As Christians we are called to be the light of the world, to live like Jesus Christ lived. Paul encourages us to take continual stock of our lives in Christ, and to make sure that we are moving in the right direction.

Today’s message is a simple but tough one. Look at Philippians 2: 1-11 and take stock of your life according to the example He set. This can be a very sobering process but it is important to know why we seek to follow His example. It’s because of His amazing love for us that we are saved. Being obedient to His Word and following His example are just two ways of showing that we love Him.

Philippians 2: 1-11

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like‑minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, 
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, 
taking the very nature of a servant, 
being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, 
he humbled himself 
and became obedient to death– 
even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place 
and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father.

By placing God’s way as the central focus of our lives we will bring Him glory. This video shows a prayer that you may like to echo:



Lord, make me an instrument of peace
Where there is hatred, let me bring love
Where there is wrong, let me bring forgiveness
Where there is discord, let me bring harmony
Where there is error, let me bring truth
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith
Where there is despair, let me bring your hope
Where there are shadows, let me bring light
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy
Lord grant that I would seek
Rather to comfort, than to be comforted
To understand rather than to be understood
To love than to be loved
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds
Its is forgiving that one is forgiven
It is by dying that one awakens eternal life
AMEN

(St Francis of Assisi)

Related Posts

1. Lord, work deeply in my heart
2. Love each other… How – Servant…
3. When last did your heart beat?

Our passage today is Titus 2. Here Paul tells Titus what teaching he should be giving to the members of the church. Verse one tells Titus to teach with a sound doctrine, a complete understanding of the scriptures that is not distorted by his own ideas but specifically focused on the Word of God.

• Lessons for older men – To have a controlling temper, worthy of respect, self controlled and to have a sound faith
• Lessons for older women – Live reverently, teach what is good, do not speak falsly against others, do not live addicted to alcohol, be self controlled, busy at home, kind and support your husbands.
• Lessons for young men – Be self controlled, be a good example, teach with integrity, soundness of speech and seriousness
• Lessons to slaves – Be subject to your master, try to please him and do not talk back to him and be trustworthy.

Whats important to see here is not the lessons that Titus is asked to teach. Rather lets look at why they should be taught.

1. So that no-one can malign the Word of God (vs 5)
2. So that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say (vs
3. So that the teaching about God is attractive (vs 10)

Two weeks ago we looked at living a life beyond reproach. We saw that we are all windows that people see God through. Chapter 2 of Titus echoes this same theme. Here we are asked to live a good life, free from sin and beyond reproach so that God is represented correctly to this world.

If all Christians were to lives lives beyond reproach then there would be no way to malign the Word of God and no way to oppose it. Most importantly God would be attractive to this world!!

Related Posts

1. Beyond Reproach?
2. Politeuesthe

Faith in Jesus comes about because people hear the Gospel. People hear the Gospel, because other people tell them the Gospel, but why do people tell other people the Gospel?

Romans 10v17: So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

It says right here that their hearing is through the word of Christ… Huh? What is that, what does that mean? It is this, people preach, witness, evangelize, or whatever because Jesus has told them to. Jesus sends out His people, to spread His message, about His sacrifice, and His love… Don’t get it? Check this out…

Matthew 28v18→19a: And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”

Do you see it, this is known as the great commission, its Jesus sending us (that means you and me…) out to make disciples. What is the action word, what is it that we should be doing? GO!!! Jesus is there shouting to us and encouraging us, “GO you can do it, I will strengthen you, I have all authority in heaven and earth, GO!!!”

That’s what Romans 10v17 is saying, that hearing is through the word of Christ, and that word is… You guessed it; “GO!” He is sending you out to go and make disciples, He is sending you out to spread His message, He is sending you out to go and tell other people about what He has done for you. Remember a few verses before in Romans 10, where Paul reminded us about how people get saved? He said that everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved, but how are they going to know to call on His Name unless they hear about Him (Romans 10v13+14)? There are people around you in your everyday life that have not truly heard (or understood) the message of the Gospel, you have a unique relationship with these people, God has put them in your life for a purpose, help them to hear!

A final word on this, witnessing for a Christian should be as natural as swimming is for a fish, but for most of us it doesn’t feel like that. Some of the methods that have been taught to us make us feel like we have be a judge sitting on the bench passing sentence on the person that we are trying to witness to, other methods basically tell you just to be friends with them and live like a Christian, never talking to them. But what is witnessing really? Witnessing always come down to a conversation of some kind (remember they need to hear), it is you telling your friend about what Jesus has done in your life; why and how. You’re not a judge, you’re a witness on the stand, telling what Jesus has done in your life. What has He done in your life that’s worth telling about, that will make God famous?

