Feb 9th

Genesis 42     Job 8     Romans 12     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Paul asks us to offer ourselves up as living sacrifices.   Are we transformed, humble, faithful, using our gifts to serve others, loving, sharing, blessing, rejoicing and doing right all the time so that we are a blessing to our enemies, not just our friends?   This is far more of an act of worship than what we do in church on Sunday.   It involves a whole-hearted surrender to God and requires the humility and love than only God’s Spirit within us can supply.  

Joseph’s brothers certainly hadn’t lived like that, but God was using events not only to save the family but to start transforming individuals. 

In Job ch.8, Bildad is no blessing at all as he arrogantly & wrongly tells Job his children’s fate must have been punishment for wrong things they had done, and accuses Job of being in the same situation.

Reading the challenge to the Romans to be renewed and transformed [to be humble, to use our gifts and to show love in practical ways], makes us ask ourselves this question.   What is God putting His finger on today in my life to change and make me more like Jesus?   Let’s worship Him by embracing that change rather than resisting it. 

(member of the prayer ministry team)

Feb 8th

Genesis 41     Job 7     Romans 11     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

God reserves His remnant.   The interactions of each individual’s free response to God create such a complex picture that we draw immediate conclusions at our peril!   Paul calls us to consider the kindness of our gracious God as well as the sternness of our Holy God.   Being ‘saved by grace’ mustn’t lead to arrogant self-confidence but a greater awe for Him.   God’s mercy and grace are at work, not just in your life and mine, but across the world, even when we can’t see much evidence of where it is leading or why.  

Job is a clear example of someone ‘in the dark’ as to why God is allowing bad things to happen to him.   He isn’t afraid to tell God exactly how fed up and hopeless he feels about it. 

It took two years for what Joseph said to Pharaoh’s cupbearer to be remembered, while Joseph continued in jail.   Yet this was how God was saving Jacob and his family as ‘His remnant’.  

How patient are we when we feel in the dark?     Do we share our feelings with our heavenly Father?  How about re-reading Romans 11:33-36? 

(member of the prayer ministry team)

Feb 7th

Genesis 40     Job 6     Romans 10     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Paul’s themes continue – do we accept the good news of Jesus or reject it?   Our loving, generous God blesses those who do accept it with salvation, and ‘all day long holds out His hands’ to those who don’t.   Do we share the good news generously or do we keep it to ourselves?   If we are paralysed by fear, or if we start and the good news is rejected, we’ll need ‘the Lord’s rich blessing’ to help us if we are to keep ‘holding out our hands’.   These experiences have been common to God’s people through the centuries.

Joseph maintained his integrity and did not deny God in the face of unjust punishment.   God used him to speak good news to the cupbearer, but the cupbearer forgot Joseph {and God} once that good news was fulfilled. 

Job pours out his anguish at his undeserved suffering, his helplessness and his unsupportive friends when he hasn’t denied God or His word – he maintained his integrity.

Paul outlines the mixed reactions of Israelites to the good news but encourages us with the promises of verses 12 & 13. 

Why not ask God now to give you an opportunity {& the courage} to share our good news this week?

(member of the prayer ministry team)

Feb 6th

Genesis 39     Job 5     Romans 9     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Are you and I ‘children of the promise’?   We are all sinners – God hates sin, he cannot tolerate it, so we all stand condemned.    This is the dilemma that God himself addressed in the person of Jesus.  If we trust in what Jesus has done on the cross, if we respond to His mercy and grace, then the sin that makes us hateful to God is replaced by the perfection of Jesus that God loves.   God has given us the gift of free will so that each of us can choose whether to accept the greater gift of salvation.  

Paul reminds us of the limited ability of the human mind to grasp all that is in the mind of God.   Both our Old Testament chapters highlight the challenges that faith in God can receive.   Joseph was in a mess that was going from bad to worse but, unknown to him, he was God’s plan for saving the rest of his family {God’s people}.   Doing the right thing and being blessed in other ways does not mean that God stops us from having troubles {e.g. Joseph’s unjust condemnation & punishment}.    But we ARE children of the promise.

