rules are rules

tea and sympathy for Nicola, but Scotland has to leave the EU with the rest of the UK.  Rules are rules.

well I did it

I did it, I am participating in the scanning.  the letter went off, ( if I can call it a letter)

appraisals

My appraisal is tomorrow.  I have hated them ever since the first one I had in my first job.  They are well meant, but I doubt if those who created this idea ever worked on shop floor.  Some of the questions are just downright partronising.  One wonders how stupid one has to be.  In a routine job one does the same thing day in day out and then in an appraisal is asked what aspect of the Job has given greatest satisfaction. What am i meant to say to that?  A stuffed letter is a stuffed letter and I send out thousand of them.

The way I see it is this

Two men are braking stones.  A man approaches the first man and asks, "What are you doing"?  He says, "Can you not see, I am breaking stones".  He goes to the second man and asks, "What are you doing"?  He says, "I am building temples. 

It is all a question of perspective.  I am building temples.

Bexit

Britain has voted to leave the EU. No country has ever left the EU before.  I expect this has come as a shock to those in power in the EU, especially the European Commission.  Pressure will probably come from Scotland for another independence referendum.  There is great anger throughout the country. It is only about one year since David Cameron and his party won an overall majority and yet he has been defeated.  He will resign as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party before the party conference in October.  It is all change

Where is God in the midst of all this?  There is song we sang in church.

kingdoms may rise, Kingdoms may fall.
Nations refuse to hear God's call
But the word of the lord
Endureth forevermore.

Take God at his promise
Put your faith in Christ
Trust him for salvation and
e ternal life

Things that we love
last for a day
Then in the morning
Fade away
But the word of the lord
Endureth for evermore.

One way or another, God is in control.  Nothing will or can thwart his plans.

New recruits and Refugees, crisis or opportunity?

I addressed new recruits this morning.  I spoke to them on Mathew 4 from verse 12 and told them that when Jesus moved to Galilee, this  was a sign that he was the messiah.  The prophet Isaiah had fortold this and so this was a sign that Jesus was whom he claimed to be and that as he called the disciples, they were leaving the lives they had once known, giving up their regular income in the fishing industry to follow him and they would find that they had talents that they did not know they had up until then.  Likewise, as new recruits they are also stepping out in faith.  I also told them that God trained the disciples and that even a short term mission is training for life. 

Pray for them as they go to their fields and experience new situations.  They have no idea what could happen, but I told them that God will teach them new things.

Last Saturday, I attended an OM Event about refugees.  Whatever you may think, there is a major refugee crisis and some of them will be coming to this country. Indeed we know that some of them will be coming to Oswestry.  The people who led the event are all people I know who have served in outreach to Muslims.  They presented cultural issues that will come up if we meet refugees, many of whom in their own country are people who would be looked up to.  Educated people who cope with their own culture, but what for them will be a new culture, in some respects they will be like children.  To illustrate the point, one of the speakers asked us to write our signature with our other hand.  ( for most of us this would be the left hand). Signing my name is so simple.  I have done it thousands of times.  However it is very difficult with my left hand.  That is what it will be like for refugees.  Their life skills will be less effective in a new culture as they adapt.  We in turn have to love them for it is an opportunity to introduce them to Christ.  Pray for us as this unfolds.

Romans one

 It seems to me that the arguement is that God made people Gay. This is nonsense. In the widest sense of sin, God did not make any of us sinners. Adam and Eve rebelled against god and sin entered in, it was not God, so God does not make any of us Gay. It is also being argued that God must approve of a loving Gay relationship. Bear in mind that Jesus is part of the Godhead and therefore is God. He saw to it that the bible was written and all the scriptures about the practice of homosexuality have thus far been quoted in this discussion, so I am not going to quote them all again. However Romans one puts paid to the idea that God makes people Gay. There are many people who are gay and know it is wrong and have been saved and they wrestle with it like Paul wrestled with his thorn in the flesh. Many of us including myself have our thorn in the flesh. It is also argued that God wants us in a loving Gay relationship, how could a loving God want us to be alone, well Paul was not married and neither am I. Do I blame God? No, I get on with a life of service. However, if you have no conscience and think doing homosexual acts is pleasing to God, even if it is in only one relationship then I think that you should take heed of the warning in Romans one. Far from approving of it God Gave people up to their sinful desires and therefore to his wrath as we see in the following.