Related Posts

1. Parable of the Sower – The Hard Soil
2. Parable of the Sower – Intro
3. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me – Galatians 2v20

Worshipping God is a fairly simple concept. To worship someone who did so much for us, to love Him with everything we have and to immerse ourselves in His goodness.

In essence, worshipping God is simply our natural response to what He has done in our lives. Our natural response to His goodness, His greatness and His holiness.

Although you can’t create a simple formula for worship that would cover every aspect of worship I do believe that there are certain things that should be a part of worship. Last night, at a Worship Workshop held at Kloof Baptist Church, Trevor Wood explained so clearly the following:

Thanksgiving is our response to His goodness
Praise is our response to His greatness
Worship is our response to His holiness

To expand on this a bit more, Psalm 100 asks us to go into God’s presence with thanksgiving. A heart of thanks towards what God has done in our lives helps us to focus our lives on God. As we see how God has been there for us and how good He has been to us we begin to make a move toward responding to His greatness.

His greatness is seen in our lives. In the way He works in our lives. The bible is full of stories and accounts of God’s greatness. We see greatness in His wisdom and strength as He worked through the prophets in the Old Testament. The New Testament is full of miracle stories as God displayed His power over sin, disease and deformity. God is great! We should praise His name because of it.

Focusing on God’s person is the next step. His greatness leads us to contemplate His being. Why would this great God care about mankind, why would He sacrifice His own son for us and how do I respond to the truth that He does care and He does love me.

There is a song that goes like this:

When I look into Your holiness
When I gaze into Your loveliness
When all things that surround become shadows
In the light of You

When I’ve found the joy of reaching Your heart
When my will become enthroned in Your love
When all things that suround become shadows
In the light of You

I worship You I worship You
The reason I live is to worship You

(Wayne Perrin)

As we look into the personality and holiness of God our natural response of to worship Him.

Related Posts

1. A Call to Worship
2. Worship follows complete satisfaction in Christ
3. Imagine your heart is big storage room!

Jesus heals a man who was born blind. This man experiences the touch of God in his life and God is glorified as He displays his power in his life.

John 9: 1 – 12

Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind

¹As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. ⁴As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ⁷“Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

⁸His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹Some claimed that he was.
Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”

¹⁰“How then were your eyes opened?” they demanded.

¹¹He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”

¹²“Where is this man?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.

The disciples open up a conversation with Jesus by asking a simple question. According to their culture, for this man to be born blind either he or is parents must have sinned. This was a culturally accepted understanding and therefore the question seemed common enough.

However Jesus corrects the disciples and their culturally accepted norm, neither this mans sin nor the sin of his parents is the reason for his blindness. The reason for the blindness is so that God’s glory can be displayed in his life.

God wants to show people how awesome he is by healing this man from his blindness. This kind of miracle had not even been heard of yet. A man, blind form birth, receiving his eyesight. God was showing off, catching the attention of the people of this earth. By glorifying Himself like this God reveals to us part of who He is.

The purpose of this mans blindness up until that point was so that God could show us the following things:

1) God is a healer

Disease and deformity have no control over Him. Should He desire He is able to heal people from the disease that troubles their life, from the deformity that plagues them. We see so often in the new testament how God chose to heal people. The lepers were healed and people were bought back from the dead. Sometimes God chooses not to heal us. However that does not mean that He is not a healer. It simply means that God has chosen not to heal. That brings us to our next point.

2) God has a plan.

This man was blind so that God’s glory can be displayed. The reason he was born blind was because God planned it like that. He wanted this man to experience the glory of God in such a way that the people around him would stand up and take notice. Before he met Jesus, this man and others who knew him may not have understood why he was blind. They may have questioned God’s existence or they may have blamed his blindness on the sin of his parents. Either way they probably didn’t come to the conclusion that he was born blind to glorify God.

3) God’s plan is not predictable.

God is so great, so powerful, and so mighty that our understanding of who God is could never bring us to a point of being able to predict God’s actions. This is simply because we could never really completely understand every aspect of God. Just because we didn’t predict God’s action towards something in our lives, or we don’t understand God’s plan, does not mean that God is not at work and that he has no plan or purpose for our lives.

Getting Practical

Therefore the next time something happens to you or someone you know that you don’t understand, remember the man who was born blind. Remember that God’s plan, although it may not always make sense, is still at work in your life and the life of others.

God is glorified when His plan works it’s way through our lives. Like this man, God was glorified when He healed him of his blindness. The man’s life was blessed and enriched because God chose to heal him, and that was God’s plan for this mans life! Blessing and enrichment.

Related Posts

1. The Effect of the Glory of God