OzThoughts – Wednesday 9th September 2009

OzThoughts – Wednesday 9th September 2009

We are all very familiar with the Sermon on the Mount but today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel is the beginning of the Sermon on the Level Place or as the Message has it as the Sermon on the Plain.

Luke 6:17-21 (The Message)

17-21 Coming down off the mountain with them, he stood on a plain surrounded by disciples, and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. They had come both to hear him and to be cured of their ailments. Those disturbed by evil spirits were healed. Everyone was trying to touch him—so much energy surging from him, so many people healed! Then he spoke:

You're blessed when you've lost it all.
God's kingdom is there for the finding.
You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry.
Then you're ready for the Messianic meal.

You're blessed when the tears flow freely.
Joy comes with the morning.
As I read these last six lines, which are but the beginning of the Sermon, I thought we have a whole industry of people including psychiatrists and psychologists, counsellors and social workers who seek to read and interpret people’s thinking, emotions and feelings. Yet, Jesus here seems to turn it all on its head.
However, its not just earthly results which comes from how you feel. It is eternal things like God’s Kingdom, the fullness of the Messiah and real joy.

How do you feel? Seek eternal things!

Prayer (Using our Song Book as our Prayer Book):

[Listen: http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/music/mus_1600.mp3 ]

I bring to thee my heart to fill;
I feel how weak I am, but still
To thee for help I call.
In joy or grief, to live or die,
For earth or Heaven, this is my cry,
Be thou my all in all.

Chorus
Christ is all, yes, all in all.
My Christ is all in all.

Around me in the world I see
No joy that turns my soul from thee;
Its honors fade and fall;
But with thee, though I mount the cross,
I count it gain to suffer loss,
For thou art all in all.

I've little strength to call my own,
And what I've done, before thy throne
I here confess, is small;
But on thy strength. O God, I lean,
And through the blood that makes me clean,
Thou art my all in all.

No tempest can my courage shake,
My love from thee no pain can take,
No fear my heart appall;
And where I cannot see I'll trust,
For then I know thou surely must
Be still my all in all.
Authors: Herbert Howard Booth (1862-1926) (verses),
W.H. Williams (chorus)
The Salvation Army Song Book: Song Number: 489


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