Watching Daily At Wisdom's Gates

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1 John 4:16 (ESV) What a privilege and a joy to know the love that God has for us. Judas knew it but he didn't believe. We need to know and to believe in the love of God for us in Christ. God is love. If we want to know what love is, we need look no further than Christ crucified on our behalf. Jesus is love personified. If we claim to be loving but deny God, we might have a form of godliness, but we deny its power. To truly live lives defined by love, we need to live in relationship not just with other people, but also with our Master and Maker. Amazingly, sinners though we are, we can have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us. God can abide in us out of His great love for us. We enter in by faith. 'Father God, we praise You for Your love for us in Christ crucified and in the gift of Your Holy Spirit. In Christ's name we pra...

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26 (NIV) Jesus's statement is either painfully inappropriate: directed to a grieving woman, or else it is true. He proved the truth of His statement by raising Martha's brother Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus would eventually die again, but Jesus rose Him again for an eternity with Him. We all face death, unless Jesus returns first. Yet if we trust in Him, death is like falling asleep before He wakes us up for an eternity with Him. If we trust in Him, we're born twice and die once If we reject Jesus we're born once and die twice. The second death is hell. We need to believe in Him for eternal life. Martha trusted that in the end, everything would be okay. Jesus showed her that even in this life we can be blessed. Faith in Him isn't just 'pie in the sky when we die...

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21 (NIV) What we treasure is what we put our heart and soul into. Most of us work, but that tends to be for money. What we would do for free reveals our hearts. Jesus calls us not to store up treasures for ourselves on earth, where things decay or get stolen. He tells us to store up treasures in heaven. How do we do that? We store up treasures in heaven by investing in the kingdom of God. If God is our treasure, our heart is with Him, enthroned in heaven. The Apostle Paul tells us that when we trust in Jesus, we get enthroned with Him in glory. There's no point treasuring worldly things, because they're passing away. Instead, we should treasure God, because He is everlasting and will never let us down. Instead, He will reward us with eternal life. 'Heavenly Father, may we treasure You above all, for You are truly worthy of all of our adoration. For Your everlasting glory we pray, amen'

 John 6:35 NIV Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.  Bread was the staple diet in the ancient near East. By claiming to be the Bread of life, Jesus was claiming to be essential for our sustenance.   Jesus wasn't being literal. He was being metaphorical. Our spiritual hunger and thirst can only be satisfied by Him. We look to all sorts of things for satisfaction. These include literal food, sex, money and power. Only Jesus can satisfy us completely. All our wants long to be satisfied, for food, sex and friendship for example. Only God can satisfy our longing for meaning because to worship Him is the ultimate meaning in life. For eternity we'll rejoice to praise Him for all His goodness too us as the Source of all goodness. 'Dear Lord, thank You for being the bread of life, for satisfying us spiritually. For the honour of Your name, amen'

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57 (NIV) We all face death. We might assume that death gets the victory over us, snuffing out the feeble light of our lives. Yet if we trust in Jesus, we get to enjoy eternal life. We can and should be thankful to God. He's disarmed death, the weapon of the enemy of our souls. Death has no sting any more. In Christ we have the victory. Because He has triumphed over death, we can too. We just need to believe in Him. We deserve death, condemnation and destruction. Yet in Christ we get to enjoy eternal life. It starts from the moment we first entrust ourselves to Him. 'God, we thank You for giving us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to enjoy eternal life, in His name we pray, amen'

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5 (NIV) As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, darkness can't drive out darkness, only light can do that. Violence isn't the solution to violence. Peace is. This verse is about more even that peace and violence. There are more shades of light and dark than that. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Light of the world. In Christ's light do we see light. Satan tried to destroy God's Son. He was crucified, but you can't keep a good man down, and He rose again victorious over death on the third day. If we belong to Jesus, we are the light of the world. We reflect the light of Christ to the world. The darkness cannot overcome us. Even if we're martyred, we still get to enjoy eternal life with our Saviour and Lord. 'Heavenly Father, please help us to come into the light and to forsake the darkness. For the honour of Your name, amen'

rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Philippians 2:7-8 (NIV) Jesus is the Son of God. He is in very nature God. Yet He didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped. For our sakes, Jesus became worse than nothing, treated like a criminal executed for treason/blasphemy. He claimed to be God which to the Romans was treason and to the Jewish leaders was blasphemy. It was for our salvation that Jesus humbled Himself to the lowest He could be. Even for God to become a man was humbling. Yet to be executed as the worst of sinners for us is an amazing truth. That Jesus died for us is the most amazing, wonderful thing ever. Why did Jesus die for us? Out of obedience to His heavenly Father. If the Son of God, equal with the Father, obeys Him, how much more should we? We should obey God. 'Heavenly Fath...

Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it. Isaiah 28:18 ESV As in the days of Isaiah, so it is nowadays. Politicians in the UK today are seriously considering legalising assisted suicide. Our society is already killing countless children in the womb, now it is debating whether to kill off people who are declared to be at death's door. Many people who are declared to be close to death by doctors prove them wrong. It's not up to doctors when we die, that's God's prerogative. The assumption is that life is meaningless and we're just worm food at the end of the day, so it doesn't matter when we die. People who have a flagrant disregard for life will come in for a rude awakening when their lives come to an end, but it will be too late to repent by then. Life is sacred. It's up to God when we go to meet Him. Most people assume they'll...

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Matthew 22:37-39 (ESV) The meaning of life is these verses. We are to love our Creator, Sustainer and Saviour with all that we are. Also, we are to love others as we love ourselves. If we fulfilled these commands perfectly, we would have eternal life. Of course, we don't, which is why we need God to save us. Thankfully, the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. The Lord Jesus Christ actually sets the bar even higher than Moses. With Moses, perhaps we would feel we could get away with the letter of the law. Jesus however gives us a spiritual application and commands us to love others as He has loved us. Christ loved us by giving His life for us. We ought to be prepared to lay down our lives for others. Of course, there's plenty we can also...

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. 1 Chronicles 16:34 (NIV) Some parts of the world celebrate a festival called 'Thanksgiving'. Sadly, the UK isn't so thankful. Yet everything good is a gift of God who is worthy of our thankfulness. The Lord is the everlasting, unchanging one. He's not like us, thankfully. His love endures forever. Our loves tend to be rather temporary. Even the marriage covenant is only 'til death us do part'. God's love is eternal. The goodness of God is a scary truth, because we are bad, and He can't tolerate badness. Thankfully, Christ died out of love for us, so that we might be saved from our badness. Now we can enjoy God's goodness without fear of banishment. 'Dear Lord, we thank You from the bottom of our hearts, for You are good, and Your love endures forever. In the name of Jesus, amen'