Making Time

 


 


‘longsuffering with JOY.’ Colossians 1:11

‘being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy;’ New English Version


Have you ever needed God to strengthen you?

In recent months we have been learning how The Lord has a very particular way of strengthening His Church.

It began as we thought about how JOY itself is a grace and gift from the Holy Spirit.

'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.’

‘‘Fruit’ here means "the result of labour." The labourer is the Holy Spirit.

So what Galatians 5 really describes is the characteristics of a believer who has yielded to the Holy Spirit's work in his or her life.

One of these character traits is joy:’ (from Compelling Truth.)

The result is JOY as God labours to develop us in faith, and our response as we continue in Him.

Simply put, sometimes we have to continue to do what is our duty.

Dreary duty can deaden, but carrying on our duty, strengthened by our hope and trust in God, brings JOY.

We previously thought about the journey Home which God’s people were making through the wild place. It could have been a long dreary route; instead, they sing the songs of God’s redeemed, because they know whose they are, and where they are going. They get on with it.

They are able to do their duty. They commit even in longsuffering/ endurance, because they have found Joy in Christ.

Why do I tell you all this?

Partly because I am greatly heartened to see one, two, three … many individual believers get on joyfully in their duty before God.

Where others might understandably rail about the day and the difficulties,

I am encountering Christians who might equally rail and complain, but instead they are looking for ways to serve the purposes that God had given to them.

I see them ‘strengthened for all endurance and patience, with joy.’

Joyfully they are knitting 600 dishcloths for an outreach project this winter.

Joyfully they are writing to families and registering small numbers and large numbers of children and young people for Sunday School, GFS and CLB.

Joyfully they are sending out packs with Bible teaching, crafts, chocolates, and encouragement.

Joyfully they are connecting with families, many of whom we haven’t seen for months now, in order to encourage them in that work outlined for God’s household in the Old Testament.

‘These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. 7And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.’

Deuteronomy 6

... as you walk, as you sit, ... on your doorposts and your gates ...

God’s people were to teach their children His ordinances, His Laws,

His Ways.

At home, out walking, before sleep.

In going out and in coming in again.

I cannot enough thank the ministry leaders here who are trying to support and encourage families to keep on with the faith.  Yes, I would greatly love to see families gather together for worship, and perhaps more thought is needed to find ways to do that now. I commend every parent who is making the time to be at Church. It sets an example in a family, the benefits of which will last a life time.

We don’t want, during these restrictions, to nurture a generation who lose sense of the weekly rhythm given by the Lord, in setting aside a Sabbath to worship Him, and to be rested ourselves.

Teach it to your children at home, in your online ministry group, at the kitchen table, out walking.

As parents and families we can still do much to observe God’s ways in our own lives.

We are called to labour. To endure. To be patient. To find strength in God. 

To receive His JOY. 

At this time, there is great JOY in seeing the efforts many are making to carry on the work of the Gospel.

Much is numerically small, but in the economy which Jesus uses,

He knows that the small and unseen and overlooked is of great worth.

Amen.

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