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Glen Park Gospel Church >> Archive >> Editorial >> 2023
Each month the Glen Park Gospel Church produce a one page newsletter called the Green Leaf. It's available from the chapel each Sunday. Some months include a topical article or report. We thought you might appreciate reading those previously published.
Learning the Secrets of Prayer
In one of his books Dr. F W Boreham has an essay entitled, "My Stray Sheep." He, a pastor, means the topics of his prayers. I don't think that he would mind if I stole his opening thoughts, he says as much in another of his books.
He says in his introduction, 'I have been spending a few moments with the King of Denmark and Christopher Robin. Shakespear of course introduced me to the former and A. A. Milne to the latter. So far as I know the Danish King and little Christopher Robin never met until I took the liberty of bringing them together; but I soon discovered that they have something in common, and something in common with me. They both found prayer a problem, and also do I. The King of Denmark tried hard to pray, but he had to give it up as a bad job.
"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go." '
The words of course are those of William Shakespear, so we welcome him to our pious association.
I have confessed before, that when I was in my teens my family kept goats. Goats, you will find, are not sheep. Sheep make good eating. Goats are extremely agile and very intelligent. They were retained by an electric fence, but ere long they worked out which of the wire strands were the problem and could escape at will. It was nothing to wake in the morning, walk down the street, only find one of our goats there before us. Forget the errand, the object now is to get that goat home and locked safely away. That done, we might easily find another one. Anyone who has kept goats will recognise an adverse affinity between them and concentration on the daily prayer list.
Dr. Boreham gives us a few tips, things that he found helped him with his concentration in prayer. One consultant advised him, 'Always pray aloud'. The mind is accustomed to receiving its instructions audibly. I have found this to be a big help. One problem with it is that many of us live communally. Not always do we live in a community such as a college or institution, but many are set about with family and have difficulty in finding a place of privacy. One associate locked himself in his motor car for half an hour every morning.
F. B. Meyer tells us to always pray for others. The mind, he says, thrives on variety. For this reason we provide you with a monthly list, a new item every day. Missionaries cry out for your prayer on their behalf and send out needs requests. Some Christians keep a prayer book for this very reason.
Trust God to answer your prayer. Keep a record, entering the date when a request is made in faith and keep that need alive before God until you can enter the date when the request is supplied. Find a suitable promise that God makes in His Word and claim that promise. Remind God that He freely promised. Now, hold Him to it.
The new year is due to begin. Make it your intention to revolutionise your prayer life in 2023. Remember God is more anxious for you to partner with Him in faith than you are to ask. Here is what He promises through Paul in Philippians 4:6.
"The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
To say, 'He is at hand' must be understood in its context. He is at hand to hear and answer the prayers and needs of His people.
Thought for the Month:
God wants to be your dwelling place.
He has no interest in being a weekend getaway or a Sunday bungalow or a summer cottage.
Don’t consider using God as a vacation cabin or an eventual retirement home.
He wants you under His roof now and always.
He wants to be your mailing address, your point of reference; He wants to be your home.
John 14:23. Max Lucado.
On Seeing Too Much
One of our new high efficiency light bulbs just failed. And my better half seized upon the opportunity to upgrade to something more effective. Well, everyone wants a brighter future. After all, that eleven watt globe was so dull that she often had to find her spectacles to see things clearly. It was just not good enough! How had she put up with it for so long? I could have told her that she did not need a new light bulb, as much as new eyes.
I could have told her, because I had been through the same experience some years ago. It was at a former house that we had built. It boasted timber lined walls and ceiling that soaked up the light and were cosy and warm in winter, yet, cool and refreshing on a hot summer's day. That room was my office and study and despite a large window wall, it was lit by two florescent tubes.
So I called my electrician who told me that the two tubes he had provided were rated to be enough and that I probably needed spectacles, but he accepted my critical assessment of his work, doubled the light output to that room, and added the cost to my account.
A little later I was working for an optician and happened to tell him, over morning tea, that each little number on my retractable measuring tape had found a like mate, just as Adam had found Eve, for the Eve kept getting the Adam on my tape into trouble. He just smiled and handed me a pair of his entry level reader's spectacles. Then Eve just retired without a word. Amazing!