God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

bexit

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/out-and-into-the-world-why-the-spectator-is-for-leave/

God created Scotland

And God Created

In the beginning, The Lord God Almighty, sitting on His throne on high, turned to His mate, the Archangel Gabriel and said "Gabby, today I'm going to create Scotland. I will make it a country of dark beautiful mountains, purple glens and rich green forests. I will give it clear swift flowing rivers and I will fill them with salmon. The land shall be lush and fertile, on which the people shall grow barley to brew into an amber nectar that will be much sought after the world over. Underneath the land I shall lay rich seams of coal.In the waters around the shores there will be an abundance of fish and beneath the sea bed there will be vast deposits of oil and gas".

"Excuse me Sire", interrupted the Archangel Gabriel, "Don't you think you are being a bit too generous to these Scots"?"Not really", replied the Lord, "wait 'til you see the neighbours I'm giving them".

Whas Like US?

As the average Englishman moves about the home he calls his castle, watch him enjoy a typical English breakfast of toast and marmalade invented by Mrs Keiller of Dundee, Scotland; see him slipping into his national costume, a soiled raincoat, patented by Charles MacIntosh, a Glasgow druggist; and follow his footsteps over the linoleum flooring invented in Kirkcaldy, Scotland.
On The Road Out he goes - along the English lane surfaced by John MacAdam of Ayr, Scotland (known as the MacAdamized road), smoking an English cigarette, first manufactured by Robert Croag of Perthshire, Scotland. He hops aboard an English bus, which is using tyres invented by John Boyd Dunlop, of Dreghorn, Scotland and later completes his journey by rail. (A reminder the James Watt of Greenock, Scotland invented the Steam Engine). At the office he is presented with the morning mail containing adhesive stamps invented by John Chalmers of Dundee, Scotland; and periodically during the day, he reaches for the telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell, born of Scottish parents.
At home in the evening, our English cousins wife is preparing his national dish of roast beef of old England - prime Aberdeen Angus, raised in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. This sets the patriotic heart beating a little faster, and he enters the dining room whistling "Ye Mariners of England" written and composed by Thomas Campbell of Glasgow, Scotland. After dinner there follows a scene typical of English domestic bliss. Young Albert is packed off to Boys Brigade, founded by Sir William Smith of Glasgow, Scotland; Ted goes to the Scouts, the present Chief of which is Sir Charles MacLean of Duart, Scotland; and little Ethel plays on her bicycle, invented by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a blacksmith of Dumfries, Scotland. Mother, in the kitchen, bleaches clothes with bleach invented by James McGregor of Glasgow, Scotland. dad listens to the news on the television, invented by John Logie Baird of Helensburgh, Scotland, and hears an item about the United States Navy, founded by John Paul Jones, of Kirkbean, Scotland. Maybe, just maybe, he will remember that the radar with which the U.S. and other fleets are equipped was invented by Sir Robert A. Watson Watt, of Brechin, Scotland.
Once the children come home, Dad supervises the homework, using logarithms invented by John Napier of Edinburgh. The English course contains familiar books such as "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson, and "Robinson Crusoe", based on the life of Alex Selkirk, of , Scotland. If by now he has been reminded too much of Scotland, he may in desperation pick up the bible - here at last to have something without Scottish associations; but he is disillusioned - the first man mentioned in the bible is a Scot, James VI, who authorised its translation. Its hopeless. Nowhere he can turn to escape the efficiency and ingenuity of the Scots. He could take a drink - but we supply the best in the world. He could stick his head in the oven - but the coal gas was discovered by William Murdoch of Ayr, Scotland. He could take rifle and blow his brains out, but. of course the breach loading rifle was invented by a Scot. Anyway, if he survived, injured, he would simple find himself on an operating table, injected with Penicillin, discovered by Alexander Flaming of Darvel, Scotland; given an anaesthetic discovered by James Young Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland; and operated on be antiseptic surgery pioneered at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. On coming out of the anaesthetic, he would probable take no comfort in learning from his surgeon that he was as safe as the Bank of England, founded by William Paterson of Dumfries, Scotland.
Poor fellows only hope would be to receive a transfusion of good SCOTs blood which would entitle him to ask
"Whas like us?"
Gie few and thur aw deed !

