Invaluable

Who would have thought that waiting on God could be such an indispensible lesson.  That’s where we are…still…waiting on God.  In the past when we have had to wait on God, it always felt like all we were doing was…well…waiting.  What I have now come to realize is that the waiting is actually a training ground.  I want so desperately to do big things for God, but what I have failed to realize in the past is that you can not do the great things of God without first going through the preparation that only waiting on God can give you.  Yes, I still have times of frustration.  I get impatient for the future, but those times are getting fewer because I can now remind myself of the importance of this time and take advantage of every opportunity.  When i get aggravated I can turn myself around and soak in the presence of God and simply say ‘teach me’.

Numbers

For those of you who are interested in this kind of thing…below is a quote from a book written by Stuart Allen called God's Word - Written (or The Purpose of the Bible). 

(1) Numerics  - Underneath the Hebrew and Chaldee of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New 
Testament there is hidden an extraordinary disposition of numbers which cannot be explained away on human grounds.  In order to understand this we must remember that none of these languages had symbols for numbers such as we have (1,2,3,4, etc.).  Instead of this they made use of the letters of their alphabet so that a=1, b=2 etc.  One can easily see then that a word could be looked at in two ways, either as a word or as a series of numbers which could be added up to a total.  For instance, the Greek for ‘word’ is ‘logos’.  If looked at from a numerical standpoint its value would be l=30, o=70, g=3, o=70, s=200: total 373.  The numerical value of ‘logos’ is therefore 373.  If we were to look at the Greek text of the first eleven  verses of the New Testament (Matt. 1:1-11), we should find an elaborate scheme of sevens underlying the words, which could not have been put there by chance, or even arranged by any human cleverness on Matthew’s part.  These verses contain 49 words (7x7).  
Of these 49 words, 28 (4x7) begin with a vowel, and 21 (3x7) begin with a consonant.  These 49 words have 266 letters (7x2x19); this number is itself 38 sevens, and the sum of its factors is 28 (4x7).  Of these 266 letters, 140 (20x7) are vowels, and 126 (18x7) are consonants.  Of these 49 words 35 (5x7) occur more than once in the passage and 14 (2x7) occur only once.  Seven occur in more than one form and 42 (6x7) occur only in one form.  The 49 words are divided thus: 42 (6x7) are nouns (the name of something) and seven are not nouns.  Of these nouns, 35 (5x7) are names of people and seven are ordinary nouns.  Of these names, 28 (4x7) are male ancestors of Christ and seven are not.  Thus, an elaborate system of sevens occurs in these few short verses of the Bible.  If Matthew was not writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, what a headache he must have had trying to
arrange all these sevens!


There is also a system of elevens in the Greek and Hebrew texts of the Scriptures and so wonderful is this that the chance of these figures occurring by accident rather than design (that is by the inspiration of God) is 1 in a number followed by 30 noughts, a billion million taken a million times!

Matt's Turn take 2

I've only just published a post on humility below, but apparently there has been some trouble downloading Matt's sermon from the link I posted previously so I've given Grooveshark a try...if this works you can listen here...p.s. ignore the song titles I forgot to change them from what the computer decided they were.

Humility

It’s good stuff…if not a little uncomfortable.  God has been dishing it up to me by the plateful lately and I’ve found that it’s terrible going down, but has a wonderful aftertaste – I think it’s one of those Godly things that doesn’t make sense but because God made it, it is good.

The Oxford Dictionary defines humility as the quality of having a modest or low view of one’s importance.

I’d like to suggest that the biblical definition is quite different.  In Philippians 2:3 it says ‘in humility value others above yourselves.’

I think the humility that God desires is not about thinking low of yourself, but simply putting others above you.  The bible often talks of Jesus’ humility, and while he did make himself low by becoming human…he knew what he was on earth for and it wouldn’t have given him a low view of his importance.  Because of that he always put others ahead of himself.  You will read that he had compassion for people constantly and would go out of his way to teach or to heal. 

We have a lot of work to do on this earth and our importance is anything but low.  However, if we want to get the work done that God has for us, then in our humility we must do as Jesus did and put others above ourselves.

Psalm 22:4 Humility is the fear of the Lord; it’s wages are riches and honour and life.

Matt’s Turn

Matt preached a few Sundays ago and I thought I would put it here if anyone is interested.  He preached on Nehemiah.  And because I am computer illiterate about trying to attach his sermon to this post I attached a link instead.

http://www.mediafire.com/?71kxwd5a7hcat

It is in four different parts because that is how it came on the CD…sorry this is so messy!