It is one thing to see what is not there, things of imagination, or fear, or of misunderstanding. They might harm us if we act on mere assumption. It is another to not see what is there. What is there to not see, like an hidden rock in a river; or a snag can tear a hole in a boat, or swerving to avoid a dog on the run has resulted in many a road accident. Unfounded ideas or assumptions can do much damage to hard material objects. Just think of the hurt that we can do to family, friends & fellow workers!
Thought for the Month:
Jesus died to pay a debt He didn't owe for we who owed a debt we couldn't pay.
Forgetful Green
An allegory of the Christian life by John Bunyan.
While in prison for his faith, John Bunyan wrote of the pilgrimage of a man called Christian who left his home in the City of Destruction to journey to the Celestial City. On the way he met all kinds of obstacles and encouragements. His wife, Christiana would not travel with him so he walked on alone. A little later she and their four sons came after him.
There the boys asked to see the meadow where Christian had 'fought to the death' with evil Apollyon. Christiana’s guide, Greatheart, told them that it was just beyond the place called Forgetful Green, and that this was the most dangerous place in those parts.
He was not wrong. Moses wrote a whole book on the topic of Forgetful Green. Authors today give their works a much more enticing title. Had Moses been active in our day he probably would call it Forgetful Green. Instead he called his book Deuteronomy. It is the fifth book in the Bible.
He said that God would not forget them, and they were to not forget His commandments, to not forget the covenant He had made with them, to not forget their rebellious heart, to not forget the needy, and not forget the Apollyon they then called Amalek, but fight him and his enticements to the death. They were to not forget when comfortably settled in their land. However they did forget!
The Israelites were twice slaves in a foreign land, once in Egypt to the South West and again in Babylon to the North East. Isaiah implored them as they turned their faces home again to never forget what they had learned of God's goodness whilst in Babylon. "Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug." Isaiah 51:1 (ESV).
As in the Old Testament, so in the New. In the Old it is the fifth book. In the New it is the sixth last; a small book, the writings of Peter. He says "This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles." 2 Peter 3:1&2 (ESV).
Thought for the Month:
The path to the cross began not in Pilate’s court but in the halls of Heaven when the Father sent His Son to begin the journey in search of His wayward children. The long path to the cross tells us exactly how far God will go to call His children back to Himself.
Max Lucado
This World's Greatest Miscarriage of Authority
Pilate was touched by the silence of Jesus. In His reply, the Lord spoke of the relative responsibility of those who shared in His condemnation. It was as if He said to Pilate, "Great as your sin is, in forfeiting your authority, it is less than the sin of those who have put Me into your power." Pilate then became aware of the coil of evil in which he was caught. He was dealing with a matter that touched the unseen and eternal, but the threat to report him to Caesar suddenly brought him back to the earthly and human aspects of the case. With ill-concealed irritation he adopted the style of the priests, "Behold your King!"
The Jews in their panic to secure the death of the one they considered to be a threat to their authority, sank to the lowest depth, We have no king but Caesar! Pilate signed the necessary documents and retired to his palace feeling as though he himself sentenced.
'So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."
Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek.
So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews', but rather, 'This man said, I am King of the Jews'." Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written." ' John 19:16-22 (ESV).
Thought for the Month:
Like everything else in Jesus' life, His resurrection drew forth contrasting responses. Those who believed were transformed; infused with hope and courage, they went out to change the world. Those who did not believe found ways to ignore the strong evidence. Jesus had predicted as much: "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."
Philip Yancy
Who Remembers the Goons?
Remember the Goons? If you are my age you probably would. They were radio comedians when we were young. They often found themselves in all sorts of trouble. Facing possible execution one Saturday, one of them called out, "But . . . But, I can't die yet! I just want to see the old country first!" "What old country?" "Any old country will do!"
* * * * *
What brought that into this Church newsletter?
The banter of one of the protagonists in the current debate on the citizenship of our indigenous people suggests that their right to citizenship in Australia was an on-flow of the fact that they were born here. That reasoning is good. My own local identity goes back several generations and I also belong here. For both of us, no other earthly country is home while we are on this earth.
But more importantly, I do also belong to the heavenly country. I belong there because I was born of the Spirit of God to belong there. And I belong there because all my heavenly family are there. I belong there because the question of my introduction and initiation into citizenship has already been settled.
