. Help us all to show wives and mothers how valuable they are to us and reward them whenever we can. Amen.

TUESDAY 15 SEPTEMBER
Psalm 54
The Lord upholds my life

It’s so wonderful being a Christian. The most wonderful part of this Christian life is having a very real relationship with our God. I am ever so thankful that Jesus made this possible. When we were still sinners He died for us (Romans 5.8). His Word assures us that He has done all that is needed to bring us all into this right relationship. All we have to do to enjoy the status of being a friend of God is to repent of all that is wrong and put all our faith and trust in Jesus. Because God is our father and Jesus is our brother and our Lord and Saviour, we can be absolutely sure that He will always listen to our prayers. He loves us so much that He will always send us help when we need it.

Some mornings I wake up feeling a bit down after a hectic time. I spend time with the Lord. Soon I feel completely lifted up by Him. My heart is filled with joy. As we take time to pray, to listen to the Lord and read His Word, we soon experience His presence with us. Then He speaks to our hearts, maybe only with a wonderful sense of His nearness, or sometimes He actually speaks words into our minds.

Every day the Lord upholds us and protects us from all the attacks of the enemy. The enemy is always trying to knock us down. With God on our side, he doesn’t have the slightest chance! The Lord sustains us all the time.

PRAYER: Lord, with joy in our hearts we offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to you. We love you so much; what a wonderful friend we have in you. You always uphold us and sustain us. Thank you Father, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.

WEDNESDAY 16 SEPTEMBER
James 3.1-12
Taming the tongue

There are many wild animals in the jungle. They can all be tamed, but no man can tame the tongue. The words each one of us speak are potentially very powerful. They can have a far-reaching affect on the lives of many people. Kind, loving words can build up people and help to make their lives very successful. Harsh, critical, condemning words can knock people down and help to cause them to become miserable failures.

This is why the tongue needs to be tamed. It’s so important that each of us gains full control of what we say. Angry, cursing, damaging words are spoken when we let emotions like anger and hatred get out of control. Often we say these cruel words and do not really mean them. When the emotions die down we wish we had never said them. The sad thing is that so much damage is done by letting our tongues fly. It’s hard to repair the damage.

Not everyone can tame animals. It’s a special gift. None of us can control our tongues - we need to call in the tongue-tamer. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. He always stands knocking on the door of our hearts (He knocks even harder when He hears angry words). When we let Him in, He is our boss and Saviour and will take control of our emotions and our tongues. When we feel an angry word being formed in our minds, before we say it, we should not just count to ten, but count on the Lord to step right in and stop our tongues from saying those cruel words.

PRAYER: Come into my heart Lord Jesus. I need you there all the time. Please control my emotions and cause my tongue to speak only kind words that will build people up. Amen.

THURSDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
Jeremiah 11.18-20
A gentle Lamb led to the slaughter

Jesus was the divine Son of God. He was with His Father from the very beginning of all creation. Through Him God made all things (John 1.1-3). He was one person who really never had to die, yet He came to earth for one purpose and one purpose only. He came to die to be the sacrificial Lamb of God that would take away all the sins of the world.

From very early on Jesus knew He was going to die and so three times during the course off His ministry, He drew the disciples aside to try to warn them and prepare them for His death. He told them also, that He would rise from the dead. The disciples were shattered when He told them this. Trying as hard as they could, they could not understand what Jesus was saying.

It was not until after Jesus’ death and resurrection that they were able to understand what Jesus had meant. They came to realise that Jesus is indestructible. They tried to destroy the tree and its fruit as Jeremiah said (v.19), but they couldn’t. Jesus is still the divine eternal Son of God. Death cannot destroy Him. Because of His death and rising again we, too, have been made indestructible. All who truly follow Jesus will rise again. We will see Him as He is and be like Him and be with Him for ever.

PRAYER: Thank you Father that you loved us all so much that you gave us your only Son, Jesus, to die for us and rise again so that all who believe and trust in Him will not die but have eternal life, through Christ Jesus our Saviour. Amen.

FRIDAY 18 SEPTEMBER

Gospel for St Matthew’s Day (Next Monday)
Matthew 9.9-13
The calling of Matthew

When Matthew was called by Jesus to leave his tax collecting business and follow Jesus, he got such a huge shock. The religious Jews lumped together tax collectors with bad sinners and considered them as outcasts - completely beyond all hope of saving. They were well known as cheats and frauds and no-one liked them.

Matthew obeyed Jesus’ call immediately and could hardly believe it when Jesus came with him to his house and sat down and had a meal with him. All his friends were there - all considered to be outcasts and not able to be saved.

