MONDAY 25TH.MAY
Isaiah 6:1-8
Holy Holy Holy is the Lord Almighty
Next Sunday we celebrate our most wonderful, fantadstic, tremendous God. God the Holy Trinity – three in one and one in three: one God made known to us in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We have come to know that our God is a Trinity because that is the way He has made Himself known to us. In our reading today we see the prophet Isaiah having a most wonderful experience: a vision of God. He saw God seated on a throne ruling the whole of creation. He saw the majesty of God, the glory of God and the holiness of God. The characteristic of God that affected Isaiah most was the holiness of God. God was so pure and so sinless. He saw God completely separated from all that is evil and bad.
Experiencing God’s holiness made the prophet aware of His own sinful state. He felt so unworthy in the presence of the almighty! As He cried out to God proclaiming his uncleanness, God responded and the seraph cleansed His lips and took away all the guilt in his heart. He was completely forgiven and made worthy to carry out his calling as a person through whom God would speak.
Through Jesus, God calls all of us into His presence! His Holy Spirit shows us our sinful state and as we repent and turn from our sin Jesus, through His atoning death on the cross, takes all our sins away! All who approach God must have their sins forgiven and their hearts cleansed in the blood of Jesus. Being in God’s presence is very challenging. He needs us all to work for Him when we hear Him say, “Whom shall I send?” We respond by saying, “Here I am, send me”.
PRAYER: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, blessed Trinity, I love you and adore you. Cleanse me and make me holy as You are holy. Here I am; send me to show the world how fantastic You are, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
TUESDAY 26TH.MAY
Psalm 29
Worship the Lord in the splendour of Holiness
We have come to know our God only because He has made Himself known to us. The best way to experience the very living presence of God is to get involved in worshiping Him and praising Him. Psalm 22 verse 3 says of God, “Thou art Holy, O’ thou that inhabit the praises of Israel” (KJB). Whenever we start praising God, loving God, and worshipping God we experience His living presence with us. When we experience His presence and know that He is with us right now, He gives us so much strength and blesses us with His peace. He feeds us with faith in His enormous power to save and help us!
Whenever I start my quiet time, I always begin by praising the Lord and this soon brings me into a new experience of His presence. It’s wonderful! My favourite CD is, “I love You Lord” – all worship songs. Whenever I put it on in my car I know that God is with me as I drive. While living in the presence of God, all the regrets of the past and all the fears of the future dissolve away. God speaks to us and says: “When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets it is hard; I am not there. My name is not I was. When you live in the future with its problems and fears it is hard; I am not there. My name is not I will be. When you live in the moment, it’s not hard I am here. My name is “I AM” (Helen Mallicoat .. Yahway (I am).
PRAYER: Father, we love you, we worship and adore you. How we love you. Jesus we love you, we worship and adore you. How we love you. Spirit we love you, worship and adore you, how we love you. Thank you for being present with us now. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 27TH. MAY
Romans 8:12-17
The Holy Spirit makes us one with God
God, the Holy Spirit is God at work in us. He makes the power of God available to us. When electricity is generated it is transmitted in very high voltage. For us to use it in our homes the power has to be broken down. This is done by transformers. God the Holy Spirit is like a transformer. He breaks down the enormous power of God so that we can use it in our lives. This Holy Spirit power works in us to keep us holy. Each one of us has a sinful human nature. It is sometimes called the “flesh”. When we trust in God, the power of the Holy Spirit puts to death this sinful nature. That’s how the Holy Spirit keeps us holy. That’s how He sanctifies us! When we received Jesus into our hearts as Lord and Saviour we became sons of God (see John 1:12, where the Bible says, “As many as received Jesus received the power to become sons of God”). The job of the Holy Spirit is to keep this power flowing into us to make sure we remain sons of God. If we grieve the Holy Spirit and He stops working in our lives the flesh takes over again and we lose our son-ship.
When we remain linked up with Jesus, His Spirit continually convinces us that we are indeed God’s children. The devil often tries to tell us we are not good enough for God but the Spirit keeps making us sure that we are God’s children. Because we are sure we are God’s children, we are heirs of God and are absolutely and utterly sure that we have eternal life and we are on our way to Heaven.
PRAYER: Father God we thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to keep us holy and to make us sure that we are Your children and will inherit eternal life in heaven. Keep us trusting in You so the power of the Holy Spirit will keep flowing, through Jesus our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
THURSDAY 28TH MAY
John 3:31-36
Jesus is above all
The Bible is very important to us because it reveals to us all the truth about God. The most important words in the Bible are the words that Jesus spoke Himself. My Bible has these words printed in red ink!
Jesus the Son of God who was with the Father – one with the Father since the beginning of time – was sent to the earth over 2000 years ago to show us all the truth there is to know about God. If we accept all Jesus’ words as the truth we are 100% certain that we have the truth. The truth sets us free and all our doubts are dissolved for ever more (see John 8:32).
Another reason we can be sure that every word spoken by Jesus is the truth is that God has given Jesus the Holy Spirit without limit. Jesus did not need a transformer like we do. He had the full voltage of the power of the Holy Spirit in Him! One of the things the Father did when He sent Jesus was to put Him in charge of everything in the earth. This is why we say, “Jesus is Lord”. Jesus is in charge; Jesus is the boss! The Father places everything in Jesus’ hands. Because Jesus is in charge of everyone, every nation, every race, every religious group, there is only one way we can be linked up with God and receive eternal life. We have to accept Jesus and believe Jesus as the Lord of our lives. If we have the Son, if we submit to His rule, we have that life. If we reject Jesus we will not have that life. There is no place at all in Heaven for those who reject Jesus!
