Friday the 15th

John 16: ²²So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

 

Christ new He was leaving this human world. He knew that His time was short, and that those who followed Him would feel lost. Ahh but the words of comfort do always follow. You will rejoice…..no one will take your joy away. What brings that joy? What safe guards our happiness? It is not anything this world has to offer, actually our true joy comes form the very thing hat the world wanted to take away. Christ is the answer, and just as He promised, once you see Him again, no one can take your happiness. Look How Jesus framed that statement. You can go all the way back to the original text in Greek, you can read any translation currently available, that phrase has not changed, and the truth of it holds true to this day, and every day forward. No one will take away your joy. No one, not one person, nothing will take your joy. You know Jesus made many statements like this, you will be saved, you will be full of joy, you will be successful…..we know one thing for sure, Christ is not a liar. You can read all that has been written about Him, you can read all of His teachings, you will not find one place that He contradicts Himself, or one place that He is made out to be a liar. So what does that mean? If all this is true then (and it must be because Christ told us) why are we not successful? Why are we not full of joy? The answer is very simple, yet hard to grasp. Christ makes all of these things available to us, but we either give them away, or we choose not to take them. Oh I hear you now…. What? Excuse me? If it was so available, why would I not take it? If I have it why would I give it away? I tell you the truth, You have Joy, we have the risen Christ in our hearts, He surrounds us, He is at our every turn. He fills our heart with Joy everyday. I want you to think about the last confrontation you had, did you leave feeing anger, did you feel slighted, or belittled? You just gave that person your joy. Are you chasing a promotion, or giving your all for that pay raise? You just gave it your joy. Did you believe that person when they told you that it could not be done? You just passed up a chance for your success. We believe the lies, we believe the negative, we listen to the trash talking, hate filled ridicule of the world, and we take it to heart……and we hand our joy over to the world, and become exactly what we fight against…..a joyless, hopeless, lifeless, lost soul. Why would you do that? Why would you allow anyone to take from you the one thing you are freely given? Joy, the Joy of Christ, the Joy of salvation, the joy of being counted as a child of God! It is yours, from the time you open your eyes, to the time you lay your head down at night, and every moment before and after that Joy is surrounding you. Does that mean that your life is full of roses? No of course not. But let me ask you something…..are people speaking poorly of you? They hated Christ. Are people trying to bring you down? They beat Christ. Are you seeing your dreams falling apart? They hung Christ on a cross until he was dead. Are you ready to give up? Christ never did. He never gave up on Himself, He never gave up on the world, He never gave up on His father, and He will never give up on you. He fills your heart with Joy every morning what you choose to do with it…..well that is up to you. You can focus on God, or you can focus on the negative. You can take comfort in knowing that Christ has already lived a life none of us would want to endure, as a result we have the joy of eternal life, or you can spill that joy on the ground, and fall victim to the world. No one can take your joy away. He is risen. Not one person, not one thing can’t take that joy form you. But know for a fact, it is yours to give away.

 

 

God Bless,

Brian Thetford

<((((><

 

www.thenewcovenantchurch.com

 

www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com

 

Thursday the14th

2 Corinthians 9: ¹¹You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. ¹²This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.

I was reading an article about the amazing rescue of the miners in Chile, and it was truly amazing, there is no doubt that God’s hand was on that entire rescue operation. I love the quote form one of the miners who said he met God, and he met the devil down there. He said he took God’s hand and never doubted that he would be saved. At the end of the article a geologist was quoted on the likely hood of these men going back down into the mine. He said if they need the work they will go because "It's their life, their culture, the way they make their living." That quote really stuck with me…..it sounds like a pretty bleak outlook doesn’t it? It is what they know, it is how they make their living…….A man is saved, he said he found God, yet the thought is that he might return to his old life, because that is all he knows. It begs the question, how do you make your living? Have you found God yet feel compelled to go back to your old life because that is your culture? I know that is how the world sees things, I know that is how many people live their life. No matter what happens to them, they just go on back to the way things were. It is almost a one step forward and two steps back type of life. We share something in common with those miners, you might not realize it, but you do. You see we too are trapped, we are trapped by this world, by this society, by this idea that we can only be one thing. We might not have been trapped in a mine, but I know that each of us have been trapped in some pretty dark places…..we have had to endure some pretty painful seasons. Some may be trapped there right now. During that time, just like that miner said, we too meet God, and we meet the devil, we have chosen, or will choose which hand to take, and yes the devils hand is out there just as far as God’s….and when our season passes, when the darkness fades and we see the sunlight once again. Just like those miners we have a choice to make……what are you going to work for, how will you make your living? Will you step out into the sunlight and go out and use that hardship to help others through theirs? Will you take God’s hand when it is offered, then go out and live a life that glorifies God? Or will you listen to the world, will you take the easy way, and just go back to what you know, walking willingly back into that darkness, because that after all is your culture? I pray for each one of those men, I pray that they will never have to descend back down into darkness after what they have endured. I pray that the powers that be do the right thing and take the steps needed to ensure they are running a safe mine. Most of all I pray for all of you, I pray that when you are delivered from the darkness of your own mine that you step into the sunlight never looking back to the darkness. It is not your “culture” it is not “all you can do”. We are children of God, we are siblings of Christ, you are not set in any mold other than the one of perfection that God cast you in, the one that is in His image. Choose to take God’s hand, and never look back, give that love generously, so that all may give thanks to God.