When the Pharisees saw who Jesus was eating with it made them furious. “Why does Jesus do such a dreadful thing?” they asked. Jesus was very quick to defend Himself and his new found friends. He was sitting down with them because they needed Him. As sick people need to see a doctor, so those who are bad sinners have very sick souls and need a soul doctor - they need Jesus.

Jesus is an expert in the field of changing people’s lives. In an instant He can make the worst, vilest criminal into a saint. Because of this, Jesus wants us to be ever so merciful to people who do bad and hurtful things. We must be ever ready to forgive and lead them to Jesus to be changed.

Nicky Cruze was a very bad, murderous gang leader when David Wilkerson led him to Jesus. Oh what a transformation took place. He became a modern day Matthew who brought many of his friends to Jesus!

Bronwen Healy, the founder of the Hope Foundation was a heroin addict and in the sex industry. Jesus found her through a Christian Rehabilitation Centre. She totally surrendered her life to Him and was made into a new person. At Hope Haven (next to St Bart’s Mt Gravatt), dozens of girls are experiencing the life transforming power of Jesus!!!!

PRAYER: Jesus, thank you that you are a friend of the worst people. Make us ever so merciful and help lead everyone to you that you may transform their lives. Make us all friends of sinners. Amen.

SATURDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
Mark 9.33-37
Who is the greatest?

There is a hidden ambition locked in each one of us which makes us want to be recognised – we all want to be great. Wouldn’t it be great to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games; to stand up on the podium and have the whole world look at you? Most of us could never reach such greatness; our ambitions never get further than our dreams. However, there is a form of greatness that is achievable for all of us. That is to be as Jesus sees greatness.

When the disciples were arguing about who was the greatest, Jesus told them that there was only one way to be great and that was to become a servant. To do this we reverse our ambitions and are content to be the very last. Then we set about living our lives doing things for other people. A servant always looks up to those he or she serves, so we must look up to everyone as we seek ways of doing all we can for them. A servant also considers those he serves as being more important than they are, so we need to look up to everyone and consider them more important than ourselves.

Every time we serve another, look up to another or consider another more important than ourselves (even a little child), we are serving, looking up to and considering Jesus to be the most important. If we faithfully follow this way and run the race of life, always following the instructions of our coach, Jesus, millions of people won’t see us on their T.V. screens with a gold medal around our necks, but when we die, Jesus will be there to greet us and crown us with a crown that will last for ever. Then and only then will we realise how great we are!

PRAYER: Jesus, help us to follow in your footsteps. Though you were the greatest of the great, you humbled yourself and became our servant. Help us to become everybody’s servant, to look up to them, serve them and consider them more important than ourselves, through Jesus our Servant. Amen.

SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE

Tomorrow we celebrate Saint Matthew’s day. Matthew was an outcast in Jewish society. He was considered to be beyond all hope of being converted. This is because he was a tax collector for the Roman Government. Tax collectors were known to be cheats, keeping back a lot of the money they collected for themselves.

When Jesus found his disciples arguing about who was the greatest, He said to them, “If anyone wants to be the first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35).   To prove His point, when he came to choose His Disciples He chose one of the least in the eyes of the Jews. He chose Matthew. After choosing Matthew he sat down and had a meal with lots of Matthew’s friends who were all unwanted outcasts in society. The Pharisees couldn’t understand how Jesus could lower himself to eat with such unworthy people! Jesus replied to them by saying, “It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick……..I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12).

This tells us something very important about God’s attitude towards all the people He has made. He loves ALL of them from every class in society and every race. He loves the good and the bad. God longs for everyone to respond to his love like Matthew did.

When Jesus calls and we follow this makes us feel very important. Everyone chosen to be friends of the King of the Universe is important. All of us Christians are very important people. Jesus warns us that we can loose our importance if we show it off. If we want to be first we must make ourselves last of all. We must never let others feel that they are inferior to us. He wants us all to become each others servants. We must look up to everyone and show them that they are important to us. Jesus was like this, very humble indeed; “He did not come to be served, but to serve, and give His life as a ransom for all” (Mark 10:45).

May we, who know how great we are, because Jesus has called and chosen us, show our greatness by become servants of all the people around us. We say to Jesus “Let me see your footmarks and in them plant my own” (from the hymn: O Jesus I Have promised to serve you till the end.)

Our desire is to be like Jesus!

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, even though you were the greatest person that has ever lived thank you for emptying yourself and becoming our servant. Thank you for showing us how important each one of us is to you. Help us to follow in your footsteps and become everyone’s servants. AMEN.