Paul wants you to know what Christ has done for you. In Christ God has made it so that if you hold out, if you keep going, if you hang on in there, if you walk the walk, go the extra mile, if you seek to climb the high mountain of faith, if you seek to swim the river of adversity and climb out the other side in the strength of him who is with you continually, then you will stand before God holy in his sight, free from the blemish of sin and accusation. Satan will not be able to accuse you before the throne of grace because Christ in you has defeated him in your life and you have given Christ permission to that and have sought that willingly. Satan cannot speak a word against that true disciple of Jesus for you are in Jesus and Satan cannot stand. He has won you and you have given yourself to that winning.

~Bj

Morning All

Developing a relationship with the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is an exploration worth having. Christians know that as they grow in their understanding of Jesus he will lead them into all truth. John 8:31-32 says

31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

How is this achieved? The Holy Spirit will bring to mind the words of Jesus for any and every situation. John 14: 25-26 says

25"All this I have spoken while still with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

In any and every situation we need to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to us. “Really,” you may say or “get a life” or “I’m not superhuman!”

There is no claim to perfection here just a willingness to be open to the Holy Spirit speaking to us. This can start in our prayer lives. We can ask the Holy Spirit to weave through the feelings of our hearts, the thoughts of our mind, through our seeing and how we view live, through the words we speak and the actions we do. Such a discipline can be carried out anywhere and as we do this so we will become aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence and his voice. This will change us and we will become more effective for God. That is good!

~Bj

I was recently having a talk with a person who not believes in truth. There is no such thing as truth he said; to which I retorted is that true?

As I understand it the boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. This is true! As I understand it a human being cannot flap their arms and fly off into the air. This is true. Did you know that no matter how hard a pig tries it cannot look up into the sky! This is true. Is Jesus Christ Lord of all?

The truth of this can only be revealed to a person’s heart by the Holy Spirit of God himself through revelation. This is true. There is truth. Investigation in to facts, weighing up the facts and seeking to understand a report or a conversation is something we all do and then decide where the truth is. When it comes to Jesus only the Holy Spirit will let us know who he truly is.

If you are seeking Jesus it is because the Holy Spirit has prompted you to do so. This might have happened through a conversation, a report or reading the bible but it is the Holy Spirit of God who will lead you into the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and that he died for you to take your sin and shame that you might know Jesus as Lord and Saviour. That’s the truth.

~Bj

Dear All

I hope you managed to see yesterday’s BBC Songs of Praise from Knaresborough if not you can catch up on iPlayer under Religion and Ethics. The programme shows church, town and bed race of to maximum effect. It’s well worth a look.

This week sees the Great North Yorkshire Show at Harrogate Show Ground. Please pray for the ecumenical church stand as it witnesses to the thousands of people visiting the area about Christianity. Many people come with real personal needs and let us pray that they will meet our God in the welcome and listening of those manning the stand.

At KURC this Saturday 3-5pm it’s Kids Club and at Bilton URC on Sunday 3-5pm it’s our first Messy Church. Please pray for these events as the staff seek to share the love of God with parents and children.

God bless

~Bj

The story of the Good Samaritan is not new to us and therefore like a well known T. V. repeat we know what is going to happen and we applaud the Christian moral that Jesus invites us to live out – that is to be a neighbour to those around you. What does it mean to be a neighbour to your street?

I think it means not being nosey or a busy-body or a gossip but being friendly and willing to say hello and chat and help out when asked to those who live in your street. Sponsoring their children in a fun run, sending a card when a family has bad news and one when the news is good! There are many other things one could add but the point is made that living with our neighbours can be a positive experience and it can be a bad experience as I am sure we could all attest to at some point in our lives. Neighbourliness may mean calling round and asking the Dad to ask his daughter or son to turn their music down after 11pm or not to throw their beer cans into your garden etc. Neighbourliness is generally seen as a positive thing in a community and most people want that! The sort of neighbourliness Jesus speaks of extends outside the neighbourhood or the local shops and supermarkets. It is set away from home and the usual surrounds and in a place where you are passing through and maybe you are not the Good Samaritan but the person who is in need of help?

Read more •

Dear All

The sermon yesterday was PowerPoint led and therefore I do not have any notes.

I showed the congregation a set of slides from ipods, iphones, computers, to shopping needs, TV programmes, hilidays etc and asked them what they enjoyed.............. We then considered the parable that Jesus told of the man who found treasure in a field and sold all that he had and bought the field so he could have the treasure.

Jesus sais that the Kingdom of God is like the treasure, its worth all that we have. While all the items and holidays on the first set of slides were enjoyable they are also temporary while the Kingdom of God is permanent! I asked them to consider what they wanted for their lives: the temporary or the permanent!

These things are worth considering as our lives are finite but God and his Kingdom is infinite.

What will you choose dear reader?

God bless

~Bj

Dear All

3t's went well today and we were considering when sort of clay pot shape God wants us to be. We read Jeremiah 18:1-6. We thought about our clay pot shapes by looking at some slides. We people a cooking pot, some mums seemed to think so, a colourful pot, a personalised pot or a craked pot?