There is a very instructive Bible statement that speaks of the two ways that people became citizens of the Roman Empire. It is Acts 22:28 we read "The tribune answered, 'I bought this citizenship for a large sum.' Paul said, 'But I am a citizen by birth.' "
If you are, How did you become a citizen of Australia
If you claim to be a citizen of the heavenly country, how did you become that citizen? It is important to be able to respond positively to the question, both to yourself first of all, and then to those who want to find the way themselves, to any one interested who may be enquiring of you. What does the Lord God tell us in His instruction book. Look up 1 John 5:12 in your Bible. Follow that and the deed is done!
Thought for the Month:
"The person who would seek God’s forgiveness for sins committed as a Christian within the family will seek it in vain unless that person shows forgiveness to other people."
Alan Redpath
New Light from God's Law
"Then Nehemiah said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.
Hallelujah!"
Nehemiah 8:10
F. B. Meyer. Nehemiah 8:1-18.
Surely this was the first public Bible-reading! When will the people be again as hungry for the Word of God as these Jews who stood in the open space from early dawn till the scorching noon? What reverence for the Word! When Ezra opened the Book, all the people stood up. What holy worship! When he blessed the great God, all the people answered, Amen, amen! What a model to us all! They gave the sense, so that they understood. What searching of heart! The people wept when they heard the words of the law.
There is nothing which weakens us so much as does unrestrained remorse. Contriteness of heart is wholesome and helpful, but excessive grief incapacitates us for our duties. It is well therefore to cultivate holy joy; the joy of sin forgiven, of acceptance with God, of hope that anchors us to the unseen, and that cannot be ashamed. You may not be able to joy in yourself or your surroundings, but you may always rejoice in the Lord.
Taken from Great Verses through the Bible by F B Meyer Copyright Zondervan Publishing House. Used br permission for Church use by Zondervan.
Thought for the Month:
"The purest form of love is given with no thought of return. Measured by this standard, earnest prayer for others is a magnificent act of love."
David Hubbard,
from ‘Prayer’ by Philip Yancy
Beware of the Moth
In Hosea 5:12 the Lord says, "But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah." The lesson to them is also a lesson to us.
Some of us have realised that we are under attack. The enemy is . . . . a very small moth. There are different kinds of moths. Most are just an essential nuisance. This one is just tiny, but it is a real problem, for they eat and destroy our costliest clothes. One doesn't eat much. But many do. It just makes little holes in all of our woollen and other garments and even can fray our carpets. They eat and move on.
We do not notice until it is too late, for the damage is done. They are not restricted to wool, they will eat almost anything in the wardrobe. The moth can live for about two months before they pupate. In this time they constantly feed upon our clothes.
It is not the moth that does damage it is the young grub. However one moth that mates can produce up to 300 eggs.
One way to fight back is to purchase a moth trap which contains a chemical, pheromone, that attracts and traps the male. It is an attempt to break the breeding cycle. The other way is to keep things clean and fresh. Or use old fashioned moth balls and pay the penalty.
* * * *
Albert Barnes writes to the moral of this text, "The moth in a garment, and the decay in wood, corrode and prey upon the substance, in which they lie hidden, slowly, imperceptibly, but, at the last, effectually. Such were God's first judgments on Israel and Judah; such are they now commonly upon we who are sinners. At first God tries, gentle measures and mild chastisements, troublesome and painful; yet slow in their working; each stage of loss and decay, a little beyond that which preceded it; until leaving long respite and time for repentance, before they finally wear us out."
Thought for the Month:
"Love was compressed for all history in the lonely figure on the cross, who said that He could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to- because of us. At Calvary, God accepted His own unbreakable terms of justice. Thus the cross, a stumbling block to some, became the cornerstone of Christian faith."
Philip Yancy
Prayer That God Blesses
Did you get in your regular time of prayer this morning, or did you reach for your mobile phone? There is nothing in particular wrong with using your telephone in its proper time and place. But God was waiting for your call and if you used up all your time on the mobile talking to friends and left God waiting on another line, then it was out of place for He has told us in His book, "The prayer of the upright is His delight." * God takes joy in your call. He loves us and waits for us to keep our appointment to spend time in His company.
Do you remember the children's chorus that went something like this "Telephone to glory, Oh what joy divine. I can feel the current coming down the line..."