May we all be given the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses to tell the whole world that Jesus is the only way to Heaven.
PRAYER: Father God, thank you for putting Jesus in charge of us all. Thank you that His words reveal all the truth we need to know and dispel all our doubts. Thank you for the truth that sets us free to have life. We accept Jesus as Lord. Give us the power to tell others that Jesus’ way is the only way. Amen.
FRIDAY 29 MAY
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me
We saw yesterday that God put His Son Jesus in charge of us all. He put Him in charge of us so that He could save us. It does not matter how bad we are or how much we have rebelled against God, God is always willing to forgive us. Jesus’ limitless power can be applied to the worst, most evil people to turn them into saints. Saul of Tarsus was a blasphemer and persecutor and a violent man. He was responsible for having the very first Christian martyr, Stephen, put to death. When he went off to put more Christians to death, Jesus stopped Him in his tracks. He poured His abundant grace into His heart and had mercy on Him and completely forgave Him. Saul the persecutor and murderer became Paul, the greatest evangelist of all times. Jesus has unlimited patience with us. However slow we are to let Him take over, He never gives up on us. He wants more than anything else to give all of us eternal life. John Newton, an evil slave trader, accepted Christ as Saviour and Lord but still went and captured more slaves. Jesus did not give up on him. He had patience with him and poured more of His amazing grace into him until he was thoroughly saved. While He was waiting in an African harbour to pick up more salves he wrote the hymn, “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear”. He was still evil yet he recognised how much Jesus loved him. When he was thoroughly saved and became a minister of the gospel he wrote “Amazing Grace” which has helped so many people. It’s still my favourite, even though it’s sung so much.
PRAYER: Dear Jesus, when we think of the amazing grace that saves wretches like us, our hearts are filled with so much gratitude, it makes us love God so very, very much. We join with Paul worshipping you and saying, “Now to the King eternal immortal invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever". Amen.
SATURDAY 30 MAY
John 3:1-17
You must be born again
God is holy. He is set apart from His creation to be absolutely pure and spotless. Jesus is God and so He was holy and without sin.
Jesus came to bring us all into a relationship with God. For us to have such a relationship a huge change must take place in our lives. We have to be spiritually recreated. As Jesus put it we must be born again. When we are born again the same mighty power that God exerted when He raised Jesus from the dead works in us to make us into new people. We are born again when we receive Jesus into our hearts as the Lord and Saviour of our lives. We are included into fellowship with Jesus and are born again when we hear the word of truth, the Gospel of our salvation. By believing we are changed and marked with a seal to say we are God’s own children (see Ephesians 1:13 and John 1:12).
Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world. He is a merciful God and His mercy triumphs over His judgement. His great desire is for everyone to be born again, so He can enjoy us for ever in Heaven.
He does not force us to believe. The famous words in John 3:16 say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”. To be born again and to receive eternal life we have to believe in Jesus and keep on and on trusting in Him and His saving forgiving power till the day of our death. Knowing Jesus, and being His friend keeps us in eternal life. If we turn our back on Him and stop believing we break our relationship with Him and lose the eternal life He wants us all to have!
PRAYER: Father, thank you for sending us Jesus so that all of us who put our faith and trust in Him and accept Him as our Saviour and Lord have the assurance that we are born again and have eternal life. We totally surrender our lives to you so we look forward to the joy of being with You in Heaven, through our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
TRINITY SUNDAY 31 May
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
GOD THE HOLY TRINITY. THREE IN ONE AND ONE IN THREE
No one could have possibly invented the doctrine (teaching) of the Trinity. It’s absolutely impossible to understand. We believe in it because that is the way God has revealed it to us.
He first revealed Himself to the saints of the Old Testament of the Bible. He made Himself known to men like Abraham and Moses. He showed them that He was the only God and that He was the creator of the Universe.
When Jesus live 2000 years ago He made it very clear that He was God As Charles Colson puts it:
“The essence of Christianity is summed up in one mind-boggling sentence: Jesus Christ is God (John 10:30) Not just part of God…….or sent by God…….or related to God.
HE IS GOD.” (page 1 Dangerous Grace)
Before He died Jesus promised to send us the Holy Spirit. He said “ When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me” (John 15:26) When the Holy Spirit came down to the Early Church, as they gathered on the Day Of Pentecost, they were convinced that God was with them in a new way. God has poured out His Spirit on all people. (Acts 2:17)
Christians soon realised that as The Father was God, the Son was God and the Holy Spirit was God, yet they knew without doubt there were not three Gods but one God.
There was on God revealed to us in Three Persons. We had a Tri-Unity or TRINITY.
God is Three in One and One In Three
The Holy Spirit has come into the hearts of all true believers. He has shown us how real Jesus is and how strong is the Father’s love for us all. We know God personally.
He has made Himself known to us.
PRAYER: O most wonderful God thank you for revealing yourself to us in three Persons. The Father who loved us so much that He created us. The Son, Jesus who loved us so much that He gave His life for us to give us eternal life and the Holy Spirit Who keeps on pouring love into our hearts to keep us close to you and keep us holy. Amen.