Eastern Valley Foodbank

For anyone who's in South Wales:

The Trussel Trust is a Christian organisation operating a number of emergency foodbanks across the country.  They are planning to open such a foodbank in Torfaen early next year.  The foodbanks help individuals and families in crisis, through the provision of emergency food supplies.  A network of distributors, consisting of health visitors, social workers and other community based support services work closely with the foodbanks to supply much needed food in these times of need, and the Trussel Trust see this as a great opportunity to demonstrate the love of Jesus in a practical way in a broken world.  Across the country the Trust’s foodbank network fed over 100,000 people in the first six months of 2012, and each month the numbers needing help are increasing.  The need in Torfaen is likely to be equally high.

If you would like to be involved as a volunteer with this venture, or would like more details about how you can donate, you can find out more by telephoning 07766 791441 or go to www.trusselltrust.org or www.easternvalley.foodbank.org.uk

Looking Skywards

How would you feel if you got up on Christmas morning to find that your loved ones had bought you a parachute jump as a present this year?  Apparently, for not much more than £100, you can learn to jump from a plane and land safely at a local airfield!  Suddenly socks and jumpers don’t seem that bad a gift after all!

          However scary such a jump might be, it would pale in comparison with that accomplished by Felix Baumgartner just a few weeks back.  Did you see it on the news?  He broke the world record for the highest ever jump, having leapt out of his capsule some 24 miles up.  The whole event was screened live over the internet and people around the world held their breath as they watched him tumbling over 128,000 feet to the earth. Though there were many dangers to be considered, and indeed at times during the jump there were real fears at ‘mission control’ that he might have died, we were able to see him land safely to the adulation of the world’s media.  Since then he has appeared on chat shows all around the globe.

          One of the things that became obvious as I watched the film of that jump was what a long way down it was.  There is a long way between the heavens and the earth.  King David, the Psalmist, had no idea just how far it was, but it did not stop him writing “As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His [God’s] mercy toward those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:11)

          That is particularly worth remembering as we come to the Christmas season. This month we celebrate again the coming of another man who left heaven for earth.  But he didn’t jump out of a capsule to return to the earth he had left moments earlier.  He left the heaven of heavens, the dwelling place of the triune God, where He had enjoyed perfect companionship with His Father for all eternity.  His arrival on the planet wasn’t watched by the world like Baumgartners was.  It was hidden from view, in the rural backwater of Bethlehem, an insignificant town in a despised part of the Roman Empire.  And He didn’t just take a risk when He came to earth, but came knowing, indeed planning, to die a cruel death on a cross.  Nor did He enjoy the adulation of the world for his coming.  He was “despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53:3).  Whereas the name of Felix Baumgartner is praised today, the name of Jesus Christ is still used as a swear word across the globe, 2000 years later.

          But the coming of Jesus Christ into the world all those years ago is still celebrated all these years later, and will continue to be long after Baumgartner’s achievement is forgotten.  All across the world are men and women who have found salvation and eternal life through this Jesus.  His death on the cross means their sins are forgiven and, though sinners, they can be accepted by God.  That can be true for you too, this Christmas, if you will believe in Him!

Getting Away With It?

It was one of those moments when I wanted to pull over to the side of the road and make a note of what had been said.  Listening to the phone-in on the car radio doesn’t always make me do that, but I couldn’t help feeling just how perceptive this particular contribution had been.

          “I can’t believe he’s got away with this by dying” the angry lady had said.  She was of course, referring to the news story that has dominated the headlines over the last few weeks.  A major television personality, someone noted for his prolific charity fund-raising, and for people of my generation a weekly fixture in our childhood television watching, has turned out to be a very different person than we had known until now.  A year after his death, it seems, hundreds of people are feeling able to tell of what happened to them at his hands, and the scandal it has caused seems to be involving well-known hospitals and particularly the BBC.  No-one knows what revelations are yet to come, but none of it is going to make pleasant reading.

          That woman’s reaction as she phoned the radio programme summed up the sense that many have, one of frustration mixed with anger.  To all intents and purposes, whatever he did he has got away with.  It is impossible to put him on trial, and so not only will his victims not get their day of vindication in court, but neither will he serve the sentence that it appears he deserves.  He has got away with by dying!

          Or has he?  The exclamation of the woman on the radio hints at something deep within the human soul.  Men and women are not just highly evolved animals, but are made in the image of God.  Because of that we have a sense of right and wrong.  If we were just evolved apes, the ‘law of the jungle’ means we could do as we pleased, but deep down we know that this can’t be right.  We are also created not only with a sense of justice but a sense of the eternal too, and so the idea that in some way this man will still have to pay for his crimes comes naturally to us.  Some years ago the then Prime Minister spoke about an awareness of having to answer to a higher authority, and though he was mocked for it, it ‘rang a bell’ with a lot of people.  We can’t, indeed won’t, believe that he has got away with it by dying!