People drew their pot shape and then we considered what God wanted to put into the pot that is our lives? Most people drew a clay pot with cracks in it to show that they were not yet complete people but God was working on them. In that God working way he wants to fill our lives with the fruit of himself.

I like fruit particularly apples. Yet on a hot day like today there is nothing like a chilled fruit sald which is wholesome and filling and refreshing. God Spirit wants to refresh our lives with His fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and gentleness! This is the great fruit of God!

May he fill you with his fruit this day and everyday no matter the weather.

In Christ

~Bj

Paul begins in Galatians 3:23

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.

The Law described is the law of the Old Testament. People were not fully released into faith until Jesus Christ came until that time faith was mediated by how much you kept the law.

The law of the Old Testament revealed that those who tried to keep it were sinners and no matter how hard someone tried they would fail to keep the law at some point. They may love their Father and Mother but blew it when it came to having other gods and fancying their neighbours husband or wife. They might not misuse the name of the Lord but when it came to saying something wrong about somebody, false testimony, they failed! That is what the law was like!

Just when you thought you had nailed it you forgot it was the Sabbath, so you should not wory, and you tried to catch up on some paper work and again you failed! The law showed you what sort of person you were and you always had to go to the temple to sacrifice a dove or daisy your best cow to try to put things right with God. The law never altered the heart and could not do so. It is like today! How many of you have done more than thirty miles an hour in a thirty speed limit without realising it? Technically you have broken the law. You did not mean to but that is no defence in a court of law. You broke the rule and points go on your licence!

The nations of Israel failed terribly and they were forever being taken over by another nation because God got sick and tired of trying to urge them to obey and they never could which points the way to Jesus! Jesus is the answer to the law of the Old Testament. He came from God to free us from looking over our shoulders to see if we had broken any laws. With Jesus, and having faith in him, forgiveness is assured and hearts are changed. Paul says that that ‘the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ!’ Jesus Christ is life and freedom. Jesus gives life to those who are bound by the law of the Old Testament and the law of today.

Many people growing up in our country do not have a clue about Jesus let alone the law of the Old Testament but we have laws. How many times have you heard it said in a pub or the work place “there are two things you should not talk about and that is religion and politics.” How many of you have heard that? I agree that they are problematic but the point is to talk about Jesus is not to talk about religion. Religion has rules that seek to appease the user and put them in good stead with God through fulfilling rules that is not Christianity! Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus and not a religious set of rules. Jesus is freedom. Ask those at home, at work or in the pub would they like to be free and the answer would be (pause) yes! Jesus changes it from law to love, from rules to reformation and from hate to holiness, Jesus sets us free. He comes and opens the prison door, the chains fall off and we leave the dark cell to walk into the bright light of his way! People want that! I want that! You want that and Paul tells us why it should are be to be justified by faith.

You see you can do all the good works you want but they won’t get you into heaven only faith in Jesus, only trust in Jesus, only believe in Jesus and live for Jesus that’s the way to heaven! Believe in him and astounding things will happen.

The healing of the demon-possessed man was one such miracle that Jesus performed. This man was beset by many problems that led him to live apart from his neighbourhood. It was only when Jesus came into his environment that he changed and was restored back to the community from which he came and told of Jesus’ reconciling power! Jesus power to change lives is amazing. When one life is changed other people are affected.

I received this email in the week from our Synod Moderator Kevin Watson:
My father, in Durham, had the result of his bone scan on Thursday and I was able to visit him on Friday. The news is nothing short of miraculous having been told only a week before by his consultant that he had an aggressive form of cancer in his prostate with concern that it had spread into his bones, the consultant was meeting with the oncologist and able to tell Alf that he couldn’t understand it, but that the cancer has been ‘treated’ and although there is still cancer in the prostate, it is such a low risk that they are not going to do anything about it, probably not even going to give treatment. He couldn’t understand it, but Alf was able to tell him that many people had been praying for him and God had intervened and given him a healing.

Faith in action is amazing because it frees people not to rely on ‘the law’ of this world but on the grace of God in Jesus. In doing this we are set free to live differently from others. Our hope and trust is placed in Jesus and in him we move and have our being and no matter what happens Jesus gives us the gift of life and love and we should live that fully to his glory. Amen.

Morning all

Sorry for the delay in not writing but I have been very busy since returning from Ministers Summer School last week.

Well, the Bed Race came and we did it in 20.33! That means we have moved from number 66 in the ranking to number 57! The fastest time for the two and half mile course was 13:57 so we have a long way to go before we doing anything like that.

We began the race with a team prayer. We huddled around the bed and just committed the safety of all in the race to God. At the end of the race we finished in prayer and thanked God for his goodness to us. I had one joking complaint about the opening prayer that I did not pray for the River Nidd to part when we had to cross it. Good stuff!

We are committed to run next year and we look forward to that. The Bed Race will be the focus of BBC Songs of Praise of July 11th so do watch it if you can.

Have a God blessed day.

~Bj

Dear All

Please pray for the congregation of Morley United Reformed Church, Leeds, whose old church building burnt down in the early hours of this morning. The congregation have been worshipping in another building but have ancestoral ties with the old church. Please pray for them as they are in sadness and shock now.

Thank you

~Bj