Monthly Message Jan 2023

Dear friends,

Several people have kindly (and, I assume, sincerely!) wished me a Happy New Year.  But can it really be happy in the light of Ukraine, rail strikes, mail strikes, nurses’ strikes, the NHS and care service crisis, the cost of living and so on?  We may not be able to do much, or even anything, about our circumstances but we can do a lot about our approach to life.

In Psalm 119 verses 153 to 160 the Psalmist asks God twice to renew his life and then to preserve his life.

  • v154 “renew my life according to your promise

I am told there are 365 promises in the Bible (I haven’t checked) so that makes one for every day of the year.  Let’s make 2023 a year for reflecting on those “very great and precious promises” (II Peter 1:4).

  • Joshua 23:14 “…not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.”
  • Philippians 1:6 “…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
  • v156 “renew my life according to your laws”.

This world’s values are empty and deceptive and its standards lead more to corruption than to health and holiness.  Where do we turn for a guide to life and to eternity but to God’s laws, God’s principles, God’s Word.

  • Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
  • Psalm 19:7 “…the law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.” 
  • v159 “preserve my life according to your love

Renewal is necessary, but by definition it constantly needs to be renewed!  Preservation means permanence, God in his love keeping the believer in eternal life.

  • John 3:16 God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
  • Jeremiah 31:3 “I have loved you with an everlasting love;I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

How might we enter, and stand in, this new year?  By being renewed through claiming God’s promises, and by living according to his Word and being secure in his love and grace.  I sincerely wish you that sort of happy New Year.

Tony Mason

Do you have our Spring Event firmly in your diary?  Sat., 11th March, 09.45, Salvation Army Hall, Abbey Lane (next to URC), Saffron Walden.  Theme:  “Elijah – a man for our times”.

Hope to see you there!

 

 

 

Monthly Message Dec 2022

Dear friends,

One of the many accusations often leveled at governments (of whatever persuasion) is that they are out-of-touch with ordinary people. Similarly, it is sometimes felt (however unjustly) that public servants lack empathy with the general public whom they are paid to serve. On the north coast of Scotland is the Castle of Mey, once owned by Her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. In the parish church of the nearby village of Mey there are three rather grand-looking chairs in a special section reserved for the late Queen Mother and those accompanying her. Behind these chairs a door led from the outside straight into the ‘royal enclosure’. However, so I was told when I visited some years ago, the Queen Mother did not use her privileged door, preferring rather to enter the church through the same door as everybody else.

How fitting that, when entering church to worship God, the Queen Mother chose to come in alongside the common people. What a picture that is of how Christ our Saviour came into our world. But not only how, but why. Paul, writing to the Corinthian church, says: “…you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (II Cor 8:9). And how rich!

To those who leave everything for him and the gospel Jesus promises all that we need for this life, “and in the age to come, eternal life” (Mark 10:30). So confident is Paul that he can assure us that “(his) God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19). And – wonder of wonders! – “because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions”.

Christ became poor so that, in him, we might become rich. He stooped down to where we are, in order to raise us up to where he is!

I pray that you may realize afresh this Christmas-time the riches of his grace.

Tony Mason

Monthly Message Nov 2022

“Our tax-free inheritance”

Dear friends,

Recently we have been through Covid lockdowns, with that awful sense of isolation; now we face a rise in the cost of living, meaning worry and despair for many people; we have seen major instability in our government, creating insecurity and fear; further afield the war in Ukraine continues with its suffering and devastating destruction. Isolation, despair, insecurity, fear, destruction – is not all that a foretaste of hell?

But the Bible gives us a glorious foretaste of heaven!  And it is not something ‘out there’ but rather it is ‘in here’. Ephesians 1:13-14 says “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession…”.  Paul also uses the idea of a deposit in II Corinthians 5.  He’s been talking about being “clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” and then he says that God “has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come”! (vv1-5). 

The promised Holy Spirit is said to be now indwelling the believer, and he is also described as a ‘deposit’. That word was used, in commerce in the ancient world, of a sample, guaranteeing not only the delivery of the rest of a consignment, but also the quality of it. In modern Greek the same word is used of an engagement ring!  So, the Holy Spirit within us is an advance, a deposit, a guarantee, a foretaste of heaven, the fullness of our redemption.  Peter describes that inheritance as one that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for (us).  No wonder he goes on to write about being “filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls”  (I Peter 1).   Jesus’ desire for us is that his joy may be in us and that our joy may be complete (John 15:11).  Our inheritance is not just ‘pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die’ it is the joy of the Holy Spirit as a foretaste of what is to come – here and now.

As the seventeenth century Puritan, Thomas Goodwin wrote, “How great must that inheritance be when joy in the Holy Spirit is but the deposit!”

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him” (Romans 15:13),

Tony Mason