God Bless,

Brian Thetford

<((((><

www.thenewcovenantchurch.com

www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com

Tuesday the 12th

Luke 15:  ⁸"Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' ¹⁰In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

 

Have you ever lost something that was important to you? Have you ever gone to retrieve something you knew you had, then when you go to look for it, you find that it is not where you left it? Think of that feeling you get, that sinking hollow feeling that shows up in the pit of your stomach, maybe you get a tingling sensation in your face, and hands….no matter the sensation, one thing is for sure, the thing that you held so dear, the thing that you thought was so important is now gone. Your life stops, your world quits turning, and the only thing that matters is finding what you lost. You will clear your schedule, you will not leave one place unchecked, suddenly no place seems to ridiculous to look. I want you to think about how hard you will search for that thing you lost, I want you to think about how determined you are to find it…..then I want you to realize, that is how hard Christ will look for you. That is the feeling that Christ must feel, as He searches for the precious thing that is not where He left it. Maybe you have just stepped off the path for a moment, maybe you have never found the starting point of the path, who knows, maybe you are further down the path than the Lord anticipated. What you must understand is that when you feel lost, there is a search party out looking for you. That search party is lead by Christ Himself. He is the good Shepard, and He will not lose one of His flock. He is searching right now, looking for those that have lost their way, helping guide those that have wandered back into His care. Know this, each time one of His flock is found, there is a celebration. Just like the joy you feel when you find the item you lost, so too Christ celebrates each time one of His flock is found. Know this, while you are out in the world, and you feel lost, when you feel as though you are all alone, know that He is searching for you. He loves you, and can’t wait to get you home. Just like when you lose something you will stop at nothing to find it, so Christ feels for you. You are important, you are loved, and you are that special to the Lord. There is a celebration awaiting, and it is a party you do not want to miss!

 

 

God Bless,

Brian Thetford

<((((><

 

www.thenewcovenantchurch.com

 

www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com

 

Wednesday the 6th

Matthew 18: ³²"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'

 

If you won the lottery, what would you do with it? If someone was to come into your life, and pay off all of your debt what would you do with that extra money every month, how would you treat those who owe you? It reminds me of the two old farmers sitting on the front porch. One asked the other “Tom, if you won the lottery, would you give me half of it?”, to which Tom replied, “well John, of course I would, we have been friends forever. If I won the lottery, of course I would give you half.” They sat a while then John asked, “Tom, if someone gave you a truck, would you give me the one you have now?” to which Tom responded, “Of course John, you are like a brother to me, there is nothing that I have that I would not give to you, of course if I had an extra truck I would give you one.” John thought a few minutes and asked “Tom, if you had two hogs would you give me one?” Tom was quiet for a long time, then he said, “ now John you know that is not fair…..I HAVE two hogs!”  You see, we are always eager to give what we don’t have, it is easy to say sure if I had it……but when it comes to giving away what we have…..well things can get a little dicey can’t they. You have won the lottery, we all have, our debts have been paid and the balance sheet is at zero. So why are we still out looking for all of those that owe us? Why can’t we forgive our debtors in the same manner that our debt has been forgiven? We at times are the wicked servant, no it is not a title you or I want to wear, but it is one that fits none the less. I am sure that the reason why so many of us are out looking for those that owe us, is because we do not fully understand that our debt has been canceled. We tend to try and fit God into our human world, and when we do that it becomes hard to understand the fullness of what He does for us. What happens when someone forgives a debt? There is always a catch right? We owe them, they are going to come ask us for something…..nothing free in this world is really free. That is the mindset that so many of us have about God’s forgiveness. So we spend our time collecting debts and keeping score, because sooner or later we are going to have to pay God back…..we owe Him. God gave us His son, not because he wanted to indebt us to Him, He did it out of love. It was a gift freely given, and ours to take hold of, or reject. When we start to understand that there is nothing that we can to pay God back (for what can we do, that God cannot do for Himself) We begin to understand we are free, truly free. Our debt has been erased….you are forgiven for all of it…yes, even that thing that you think can never be forgiven….it is gone, and all we can do to show our gratitude is to return the favor to those around us, and pass the glory on to God. You can’t live a forgiven life if you are not willing to forgive, you can’t fully accept the gift the Lord is giving you, if you hold on to the very thing that was erased from your life. You can’t experience the fullness of Christ if the space in your heart is filled up with Junk. Let it go, forgive those around you, so that you can live a forgiven life.   

