Cazsadventblog22

  Rev 3:14  the faithful and true witness   ( plus a whole heap of other verses about Jesus being faithful to forgive, faithful and just etc) Someone posted the song Oh Come All You Unfaithful this week - in fact it has come up on my Facebook timeline a few times .  Unsurprisingly as it is a really powerful and relevant song for this time of year. Then yesterday in the car I had some Christmas worship music on and Oh Come All Ye Faithful was blasting out as I was singing along.  And I thought about the two songs and my mind started chewing on the topic of faithfulness.  ( You can find the song here   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-QHbpYjuIg&feature=emb_logo ) The thought that came to me was that it is easy to be faithful when you love something or someone.  When we are passionately committed to a cause or a person or a church we barely see their faults, we don't look elsewhere to get our needs met, we are happy and content because...

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  Matt 11;29 Yesterday when thinking about what name of Jesus to write about the word 'meek' jumped into my mind.  I realised that Jesus doesnt often tell us much about His personality. Many of His ' I Am' statements describe His mission - I am the true Vine, I am the shepherd, the door, the bread  etc.  But here He tells us about His disposition, His nature.  He is meek and lowly in heart.    If you look up a definition of meek it will say two things.  1)  patient, long-suffering, or submissive in disposition or nature; humble  and 2) spineless or spiritless, compliant.  I suspect the second definition is a later addition to the dictionary - we are so good at taking something noble and demeaning it arent we?  We look at someone who turns the other cheek and instead of celebrating forbearance  and forgiveness we...

  I went out shopping yesterday in the late afternoon and by the time Id got to town and let the dogs out and faffed about a bit it was dark.  And the lights were on.  The Christmas ones - all down the high street.  There was a lovely Christmas tree and most of the shops had sparkly twinkly lights in their windows as well as the ones hanging from lamp-posts on each side of the road.   I love it.  Something about the lights at this time of the year makes me happy. I started thinking about how lovely it is that at this time of year, every year, we get these wonderfully artistic, creative displays in our towns and cities for free.  And then I remembered that when I was very little my Mum bundled my brother and I into the car in our pyjamas and drove from our home in Leeds to Blackpool to see the illuminations.   If you have never been you should go.   I remember we drove really slowly down the seafront ( or wherever they were) gaz...

 Mighty is one of those words that feels really strange when you say it a few times.  Not a word we use often in everyday life but used often in the Bible to talk about God and several times in relation to Jesus. Then you will know that I, the LORD, am your Saviour, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. ( Is 60:16) and of course most famously at Christmas :  For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called. Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace  (Is 9:6) I remember many decades ago Graham Cooke came to speak at church.  I cant remember what he was teaching on but one of the things he got us to do has stuck with me for years.  He asked everyone to close their eyes and imagine they were standing on a battlefield.  I know you cant close your eyes as you are reading this but I urge you to go with this and imagine  the scene yourself.  As we look o...

 I spent quite a bit of time in the car yesterday and decided to put ' Christmas Worship' into Spotify and just listen to whatever came up.   There were lots of nice versions of carols and other Christmassy worshippy songs, but this one really touched me.  I think it is  lovely rendition of one of our best known carols with cleverly adapted words to turn it from a children's song into a declaration of praise.   I hope you enjoy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw_yH55dBIA&t=131s I'm not going to say anything else about it because Im sure you will have your own thoughts.  The countdown to Christmas is well and truly on.  I hope you are enjoying the preparations and aren't getting stressed.  Put on the worship music as you are wrapping those last presents - it helps 😁

  Author And Perfecter Of Our Faith: (Hebrews 12:2) Author Of Life (Acts 3:15) Author Of Salvation (Heb. 2:10) According to the dictionary an author is an originator or creator.  And as we all know Jesus was with God and was God in the beginning and everything was made by Him so it stands to reason that He is the author of everything. But in thinking about this particular title today I began to wonder if there is more to be discovered about our favourite and most prolific author. 😀 There is a school of thought which proposes that the gazillion stories which have been told over the centuries ( including all the films) can all be reduced down to seven basic archetypes.  Seven plot lines which form the basis for all the stories we tell.   I'll list them here and then we can have a look at the story Jesus has been writing since God first said ' let there be' 1.   Rags to riches : In a rags-to-riches story, a poor and derelict main character gains something the...

 Isiah 53:3  Its hard to really think about the things that Jesus went through in His life.  Easy to read.  Hard to imagine. Born to an unmarried couple in the middle of an occupation by a brutal dictatorship who wanted Him dead at birth.  Forced into exile and presumably homelessness and poverty as a refugee.  Having to live apart from His heavenly Father divested of all the trappings of heaven and the company of angels.  Super bright as a child and probably seen as somewhat precocious by the adults He wanted to hang around to quiz on their religious beliefs.  Unmarried way past the age when everyone else was married.  Weird cousin who lived in the desert.  Wandering mostly homeless for three years as His teaching caused people to want to stone Him and throw Him off cliffs.  Accused of being a drunkard and associating with scum. Misunderstood by just about everyone.  Suffered the death of one of His best friends and the betray...