Exodus 20 v 3. You shall have no other gods before me.   We know that it is God who takes the initiative in our salvation. It is not us. God choses us and reveals Himself to us. Nevertheless from the point of view of our own personal experience, there comes a...

Exodus 20 v 8. You shall have no other gods before me.   The heart of this commandment is the claim that the one and only true God of Heaven and Earth should be set aside consciously in our hearts, as OUR God. He is to have precedence over all things. We know we...

Exodus 20 v 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.”   We must remember that ancient Egypt was described as a land of slavery. It was not a good place for the Israelites to live. It is a picture of the human heart without the light of God – a heart where...

Exodus 20 v 1 I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.   I said yesterday there were two ways to look at God’s rescue of the Israelites from Egypt. The second way is to see it as an act of great might and power.  ...

Exodus 20 v 2 “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery”   You will no doubt recall the amazing way in which God rescued the Israelites from Egypt. We can think of this great act of rescue in two different ways.  ...

Exodus 20:2 “I am the Lord your God ….”   Think of what it means to have God as your Lord.   1. It means that you have a rock on which to place your feet when times of darkness come. Trials and tribulations can take many forms. It may be an attack on your...

Exodus 20:3. I am the Lord your God   Following on from the comments of yesterday I want to underscore the importance of knowing that the Lord is your God. Many people simply presume that they truly worship God, or know Him, or at best would not be rejected by...

Exodus 20 v 2 I am the Lord your God.   The name of the Lord – Yahweh – is the great name by which God reveals Himself and sets forth His great majesty and power. It is a name that signifies the self-sufficiency of God. He is eternal, independent, and unchanging....

Exodus 20 v 1 – 2 And God spoke all these words. ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other god’s before me…   The words that begin this page are tremendously important. Unlike the gods of the nations...

1John 4 v 19   We love Him because He first loved us.   We should remember that there would be no interest in God by us, no love, no affection, no desire, were it not for the fact that He first loved us and initiated our Salvation. Only those who have been...

Psalm 42 v 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.When can I go and meet with God?   Although this Psalm is written for the devout Israelite who appears to be undergoing trials, the hunger for God and his presence is nevertheless true of all who belong to...

Deuteronomy 6 v 8. Love the Lord your God with all your heart…   This is an all encompassing requirement from God – ALL your heart! But all your heart? What does that actually mean? Well basically it means total sincerity. We do not allow hearts to be divided by...

Deuteronomy 6 v 5. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”   This is the summery of the Ten Commandments. It is a duty that God our Creator and Redeemer places upon us. It is the “duty” called love.  ...

  Isaiah 1 v 19 If you are willing and obedient you will eat the best from the land.   What are the ingredients of a true and whole-hearted obedience that honours God and brings joy to our hearts?   1. It must be willing and not grudging. Sometimes the...

Colossians 2 v 18 Do not let anyone who delights in fake humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions.   The obedience God...

Deuteronomy 27 v 9 &10 Be silent O Israel and Listen! You have now become the people of the Lord your God. Obey the Lord your God and follow his commands and decrees that I give you today. Join me as we take a look at the subjects of obedience and love for...

Jeremiah 33 v 3. “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”   This promise given to the prophet Jeremiah, also has a wider application to the people of God. We may call out to God for understanding of His word...

Luke 18 v 1. Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.   For many believers it is a mystery why there are times when God just does not appear to hear their prayers, or to deliver them out of some great...

Matthew 6 v 26 Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your Heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?   Our Lord appeals to the birds of the air, the lilies of the field and also the grass of...

Matthew 6 v 9 This is how you should pray: Our Father in Heaven Why bother to pray, anyway? After all the universe is so big, the world we live in is so huge and busy, things happening all the time, I am so small, God is so great and so remote. Is there any value in...

Matthew 6 v 14 If you forgive men when they sin against you your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.   All Relationships come from God who is Himself in relationship with the Son...

Matthew 6 v 7 ……they think they will be heard because of their many words It is the most common failure of human nature to realise that we cannot be accepted by God on the basis of our own human merits. Sometimes these merits may take the noble form of prayer. Jesus...

Matthew 6 v 5 But when you pray do not be like the hypocrites Having made the point that true prayer to God is based on a relationship with God, it is nevertheless true that for many of us prayer can still be a frustrating experience. Sometimes it seems that the...

Matthew 6 v 9 This is how you should pray. “Our Father …” True prayer is based on a relationship with God. The only basis upon which we can call upon God and expect to be heard is when a connection with God has been restored. We are not born with an automatic...

Matthew 6 v 9  “This is how you should pray….”   Today is the start on a short series on prayer. Not everything that could be said on this profound subject, will be said, but I hope some of the comments will be helpful.   Firstly, let us remember that prayer...

2 Corinthians 5 … the old has gone, the new has come. Becoming a Christian is a miracle of epic proportions. The bible describes us as a “New Creation”. In other words God recreates new spirits within us, new natures that can now do things we could not do before....

Romans 8:15 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Sonship.”   It would be very difficult to think of a higher privilege than the one described in today’s bible verse. To receive the Spirit of...

1 John 2:20 “But you have an anointing from the Holy One and all of you know the truth.”   When we become Christians the Holy Spirit lives within us. He brings us into a personal relationship with God. We have new natures. Now with the new nature come new...

Matthew 7:17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.”   Many are confused about the Christian faith because of the bad behaviour they have seen in the lives of people who say they are Christians. But the truth is not everyone...

1 Peter 1:3 “In His great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ….”   We have been talking about being converted because that is the way most of us understand what it means to become a Christian....