 

 

God Bless,

Brian Thetford

<((((><

 

www.thenewcovenantchurch.com

 

www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com

 

Tuesday the 5th

Mark 13: ⁵Jesus said to them: "Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁶Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and will deceive many.

 

Many will come claiming I am He……I would say that some are already here claiming that they are He, and I would also say that they are out very busy trying to deceive many! This was not an idle warning, or an off the cuff remark that Christ made, it was a warning, and a prophesy. A message of things to come. We do have to be on guard…..we do have to pay attention to what is being said, and taught. We simply cannot allow ourselves to be programmed on Sunday “because the Pastor said so” to live in such a way is to worship the Pastor, and not the Lord. Back before reformation you could not find a Bible printed in a language that the masses could understand, or read. They depended on the church to tell them how to live. The reformation occurred, and thanks to Luther, and the Gutenberg press, the printed word of God was read by each and every person that could read. It is amazing to me how we have come almost full circle. We now seem to be back at a point in society where we want to just be told…..we no longer read for ourselves, we no longer learn for ourselves, as a result we run dangerously close to no longer thinking for ourselves. Christ’s bond with each of us is on a very basic, and very personal level, why would we leave it to one person in our lives to tell us what the Lord wants us to know? Please do not misunderstand, I am not bashing all Pastors, Ministers, or those that would profess the Word of God, I do that myself on Sunday. What I am saying is if we are to heed the warning that Christ gave us in this scripture, then it will take effort, not of one a group, not of one denomination, but it will take effort on each of our parts. The Word of God has been twisted, distorted, and misused for sometime. We have men, and women who are followed that teach many things that just are not correct. They take a verse here, and butt it up against a scripture there, and turn the Word of God into a perversion of the truth. So how will you know? How will you be able to tell if someone is trying to deceive you? Christ is telling us that it is going to happen, how will you prepare? You have to arm yourself with the Sword of truth, which is the Word of God. That Word can be found in the Bible. You can read it, you can understand it, as a matter of fact if you will approach reading the Bible with an open heart to the Lord, you will find that the Holy Spirit, will guide you and direct you. The best time you can spend with the Lord is the time spent with a Bible open in your hands. If you never learned math, you would not be successful in finance, if you had never learned English, you would never reach any lever of success.  You learned these things not because you went to school, but because you studied, you spent time learning. The teacher guided, but you did the work. Why would we thing that our Spiritual life would be any different? If one teacher had taught you that 2 + 2 = 5, and you never worked that problem on your own, you would have found yourself deceived, and it would have made your life difficult. The Lord might spend some time with you on Sunday, but what about Monday – Saturday? How will He reach you? How will He confirm His truths, How will he reach out to you? Open the book! You will find a wealth of truth that you can share with those around you….and you should share it freely. Tax men, fishermen, tent makers, these men followed and listened to the words of Christ, they learned how he lived first hand, and they helped changed the world. What is your role? Will you be an active participant, vetting the truth from the chaff, or will you rely on another man to feed you what is yours; given to you by the grace of God, purchased by the blood of Christ? Read the Word, be the change, do not allow yourself to be deceived.

 

 

God Bless,

Brian Thetford

<((((><

 

www.thenewcovenantchurch.com

 

www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com

 

Monday the 4th

Romans 5: ¹⁰For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

 