          Both in Old and New Testament, God tells us clearly that Jimmy Savile will have to account for his life.  “God requires an account of what is past … God shall judge the righteous and the wicked” (Ecclesiastes 3:15,17).  “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). I am sure the lady on the phone will be glad about that!  So will you be perhaps.  But what is true about him, must be true about you too!  Though you feel your sins are not as vile as his, in God’s sight they call for judgment! He hates pride, temper, envy, lies and selfishness too.  But he also provided someone to take the punishment for all sin – Jesus Christ, His only Son.  By trusting in Him we can find forgiveness, whatever our sins, and find peace with the Judge of all.   

Mountains and Righteousness

          The news of the plane accident in Kathmandu at the end of last month, an accident in which a number of British climbers on their way to the Himalayas died, brought sadness to the whole country.  Having recently enjoyed listening to John Rajiah tell of the work of Eternal Light Ministries in Nepal at the weekly church  fellowship meeting, it was sad to focus on that country in a different way.

          Every year thousands of climbers head for that part of the world, and even though it’s now sixty years since Hilary and Tensing scaled the world’s highest peak, it seems to have lost none of its pulling power.  Here in Wales we too have a fascination with our mountains, even though they are perhaps on a slightly smaller scale!  I remember hearing a lady speaking on Radio Wales once, not long after she had been forced to relocate to Norfolk.  What did she miss the most?  Well, I’m sure you can guess what her reply was.

          The mountains, according to the Bible, provide us with a great picture of spiritual truths.  Just a few Sunday evenings ago we were looking at Psalm 36, and we saw that there David, as he speaks to God, tells us;

“Your mercy O LORD, is in the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.  Your righteousness is like the great mountains.” (Psalm 36:5,6)

          Jerusalem, where David’s throne was, was surrounded by the mountains, and as he looked at them he was reminded of God’s righteousness.  Mountains are large, substantial and weighty, unchanging and impenetrable.  They are not things to be taken lightly or dismissed as being irrelevant.  Do that even if you are climbing Mount Snowdon, and you’d soon be in trouble.

          But many people treat God and His righteousness in exactly that casual manner.  They think that breaking God’s law is a matter of little importance.  Perhaps you are like that. Maybe you never think about the fact that God is righteous – always right in everything He says, thinks and does.  Maybe you put to the back of your mind the truth that if you are to stand before Him on the Day of Judgement you will need to be righteous too!

          The good news of the Bible is that God has done something to make that righteousness yours.  He has sent Jesus Christ – Jeremiah calls Him “the LORD our righteousness” ­– and promises that if we trust in this Saviour God’s righteousness becomes ours, indeed we become God’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). So, when God looks at our lives, He doesn’t see the evil things we have done, but sees the perfections of the Lord Jesus.

          In one of the other psalms we read something else that follows, if we have trusted in Jesus Christ, and that too is related to the mountains;

“As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds His people from this time forth and even forever.” (Psalm 125:2)  How wonderful is that!

What a Summer!

What a summer it has been!  As I write this, the last few events of the Paralympic Games are taking place, and that, following the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, have made it a golden few months in all sorts of ways.  Suddenly being British seems to be popular again.  Even the sun is shining at the moment!

After weeks of watching the medals stack up at the Olympic Park, lots of people are wondering how they are going to get back to normal.  The politicians and sports officials who brought the Games to the country are hoping that they will have a long term effect which lasts well past this summer.  All along they have hoped that it will encourage us to be more athletic and to get involved in sport of some sort.  With obesity such a problem to the health of the nation, and the finances of the NHS, anything that encourages people to exercise more will be grasped at with both hands.  However young or old we are, regular exercise is important for a healthy body and mind.

 Over July and August we saw how the Apostle Paul drew on the athletics event of his day to illustrate truths about the Christian living.  We read about ‘running a race’ and ‘winning a crown’, and were reminded about how we need to dedicate ourselves to Christian living, with a single-mindedness like that which we have seen in the sporting heroes of this summer.  The Apostle also speaks about ‘exercise’ in one of his letters.  In 1 Timothy 4:7,8 we read this;

“ … exercise yourself toward godliness.  For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”

 Physical exercise is good for us.  Even if we are old, and all we can manage is to walk around the living room once or twice a day, it gets the blood circulating and keeps the muscles active.  Younger people jog, swim, walk, cycle, lift weights and do all manner of other things in the hope that the day they ‘get old’ will be delayed as a result.  But the Bible reminds us that physical exercise only has limited benefit.  At best, it may only delay the day of our departure from this world, and it has no effect in eternity. 

Instead, Paul points to a more worthwhile type of exercise.  We should aim to be godly!  That, he confidently asserts, has benefits in this life and in the life to come.  We are created in God’s image and for fellowship with him.  That must mean that the more ‘godly’ we are the more we are reaching our human potential.  Godliness – being like God in our attitudes, actions, thoughts and deeds – is, of course, as alien to us as physical exercise to a ‘couch potato’, but without it we cannot enjoy God or true life.  And whereas the benefits of physical exercise stop at death, the godly man or woman has the promise of life eternal where God will be enjoyed forever. 

What sort of exercise have you done today?  Physically and spiritually?