Saturday 8 October

Jeremiah 16:1-17:27

O this deceptive heart!  We have here in 17:9 one of the clearest descriptions of what the Fall of Adam has done to the heart of humanity - it has made it deceitful above all things.  For a Hebrew like Jeremiah the heart was not just the source of emotions but also of the urges and thoughts and inclinations of a person.  So this is a savage statement indeed.  This conviction has underpinned Christian living for more that two centuries now.  We need to hesitate before trusting ourselves. We need to beware of trusting ourselves.  We should have our repentance prayer constantly at our side.  But, at the same time, things have moved on since Jeremiah.  The heart is no longer beyond cure - the cross of Christ has seen to that.  Our hearts have been redeemed, our hearts have been cleaned up.  Jesus has saved us from our body of death.  And so we find ourselves once again in the now and not yet tension of our faith.  On one level now we have good hearts bent towards our Heavenly Father, delighting in him and loving his ways and, at another level, our hearts still have a tendency to deceive, they are still drawn to their old master and tempt us away from our hope.  So our lives are continually defined by repentance and faith - repentance from deceptiveness and faith towards goodness.  And God, in his mercy, walks with us through it all.

Colossians 4:2-18

I’m so grateful for being in a church.  I so deeply appreciate the love and care and encouragement that my brothers and sisters minister to me.  But there is one thing that others do for me that I think I appreciate more than any other; they pray.  When people say they pray for me I want to kiss their knees.  They are carving out my future, they are smoothing my ride, they are strengthening me and establishing me.  Their kneeling and beseeching (that’s a fine word don’t you think??) has made me the man than I am.  So when Paul says we should devote ourselves to prayer he is calling us to feed each other.  If we want to see others do well, if we want to see them grow and prosper and move closer to Jesus and away from darkness and suffering then there is really nothing finer and more potent that we can do for them than pray.  When we, like Epaphras, wrestle for others in prayer (and prayer does often have that difficult, grubby wrestling sort of feel to it) we add to the firmness of their stance.  When we bring others before God we usher them into maturity and into assurance.  Faith is built on prayer.  The church is build on prayer.  The Kingdom is built on prayer.  So I’m off to get myself a new wrestling suit.

Psalm 118:17-29

These boys were constantly harassed and stressed and their standard of living was far below ours.  And yet they are constantly going on about rejoicing and gladness and marvelousness.