(member of the prayer ministry team)

Feb 5th

Genesis 38     Job 4     Romans 8

The apostle Paul starts Romans chapter 8 with wonderful words – we are set free because of what Jesus has done.   What transforming news this is!   Today’s Genesis chapter shows that God can use his people even when we disobey Him or let Him down.   Judah, Tamar and Perez all appear in the genealogy of Jesus {Matthew 1.3}.   But now His Spirit dwells in us, helping us in our weakness.  

Job chapter 4 illustrates the unreliability of human friends – Job wanted someone to empathise with him [‘to weep with those who weep’] but Eliaphaz was too busy passing judgement and telling Job where he had gone wrong.   God’s Spirit lives in us and prays for us.   Now nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.   We are His children, led by His Spirit.   

Have I accepted Christ’s wonderful free gift?

If so, what do I think of being God’s child?

What is my mind set on?   [v.5]

Do I know that in all things {the good and the bad, the pains and the joys of life} God is working for my good?  [v.28]

I find it helpful to remember verses 38 & 39.

(Reflections for this week are written by a member of the prayer ministry team)

Feb 4th

Genesis 37     Job 3     Romans 7     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Romans 7

So we are slaves to God, not to sin – so why is it that we keep on sinning all the time then? Paul is realistic – he is aware of his own tendency to do everything that is contrary to God’s commands (7:15-24). But he also knows why he does this - because he is unspiritual (7:14), living in a body of death (7:24), and still succumbing to the sinful nature, despite being a slave to God and His ways (7:25b).

It is as in marriage, Paul says in v1-3. When your spouse is alive, marriage requires your commitment to him or her as long as you live. However, when your spouse dies, you are released from this binding commitment. The law, then, is only useful as a binding guide to life until you are in Jesus (7:4). Once we belong to Christ we are released to live life, to serve, in the way of the Spirit, allowing Him to be our guide through our tendency to sin. Not the old way of the law (7:6,13).

But until heaven these two powers will be waging war within us every moment of every day (7:21-23). We, like Paul, want to not sin, but we sin again and again. How can we be rescued from this mess?

And that is where I want to leave you at the end of this exciting week into the gospel as proclaimed in Romans 1-7. We can’t do anything to rescue ourselves from our wretchedness (7:24)! Only Jesus can, and only Jesus does. If only we will trust Him. Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord (7:26)!

Feb 3rd

Genesis 35-36     Job 2     Romans 6     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Romans 6

What, or who, are you a slave to? Romans 6 starts to bring out the implications of the wonderful truths we have been looking at in the preceding chapters. Because we are saved by grace, not by works or religious trappings, we are free to live for God. Free to obey His commands. Free to be the people we were created to be. And slightly confusingly this chapter calls this slavery! But what it means is slavery to God (and what more loving a Master could we want?), in contrast to the alternative, slavery to sin.

In Christ we died to sin (6:2). This conquering of sin and its ultimate consequence (death) was achieved by Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and subsequent resurrection from that death. And if we are “in Christ”, that is trusting in Christ for our salvation as in the preceding chapters, we have symbolically died and been raised with Christ too (6:3-4). And this unity with Christ means we are no longer a slave of sin, compelled to live for sin alone (6:6-7,14). Instead we are free from this and alive to God (6:11), that is considered free of sin in the eyes of God – because of Jesus’ work on the cross. So living with sin reigning in our hearts, minds and bodies is completely at odds with who we are as people united to Christ (6:12-14). Sin is not our master – the risen Lord Jesus Christ is!

6:15-23 expands this idea. Reread Romans 1:18-32. This is what slavery to sin looks like. This is what unbelievers look like to God (6:19). And this only brings shame and death (6:21). As people set free from sin we can now consider ourselves slaves to God, free to obey and work for Him. And as we do this we will reap the fruit of holiness (6:19) and the gift of eternal life (6:23).

In what areas of your life are you tempted to be a slave to sin rather than a slave to God? Why is that attractive? How can you remember how much better it is to be a slave to God in the weeks ahead?

(friend of Christ Church)