Concerning prayer and thought for the day

In our life we encounter enough worries and lots of difficulties of which we wonder how we can cope with them. In life, we are often so busy with ourself that we do not make much time to think about our own Maker.

Lots of people who believe in God think about Him as a boo man or think He is to Grand or Special so that they as just an ordinary small being cannot come unto Him. But they are mistaken. Just by daring to come close to Him we show our will to be under Him and to be a child of Him.

God doesn't call the qualified but He is more interested to touch first those who are humble or who have lots of worries and questions. He is eager to come closer to those who do not yet know Him but who are willing to get to know Him.

Sometimes we pray and pray and it seems like nothing happens. but then we should ask: Why?
There might be a good reason that what we asked not to be answered like we wanted it to be answered. We should always wonder if that what we ask is in line with God His Wishes or with His Plan.
Look at all those who are at war, and both camps praying for them to win the war. But first of all war is something God does not want. He does not want people to fight against each other. So any plea for help in that fight would be useless.

When rightly placed and done with the right attitude "Prayer has the power to change mountains into highways."

We have to make time for having just some time between us and God plus for contemplation and meditation. Creating some moment we can talk to our Divine Most High God.
Each day we should take some time to think about life and about the Sustainer of life. Every day we should take time to meditate on God's Word.

The Christadelphians provide some help to go through the Bible day by day in a year. They also provide next to the Bible Reading Plan or chart. That Bible Companion is just a practical aid, encouraging people to continue their Bible reading in a way that they do not skip the same chapters, but go from one book to the other, chapter after chapter, each year.

May we advise you to come to read those Thoughts for the day and to find some further articles on Bible study and reading, Praying and prayers?

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Find also to read:

1. A Living Faith #7 Prayer
2. If you think you're too small to be effective
3. Give your worries to God
4. God doesn't call the qualified
5. Does God hear prayer?
6. Does God answer prayer?
7. Sometimes we pray and pray and it seems like nothing happens.
8. Prayer, important aspect in our life
9. Prayer has the power to change mountains into highways
10. Prayer for the day
11. Praise Jehovah
12. Prayer has comforted us in sorrow
13. He who kneels before God can stand before anyone! 
14. If you do pray you shall not be disappointed 
15.  
16. The express train of the speeding time
17. Salvation, trust and action in Jesus #3 as a Christian
18. 2019 A New Year of Prayer
19. Altitude begins with an attitude of gratitude
20. Pray that we will make the time to listen: listen to God and listen to each other
21. Today’s thought “Blessed the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly” (January 01)

Zionist Attempt to undermine the presence of the Christian community

14 years ago a Zionist organisation called Ateret Cohanim obtained the properties in Christian Jerusalem by using foreign-based third parties as intermediaries to secretly buy the properties from the Greek Orthodox patriarchate.

The attempted sale has been subject to a legal dispute for the past fourteen years but on 10th June the Israeli Supreme Court rubber-stamped the sale in favour of the Zionists.

Getting more Christian properties of which most of them were hotels used by Christians, lesser Christian visitors will be having a place to sleep and visit the city, giving more room to the Zionist settlers.

The Christian Patriarchs of the Holy Land and heads of other churches including the Anglicans and Lutherans have issued a joint statement condemning this deceitful sale of hotels in the Christian quarter of Jerusalem to what the Patriarchs described as an “extremist group” of Zionist settlers.
They warned

“The actions of this radical group do not only mean an assault on the property rights of the Greek Orthodox Church, but an assault on the status quo protections for all Christians in this holy city of Jerusalem and deeply threatens the Christian presence in our beloved Holy Land.”

“An attempt to undermine the presence of one Church here undermines all the Churches and the wider Christian community around the world. We reaffirm our belief that a vibrant Christian community is an essential element in the preservation of Jerusalem’s historically diverse society and a prerequisite for peace in this city.”

A prayer for this week: Asking forgiveness and thanking God

 

 

Father forgive me for I have sinned:

There were several occasions in the week when I was selfish or mean;
Or careless or uncaring or slow to reach out to those who are ill
I have given less than I could to those in need;

There were days I did not pick up my Bible
or remember to say thank you;
And when I brought all this to you for your mercy and grace
I received it.
Because you welcome sinners so that you can
love and forgive them.
 
Thank you, Lord.
I wish I was more like you.

 

 

prayer for this week

Main churches losing population share

In the Low Countries it looks more as if the Church is dying. The majority of main churches, the bastions of a few decades ago, are nearly empty and even have no weekly Sunday service any more.

In the United States there are still many mega-churches, but there too we can find that the main churches are loosing attending ship.

Based on telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, Pew Research Center said Thursday that 65% of American adults now describe themselves as Christian, down from 77% in 2009. Meanwhile, the portion that describes their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.

The so called conservative Christian country sees her religious landscape changing at a rapid clip.

One-in-five adults (20%) are Catholic, down from 23% in 2009.

Self-described atheists now account for 4% of U.S. adults, up modestly but significantly from 2% in 2009; agnostics make up 5% of U.S. adults, up from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 12% in 2009.

As in Europe we can see that members of non-Christian religions also have grown modestly as a share of the adult population.

Over the last decade, the share of Americans who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month dropped by 7 percentage points, while the share who say they attend religious services less often (if at all) has risen by the same degree.

> In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace

UK and EU and their Brexit deals

The Brexit saga looks a big complicated soap.

More than once it looked like the United Kingdom and European Union agreed on a new Brexit deal, and the British Prime Ministers Theresa May and afterwards Boris Johnson announcing that they had "a great new deal".

At one point Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the EU Commission, also described the deal as a "fair and balanced agreement" that is "testament to our commitment to find solutions."

