Wednesday 26 October

Jeremiah 52:1-34

Jeremiah wasn’t kidding - just as he said, so it happened.  That is the potency of the word of God.

Titus 1:1-16

This pastoral epistle overflows with every aspect of Christian leadership.  And it could be summed up with the old Vineyard phrase “people do people stuff”.  Although Paul’s summary of the Cretans is so harsh that it makes you weep with joy that he never wrote your school report, he is just stating the bible’s opinion on people - they are naturally wicked.  So people’s minds and consciences are corrupted.  People are mere talkers and deceivers.  People ruin whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach.  People claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.  So they need pastoring.  So they need leading.  And their leaders must be of a different order.  Their leaders should not do ‘people stuff’ but should have a knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness.  Their leaders should be blameless and hospitable and upright and holy and disciplined.  And this is possible, not because of leaders’ own abilities but because of the grace and peace of the Father has gone to work in their lives.  Leaders can live the life that is real life because of the hope of eternal life that God has promised them and brought to fruition in their lives.  This is the call on leaders - to go to work at making others sound in the faith - in helping them walk away from “people stuff” and towards godliness and holiness and doing things that are good.  This is hard work.  It involves rebuking sharply and silencing and refuting.  Those aren’t too much fun.  But it also involves encouraging.  And it leads people into purity.  It leads people into life.  And we have to do it.  Because they are God’s elect and he has entrusted them to us.  God is our Saviour.  And, through us, He is the saviour of other people too.

Psalm 119:105-112

“My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.”  It is God, O it is.