Oct 7th

1 Kings 10     Ezekiel 40     Philippians 1     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Phil 1:27-28

A few weeks ago (9^th Sept) Paul was giving the sermons and he shared a picture that a number of the staff had felt the Holy Spirit give them as a way of encouraging Paul and Jackie. We saw Jackie and Paul on the front line of a battle, the other staff were right behind our leaders, ready to support them and step forward to join them when necessary. Other staff members had a very similar picture of a Rugby scrum with Paul taking the worst of the attack. Many of the staff were also reminded of Ephesians 6:10-20 and Paul’s call to ‘Stand firm against the devil’s schemes….stand your ground….stand firm’. In our reading for today from Philippians we hear this phrase again ‘Stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the Gospel…’

In my experience of moving cattle, every person must stand firm, because if anyone blocking the road moves for fear of the cows heading towards us, there will be a gap in the human barrier, and the cows will run through it creating the problem of finding them and getting them back into the right field.

Every Christian needs to stand firm, not because of a confused cow or because we want to win a Rugby match but because we are in a battle against the devil’s schemes. We need to stand with our leaders and fellow members of Christ Church, not letting through, our united, firm line, any issue that will disrupt our impact in the world as carriers of the gospel of Christ.

(part time member of staff)

Oct 6th

1 Kings 9     Ezekiel 39     Ephesians 6     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Some people aspire to a second home in the country – perhaps a cottage in Cornwall or a gite in France – spending their time now in one place, now in another. Christians live in 2 worlds at the same time, citizens both of heaven and earth.

In Ephesians 2:6 Paul had talked about Christians as having already been raised and already being seated in the heavenly realms even as we live our mundane daily lives. The same thought appears in Ephesians 6 where we find that we are engaged in a battle in the heavenly realms. But we do not leave one realm at the end of the week for our weekend in a second home: we stay both citizens of this world and of the heavenly realms at the same time.

This is a familiar passage and we may easily lose the sense of strangeness in describing Christians as needing to dress like Roman legionaries, putting on armour in readiness for war. Even stranger is the fact that the armour and weapons are things like ‘truth’, ‘righteousness’, ‘salvation’, all of which are used elsewhere to describe Jesus himself. What it shows is the seriousness and significance of Christian life. This is not something we dabble in during our weekends or evenings away from the world of work (or wherever we spend most of our time). There is a spiritual battle going on whether we choose to engage in it or not but we can be reassured that the weapons God gives us are enough for us to ‘be strong’ and ‘stand’.

Are you taking seriously the spiritual battle? Are you living as a citizen of heaven even as you go about your daily life?

(member of the congregation)