OzThoughts – Wednesday 18th November 2009

OzThoughts – Wednesday 18th November 2009

Last Saturday afternoon, I drove our Corps mini-bus full of members of our over 50’s club past the place where we used to have our open air meetings at Surfers Paradise.

Those open air meetings attracted a good number of people, many of them dressed in their best swimming wear. Others were dressed in casual clothes suitable for walking around the area looking at the other tourists and the shops.

On one occasion, I was leading the open air meeting and I was reading out the words of the next song the band was to play. A man very deliberately came up to me and started to interrupt. I was about halfway through the verse but then he decided to wait until I finished. When I finished he said “religious fanaticism is a form of mental illness.” I simply said “That’s good” and he quickly left to join his friend.

As the band played I thought how stupid was that answer. “What’s good about that?”

1 Corinthians 1 :: The Message (MSG)

1I, Paul, have been called and sent by Jesus, the Messiah, according to God's plan…
17God didn't send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn't send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center--Christ on the Cross--be trivialized into mere words.
18The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out.
19It's written,

I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

20So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense?
21Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb--preaching, of all things!-to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.
22While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom,
23we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle--and Greeks pass it off as absurd.
24But to us who are personally called by God himself--both Jews and Greeks--Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.
25Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."
26Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families.
27Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses,
28chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? 29That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God.
30Everything that we have--right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start--comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.
31That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."

PRAYER:

Heavenly Father, I believe you have called me and equipped me. Thank you for every opportunity you give. Thank you for your Holy Spirit who meets my needs with “medication” for the foolishness I suffer. Thank you for your Word which feeds me daily. Thanks too for friends who encourage me. Amen

[Listen: Band : (Geibel): http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/music/mus_1588.mp3
or
Band and Male Voice (Geibel) : http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/music3/mus_4064.mp3
or
Band and congregation (God bless the Prince of Wales): http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/songs/songs_134.mp3 ]

Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
Ye soldiers of the cross!
Lift high his royal banner.
It must not suffer loss.
From victory unto victory
His army he shall lead
Till every foe is vanquished,
And Christ is Lord indeed.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus!
The trumpet call obey;
Forth to the mighty conflict
In this his glorious day.
Ye that are men now serve him
Against unnumbered foes;
Let courage rise with danger,
And strength to strength oppose.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus!
Stand in his strength alone;
The arm of flesh will fail you,
Ye dare not trust your own.
Put on salvation armor,
And watching unto prayer,
Where duty calls or danger,
Be never wanting there.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus!
The strife will not be long;
This day the noise of battle,
The next the victor's song.
To him that overcometh
A crown of life shall be,
He with the King of Glory
Shall reign eternally.
Author: George Duffield (1818-88)
The Salvation Army Song Book: Song Number: 699


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