• • 
    

james Philips obituary

I wonder if we consider the cost of ministy.  This is James Philips obituary. I met his a couple of times and also his brother George.

Pastor and theologian

Born: 11 January, 1922, in Bucksburn, Aberdeenshire.
Died: 12 March, 2009, in Edinburgh, aged 87.

JAMES Philip arrived in Edinburgh in January 1958 to take over a run-down church in Abbeyhill. He was not the congregation's first choice, nor even its fifth choice – 19 others had been approached before him, and each had declined. This was no attractive appointment.

Philip had left a fruitful ministry in Gardenstown, Banffshire. Within weeks of arriving in Holyrood Abbey Church he was walking the parish streets in the evenings with a desolate heart. Opposition to his style of preaching was palpable.
The turning point came as he stood one day on Salisbury Crags, surveying the city, and struggling with his new call. If this moribund church was going to influence lives in Edinburgh, it would need divine intervention. He walked home that afternoon with a deep sense of expectancy.
The following week Philip initiated a Saturday evening meeting with a single focus: to pray. The meeting began in the vestry but, as numbers grew, it quickly had to move into the church hall.
Prayer was to characterise the life of Holyrood Abbey Church. Jim Philip prayed with a deep sense of dependence, and of awe. In each church service he would lean forward to the microphone, his hands open, as he ushered the congregation into the intimacy he shared with the triune God; it was an experience not to be forgotten. Then, as the congregation sang the hymn before the sermon, Philip would be on his knees in the pulpit; this was no formal gesture.

Philip had a huge mind. He was a man of searing intellect and of broad intellectual reach. He preached a reasoned gospel, as had the Apostle Paul, one of the most gifted academics in the Greek world. The Letter to the Romans, the Apostle's passionate apologetic for reasoned faith, was possibly Philip's favourite Bible book, certainly his most preached.
By the early to mid-1960s, students from Edinburgh University and Moray House were piling into the gallery on Sunday mornings and evenings, soon to be joined by fifth and sixth-formers from schools across the city.
In the evenings his Geneva gown gave way to a collar and tie. He always dressed with care, even a sense of formality.
Philip's preaching appealed to nurses, businessmen, academics and blue-collar workers. All would sit with their Bibles open in front of them, engaging with the passage he was expounding. With his distinctive style – always serious, always urgent, always controlled in its delivery, he would place the passage in the context of the whole Bible, and work to apply it to the social and political trends of the day.

Where the original Hebrew or Greek was not easy to translate, Philip would explain why; he would quote, sometimes at length, from commentaries or articles to throw light on the original meaning or its application. The congregation actively engaged with him, taking notes as they expanded their grasp of scripture, and developed a faculty to think theologically.
Scores followed him into ministry in the Church of Scotland or served in mission work overseas.
James Philip was the second of three children born to James Philip, a lithographic printer, and his wife, Isabella. Aged 12, he won a bursary to Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen. He was a keen sportsman and an able young musician. While still a teenager, he would play the organ for meetings held by the great Scottish evangelist of the day, D P Thomson.
Philip read arts and classics at Aberdeen University, graduating MA in 1942. It was in his time at university that his career path was set, but first came service in India and Burma with the RAF.
He married Mary Moffat, great-great-granddaughter of the pioneer missionary Robert Moffat, in November 1960. She had grown up in northern Rhodesia and was completing her medical training in Edinburgh. It was a strong and supportive marriage for a demanding ministry of study, writing and travel.