God is a person, a divine person maybe, but a person nevertheless, with all the traits of personality. He has his desires, his values, his expectations, his emotions. He can be angry or pleased or disappointed. And just as an earthly father takes joy in his children, so God takes joy in our company, in fulfilling our needs; so God the Father does the same. When I was employed during the day, I would come home and take my infant daughter out of her crib and sit her on my knee and we would spend time together. I can see that God has the same pleasure in His children, for the prayer of the upright who know their place is His delight. Remember when the next hour for prayer comes around that God is waiting for you. Not for your shopping list, but for you and your friendship. He is able to do abundantly in supplying our needs, but takes joy in our attention and fellowship.
The prayer that gives God delight is one which exemplifies His Son, Jesus Christ dwelling in us, for it is He that God the Father loves. We must come in faith, having our hearts cleansed of all known sin for God cannot abide sin. Then we must come in a quietness that anticipates a communion between us wherein we wait on Him to speak to us more readily than we are to speak to Him. Remember that God is God and be very low before Him in self abasement. In such an attitude, Jesus as an example of perfect man, and to perfected humanity, could spend all night on a lonely mountainside and was thereby renewed in this holy communion. God already knows our needs and is more ready to give than we are to receive: thus present yourself to God for He has told us in His book, "The prayer of the upright is His delight." * If such prayer is His delight, God takes joy in our call. He loves us and waits for us to keep our appointment and spend time in His company.
* Proverbs 15:8NASB. 496 words.
Thought for the Month:
"How would you measure up to a merit based salvation if the standard entry level of being good was living a life of complete sacrifice and selflessness? God's standard is even greater- it's perfection. None of us can attain that through our efforts. Thankfully, God's provision is Grace- a free gift of forgiveness and eternal life to all who receive it in repentance and faith. That's what Jesus' death and resurrection were all about: paying the penalty we deserve for our failures and then rising to give us new life with Him-forever."
Lee Strobel
in A Case for Miracles
The Book of Revelation
This, the last book of the Bible, known as 'The Revelation', is more properly termed 'The Revelation of Jesus Christ' and this is an over-all term. It covers many themes and topics which circle about it's central character, the central theme of all the Bible, Jesus Christ. The Greek term translated here is 'Apokaluosis' and it means 'an uncovering'.
We see Jesus in His life’s setting, surrounded by those who have contributed to His revelation, good and evil, paraded before Him, progressively uncovering the mystery that has surrounded Him.
Stark realities encountered in these chapters cause some people to fear the future. However those who are the redeemed of the Lord need not to fear Him. Note the Lord Himself offers us a blessing just three verses in. Concerning His role as mediator, the Lord received it from the Father and passed it on to His servants.
"Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near."
This might seem a little strange to us, but remember there was a time when many ordinary people could not read and the Bible needed for it to be read to them, just as we very often still do as a worship exercise in services in Church today. They are urged to listen carefully, to remember and act on that which they had heard. Do not miss this unique benediction attached to this wonderful book.
The seven churches may represent the one Church under different phases and possibly in successive stages of its history; the letters addressed to them are therefore universally applicable. Notice the august reference to the Holy Trinity-the eternal Father, the sevenfold Spirit, and the Lord. The Lord bore a faithful witness even to death; that death was a birth into the risen life, as ours may possibly be.
How wonderful it is then to learn in the next verse that He loves us, and has not only washed, but loosed us, as though He had broken the terrible entail. "He breaks the power of cancelled sin." Jesus is said to be coming with the clouds. We cannot understand His dealings with us, yet we see those clouds gold with His light. Thus He shall come at last. As our Alpha He began, but He is sure to finish carrying out His purpose as our Omega.
Thought for the Month:
From Billy Graham's Unto the Hills.
"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can."
John Wesley's goal for goodness.
The Gospel - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
How can we today understand Sarah Grover, one hundred years ago? We could say that she was a little like the woman that Jesus had in mind when he described the kingdom of God.
"It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened." Luke 13:21. It is one of his enigmatic parables that have a power all of their own in that they keep us guessing. "Lord Jesus, what did you really mean by three measures of meal? Why three? Was one not enough? What is distinctive about three?"