We are saved, by no thanks to ourselves, our lives were opened up to the gift of being reconciled with God. That reconciliation came, not at a time when we deserved it, not after we had done something to “win” it, it was not given as “payment” to some debt God had with us. It was quite the opposite actually. Our reconciliation came at a moment in human life when we deserved it the least. We, as a species, were enemies of God. Think of that for a few. We were enemies, yet God loved us so much that he still gave His Son to us. We were given the gift that leads to everlasting life, at a time when we deserved death. It is the ultimate show of love. As Paul points out, if we were reconciled by His death, how much more will we be saved through His life.  It sounds like a simple truth in this day and age. Yet it is a simple truth, that while we want to enjoy and apply to our lives, we seem to have a problem extending to the lives of those around us. We want the gift, but we fail to see that it is a gift that we must pass on to those around us. We talked this weekend in service about who gets that gift, do we extend it to true Christians? What about the Christians that have lost their way? Maybe it is for the Christian that does every thing wrong……This is the mindset that gets us moving down the wrong path. The gift of God’s Son, is not for us, or them, or the haves, and not the have nots. No Christ’s love, His reconciliation, His compassion, and His forgiveness, is for the same group of people it was for the day He died on the cross. The enemies of God. Think about it. We have the gift, we are reconciled to God, We have Christ in our lives, and in our hearts. Why do we so often treat that as a gift that is to be kept in our circle? Why do we want to withhold it at times, because we feel like someone does not deserve it, or that they do not “mean” what they say. We were the very same people, in the very same situation not too long ago. God withholds his love from no one who will seek it, Christ offers His forgiveness, and Love to all who call on him. We must become Christ like in our outpouring of this fantastic gift. We must offer it to all, for if God can reconcile with a wretch like myself through the death and resurrection of His Son……well then I cannot think of one person on the face of this earth who does not deserve the opportunity, the chance, the love, the forgiveness, and the reconciliation, that comes when we kneel at the cross of Christ. Will you deny this gift to those around you, or will you spread it freely?

 

 

God Bless,

Brian Thetford

<((((><

 

www.thenewcovenantchurch.com

 

www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com

 

Friday the 1st

1 Corinthians 3: ²I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. ³You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?

 

I loved putting models together when I was a kid. Planes cars, battleships, it did not matter the type. My favorite part was painting them. Since that is what I enjoyed the most, it would be the first thing I did. Well I never could seem to wait until the paint was dry to start putting them together, so as you can imagine, I ended up with fingerprints in my paint….you know they never smooth all the way out? I just got ahead of myself, there is a reason why you paint last. As I got older, I still seemed to struggle with the same problem, I wanted something, so I would go get it. Oh never mind I did not have the money, I would just finance it on a card…there I go again getting ahead of myself. It took me running several models, and amassing a huge amount of debt to begin to understand that Life is a series of steps, and you need to take the first one before you go on to the third one. The older I get, and the more people I talk to, I see that we tend to do the same in our spiritual lives. I put the NIV text at the beginning of this, but the KJV makes it a little clearer, it states in verse 2 “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat” Now the word meat seems easy enough to understand but when we look at the Greek word actually used in the text we see it is: bro’ma      bro'-mah; food (literally or figuratively), especially (ceremonial) articles allowed or forbidden by the Jewish law: - meat, victuals. Why is that important ? What Paul is telling them is that I am teaching you the basics of Christ, because you are not ready to get into the bigger issues yet, you are still mere men…..worldly men. You are not ready to argue the points of right and wrong on a large scale (such as what is and is not allowed by law, and getting away from Mosaic law). You are not ready to do these things until you have accomplished the basics of Christ within yourself. You have to drink the milk of the Lord, before you move on to the meat. The interesting thing about the milk, it is a lot harder than it sounds. The milk deals with changing yourself. It is one of the reasons we as humans want to jump right into the meat. It is always easier to tell others to change, than to change ourselves. We are still sometimes very much mere men and women. We have to fix ourselves, before we can go out and start fixing others. A story I am sure I have told before, but it is worth repeating is about the man who wanted to make a change. He wanted to change his family, so he became very involved in their lives, telling them what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. He was not successful, so he thought he would try to change his community, so he ran and was elected to city council, yet here again as hard as he tried, he could not make the changes he was working for, so he thought maybe a higher office, maybe I can change the country, and that will change my community, and as a result change my family, so he ran and was elected to the Senate. While there he passed many laws, and worked on behalf of the people, he never could reach the core, he never accomplished the change desired. It was not until he was an old man, retired, and reflecting on his life that he realized. He never achieved the change he was looking for, because he never changed himself. Had he started with himself, he would have shown his family how to live, and they would have changed. That changed family would have gone out into the community, and changed it, that community could have changed the state, then the country……and a force like that can change the world. It starts with you, you have to drink the milk, you have to change yourself, you have to let Christ into your life, and learn how you can be the person He needs you to be.  Once you have the milk down, then you can, not just make a change to meat, you can be the change in the lives of those around you. To set the world on fire, it does not take a match. It takes the fire that burns inside of you. Be the change, drink the milk of the Lord.

 

 

God Bless,

Brian Thetford

<((((><

 

www.thenewcovenantchurch.com

 

www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com