However, the many proposals and worked out deals did not get the approval of the UK Parliament to pass into law.

Johnson's predecessor Theresa May, was voted down three times by the House of Commons, forcing the UK to seek an extension to the original Brexit deadline of March 31 this year. May's deal was criticized heavily on all sides of the political spectrum, with some arguing it left the UK too closely aligned with the EU, and others saying that it failed to protect workers' rights and would damage the economy.

This time the prime minister Boris Johnson said he would abandon his Brexit bill and call for a general election if MPs voted down the government’s three-day timetable. Johnson told parliament if the programme was rejected and the EU confirmed a delay to the 31 October exit, he would instead push for a general election.

Boris Johnson paused his attempt to get his deal through parliament after MPs refused to allow him to fast-track it. Despite MPs having decided to pass the legislation that would implement the deal to the next parliamentary stage, Johnson took it off the agenda because they refused to agree to accede to his demand for a three-day timetable.

For the so maniest time it looks like the English receive another delay from the European Union. The European council’s president, Donald Tusk, said he would recommend the extension be signed off and it was suggested that 31 January 2020 would be set as the new deadline, though it would be superseded if there was an earlier ratification of Brexit by MPs.

Problems on a dark road and A look at our ego-centric world

On our trip in the South of France we got stuck in the darkness not finding one of the resorts where we had booked to stay for a week. The four "alarm"lights were put on flickering whilst I went out of the car for searching someone who could help us.
My wife and the dog stayed in the car and got middle fingers up from drivers speeding along our car and having their horns blast. After more than twenty minutes there was some car stopping; Out came an African 'rapper' who was friendly to help us on our way.

Were there no French people willing to stop because of fear? Did they not want to have a confrontation in the full darkness of the late evening?
Or was it fear of judgment, guilt, shame, blame – all forms of attack that drove them to quickly pass the car which had surprised them in the middle of the night?

Clearly ego believes that by giving one loses what is given and today people prefer only to receive and not to give away. They were eager to have the horns blow, and give us the idea that we were a danger on the road. (Which we were in a certain way, there in the full darkness.)

But how does it come that it took such a long time before someone was willing to help? Flickering danger lights had to give a sign that we were in need. Though a confrontation with someone in need does not seem to be something a West-European wants to be to come in contact with in these times of abundance, where not many want to share with others. Imagine that we would ask something they had to share?
The speeding drivers wanted to make us feel that we had to be crazy to stand still in the darkness. Their ego was so quick to pass judgment and offer guilt, and in a certain way they succeeded by the amount of cars and noise they made to give us that annoyed feeling of stupidity and fear.

Perhaps their ego believes that making others guilty cleanses one of one’s own guilt. It projects hate in an effort to purge hate. The ego’s automatic form of defence is attack. It reasons that the more it attacks the less liable to attack it becomes.  What it gives, it loses.

That is one of the great problems of our society today. The individuals their ego has grown so much, there is no place for an other human being nor for some divine Creator. They want to be their own boss and to be in full control themselves.

"Leave the other person alone with problems and don't worry about what may have happened,"

 they think and continue their selfish path.

Jahushua, Joshua, Jeshua or Jesus an Immanuel or God with us an incarnated God or a human being?

There are several people who claim that Jesus is God entre autre because he is called Immanuel and Jesus. They seem to forget that before and after Jesus was born there have been other people with the same name.

The name of Jesus is not the original name of the Nazarene master teacher. His real Hebrew name is Jeshua, a short form or nickname for Jehashua or in old spelling Yahushua. Jeshua is actually the same Hebrew name as Joshua which comes from Je-ho-shua and which means “God saves”.  

It is not because parents where caling their child Immanuel or Emmanuel, which means “God with us” that they would have been convinced that their child would be God having come in their family. All those Immanels and Immanuels are not an incarnation of God, like so many Christians want us to believe.

It is interesting as a sideline to note that Joshua is renamed by Moses from his original name which means “He saves” to “God saves” presumably to underline that it is God that saves not man:

“And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua” (Nu 13:16).

The Jeshua born in Bethlehem, brought up in Nazareth and teaching a lot in Galilee, who lived in that region at the same time as the rebellious gangleader who lived in the mountain caves and had the same first name Jeshua (or if you prefer Jesus) was, like the rebel not God incarnated because of his name. Because then God would have been walking at least in two people, the rebellious rabbi or master teacher Jesus and the political rebel, Jesus who fought against the Roman invaders.

The fighter Jeshua or Jesus was hoping to save his  people from the Romans. The prophet Jeshua who taught about love, wanted to save all people from the curse of death. Both could be considered saviours, though none of them was the Saviour God. Both could exist or be there at the same time in the same region. Both could be seen and heard about by many. Several people had put their hope on one or the other man with the name Jeshua (God saves) looking forward to be saved from Roman tirrany. It was because God allowed them to be there, that they could be there.

People can help others and even can save lives of others (like surgeons and first aid workers do), but in the end it is always because God allows those people to be there and to have such gifts to save someone. Without God nobody can do something, or save someone.

The name Jeshua or Jesus was and is still given by people to honour God and to show Him gratitude. But that name does not indicate that Jesus or Chesu of the first century of this Common Era would have been God having come in the flesh. The same, all those who, today, are called or have the name Immanuel, Emmanuel, Jesus, Jezus, Chesu, Jeshua, Jahushua, etc. are not a god or the God incarnated, but are simply human beings of flesh and blood.

After his death and resurrection Jesus (Jeshua) showed his wounds as a proof he was the man of flesh and blood who was previously impaled, and the proof he was not a spirit, like his heavenly Father Who is a Spirit.