While vocally critical of the Church of Scotland when he sensed it was moving from the historic faith, Philip always exercised grace, and was held in esteem by churchmen of all stripes for his careful thinking and diligent work in the Presbytery.
He served in the Church's selection school procedures, for many years as a director, renowned for his scrupulous fairness. It is one expression of Philip's legacy to the Church of Scotland that his son William is presently the minister of St George's-Tron, Glasgow, and his daughter is married to the minister of Torrance. (His brother George was minister of Sandyford Henderson Memorial Church in Glasgow.)
Philip leaves a huge corpus of work, in writing and on tape. Many of his sermons are available on the web, and his writing has been translated into major languages.
The late Professor David F Wright of New College, and David Stay, on the staff of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, co-edited a Festschrift, Serving the Word of God, in honour of Philip's 80th birthday in 2002.

Read more: http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/james-philip-1-1031284#ixzz4BeDwFaEi
Follow us: @TheScotsman on Twitter | TheScotsmanNewspaper on Facebook

Friends 1st and discernment.

Expert support

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it, and that’s what gets results. We don’t just introduce Christians – we provide tools, education, coaching and support to make sure you’re doing the right things in the right way.

the above comes from, " Friends 1st".  What it really means is,, " We will send you letters to get you to buy products that are expensive and unnessary and we will use language to manipulate your emotions to buy it.  Words such as "Discerning" people like you George know the value of presenting yourself well, so if you spend £97 per month for four months you can have our package to teach you.  The logic is if I do not buy it then I am not discerning.  

Sadly typical of JM

Jory Micah‎ to Christian Bloggers Network

2 hrs ·

Sadly, this is a common message I get from so called "Christians."
"Show me please where in the Bible it says women are allowed to teach from the Bible. I'd like to see for myself. I believe you are leading unsaved souls down a dark path and God will not hold back His wrath from those who lead His sheep astray."

(I am shaking in my boots *eye roll*)
Women preachers are not evil; sexism in the name of the Bible is what's evil!
‪#‎SundayMorningReminder‬ #jorymicah.com

Sadly this is typical of JM. She has no consideration of God's judgment to come. She has been well warned and note the attitude,  SO CALLED Christians.  Some of us are in God's family whether she approves or not.  Indeed some of us were accepted by God and proclaiming truth long before she was born.  Some of us aquired wisdom long before she was born.  What she says shows a heart that is as hard as nails.

Another post from JM

It's easy to forget that we are all at different places in our Christian journey! There was a time when I wouldn't have agreed with many of the things I now believe & say! Learning to love & embrace everyone where they are at, even if they don't see things my way...yet! 

the above was written by JM, admittedly with a wink, but I am sure she means it.  She really thinks we should agree with everything she thinks, even when she has twisted or ignored the context or ignored passages of scripture to reach her conclusions.this one came from Facebook.

the rebel

Today guest writer Jory Micah shares some of her personal story. “I had a realization. As a woman in ministry I could accept ‘my place”‘ or I could dust the dirt off my shoulders, and do my own thing. I left my safe church job and gave up having a salary. My husband, who has always been very supportive of me as a minister, was scared. He wanted me to stay put in my safe church job. He wanted to see me succeed. I submitted to him for two years and I am glad I did, because those two years are my most valuable ministry experience. But, when God told me to go, I could no longer submit to my husband’s mixture of wisdom and fear. I had “holy rebellion” in my blood and Jesus was saying, ‘It’s time to fly, girl’.”

Note the old argument used by generations." When GOD TOLD ME"  God tells us what we need to know in the bible. When people say "God told me" that usually means they had a feeling and it was God, so do not argue I am right and there is no other view.

The opening statement about accepting her place is also a mis representation of what the bible says.  Women should be using all their gifts in the way that God has prescribed.

I would describe Jory Micah as a rebel, not a holy rebel and if she keeps going this way then it grieves me so say that one day she may face Gods judgement and find she was fooling herself and others.

last Saturday

I went to the aquarium with D last Saturday. I love her. I really enjoy her company and she has done far more for me than anyone else has ever done.  I see God in it.  She loves the lord. I love listening to her talk about her experience of the lord and I trust she enjoys listening to me talk about the same thing.