The sons of Noah represent all of humanity. Poetically; Shem, the father of yellow skinned people; Ham the father of the dark and Japeth the father of the light skinned. All of humanity. In the times of Jesus, all notices in Jerusalem were written in three languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin: the languages of faith, culture and power. The gospel would win its way to all the peoples of the earth, for it was a gospel for the people at hand. Does not it also describe the Glen Park Gospel Mission. Three measures! All the people penetrated by Gospel leaven.
The function of leaven is to change the meal with which it is mixed to the likeness or nature of itself, and it is the function of the Holy Spirit in our spirit to make us to be like Himself. I am human, three measures, my body, soul and spirit. His gospel yeast inserted into my body - is leaven to liven my inert lump. My thoughts, my words, my deeds: all there is of me. My out facing life, my domestic life, my secret life. Did not He mean that? When His gospel is given freedom in me, my inner life becomes like the holy place, my domestic life one of courtesy and sweetness and my outer life an extension of His life in my consciousness of others. Did not Jesus mean something like that?
What can Jesus as a new-born babe do in a world like this? Inserted into the three measures of life he grows to quicken the whole lump. Past, Present and Future are all affected. The three measures of experience are brought into focus. Jesus measured out to the disciples all three points of His compass, and their commission was Jerusalem, Judea and the Uttermost parts of this world of men. My own family, those next door and people wherever people are found. Here, there and, well, everywhere.
Thought for the Month:
"When you come to Calvary you can't go to the cross with just your head and not your heart. It is a heart splitting hour of emotion. Those are nails in those Hands. That is the Son of God on the cross. It is us who put Him there."
Max Lucado.
About an Hundred Years Old
Glen Park Mission - "As good as dead?" What greater condemnation could there be! Except we are here for celebration, not condemnation!
We find this phrase in two places in our Bibles. Romans 4:19 and Hebrews 11:12. They do not speak of a fellowship of people, but of a single person. Both passages point to the same promise and the same person, a patriarch - Abraham. Abraham's faith.
Romans 4:19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.
Hebrews 11:12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), from one man were in time born descendants as many in number as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
There is no logical reason to think that what happened in the experience of that one person should not happen in the life of the organisation provided that the members of that organisation are of one mind and one purpose and one faith and one accord, working together in harmony as one man. For the Lord Himself says so in Genesis 11:6.
"As good as dead?" For Abraham the victory was not in his famous name; nor in his strong leadership, nor in his great power or strength or ability. It was of God. And that was his secret. And that is how he became the father of many nations. And he is so to this day.
For as Paul explains in Romans 4:19. "He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was then about a hundred years old), or when he considered the infertility of Sarah his wife."
By experience, his logic was simple, If I cannot do it, and there is no one else, God will have to do it, or it shan't be done at all. Therefore I shall need to trust in God and in the promise of His word. There is no option!
Thought for the Month:
"We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it."
Madeleine L’Engle.
For Unto Us a Child is Born
Later this same prophet, Isaiah, (chapter 53) would describe Jesus sacrifice. It reads poetically yet describes the manner of His death with such clarity it belies the some 700 years that would transpire before those events occurred.
Here in Isaiah 9:6 he describes the person of Jesus Christ.
For unto us a child is born
To us a Son is given
Through humble birth, Jesus would not be contained by the events of His time. Despite the local machinations He would capture the world in His hand.
The government shall be upon His shoulder
Without understanding we, our forebears, would deliver Him up to the cross. And yet not just to death but to sacrifice on our behalf and then to life.
The government shall be upon His shoulder
Even now this phrase is also prophetic in that Jesus will reign from Israel. The events of our time seem to point soon to our coming King.
His name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace.
Verse 7 goes on to describe God’s reign of justice and righteousness.
While we look to the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, always keep in mind the plan for His life, His sacrifice and resurrection. And for His reign in our lives now and for the world soon enough.
Thought for the Month
"The birth of Jesus was so important that it split history into two parts. Everything that has ever happened on this planet falls into a category of before Christ and after Christ....This Galilean, who in his lifetime spoke to fewer people than would fill just one of the many stadia Billy Graham has filled, changed the world more than any other person....According to Jesus, what I think about Him and how I respond will determine my destiny for all eternity."
Luke 12:8
Philip Yancy, Excerpts from "The Jesus I Never Knew"
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