Crestwood Church Blog

Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. James 4:13-17

Is your life full of presumptions? When I looked at these verses, I came to the conclusion that my life is. We forget that our lives are in the hands of an Almighty God, “he gives and takes away” ( we sing it often enough). What these verses are telling us, is not that it is wrong to make plans, not wrong to believe that there will be a tomorrow, but to bring God into the centre of those plans, and more importantly let those plans be God’s plans for our lives, not just our own.

When we wake up the next morning, do we thank God for giving us another day, or do we just take it for granted that it is our right to be alive?

This verse was written to business men of the early church who were continuing their lives and businesses without a care and thought about God. Because they had managed to make a profit without God (or so it seemed) before they presumed they could continue with out him afterwards. If we believe that God has our best interests at heart for our salvation, why can’t we believe that God has our best interest at heart for every other aspect of our lives.

The new life we have in Christ is so much greater than before, do we not think that our working lives can not be more beneficial. It isn’t to say that our lives will become easy, but it will become more worth while and if we do what we do to honour God, there is no reason not to believe that he will bless us.

Our lives at best are very short, like a morning fog, (like the falling of a leaf, like a vapour that escapes from a kettle), for most of us, the fog has gone before we awake, and this is partly the significance of these verses. Don’t let life pass you by, and when it is to late, realise the mistake you’ve made. God writes very strongly, It is evil to boast, it’s a sin to live our way and not the way that you know from God. Don’t make presumptions ask God, years ago after every service the letters DV appeared, Latin for “God Willing” Is your life based on God’s will or your will. He knows the future, trust him.

Labels: God's Will, Honour, Presumption

What can I offer the Lord for all he has done for me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and praise the Lord’s name for saving me. Psalm 116:12-13

What a tremendous question, what can I offer the Lord for all he has done for me? Is there anything that we can offer to someone who has given it all in the first place?

The answer comes in the next phrase,

“I will lift up the Cup of Salvation”.

In Old testament times a priest or a family head would regularly raise a cup with an exaltation of praise to God. In the early church times the cup that was lifted was a bitter cup, a cup that had little to offer but was full of praise and as they lifted the cup in praise , as a symbol to God he would meet their needs and be a symbol of salvation, that God fills the bitterness and restores us with his joy. He brings deliverance and fullness though being united with him.

Phil 1:19 For I know that as you pray for me and the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will lead to my deliverance.

So how can we lift up our, cup of salvation today? The cup is you, give you lives to God, in all that you do,

The big question is? How much are we prepared to offer up our lives, to admit that the best we have is not enough and the only way to bless God, is to give him our lives, so that he can beautify them. On Sunday’s we can offer to God as we worship, we can sing from our hearts, we can pray from within and we can declare with our mouths. One of the greatest testimony’s we have as believers is to tell others what the Lord has done, we can share our experiences of God on Sundays, during house groups and whenever the opportunity arises, The Psalm goes on to say

“I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.” v17

When we come together is this your attitude?

Labels: Cup, Offering, Sacrifice, Salvation

The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves. The storm stopped and all was calm! Luke 8:24-25

Have you ever thought why it was that Jesus didn’t just tell the wind to be silent? Instead he told the waves to cease also. Maybe it seems a small detail and in many respects that’s the point. The cause of the storm was the wind, by commanding the storm to stop, would have brought the stormy sea to a halt, but not immediately . The wind may have stopped blowing but the seas would have continued raging until things settled.

When you toss a pebble into a mill pool, the ripples continue for sometime after the stone has entered the water.

The disciples were distressed and terrified, they were beyond what they could handle. This must have been some storm, on the whole these disciples were fishermen they were used to storms, but this one had beaten them and the Lord knew it. To stop the cause was one thing, but to stop the effect meant immediate peace and calm.

Praise God that we have a God of immense compassion who can solve the cause of our problems as well as the effects. If Noah had been left on the Arc and God had stopped the rain only , Noah would still be floating around on one gigantic puddle. Put the Lord made plans to remove the effect, the water from the earth.

I find this really exciting and uplifting. God really cares how we feel and when we reach our breaking point and often well before, our heavenly Father, is moving heaven and earth to not just stop the disaster but put our lives back together as quickly as he can.

This is most true of our greatest cause and effect; Sin . When we become a believer he hasn’t just taken the sin out of our lives and forgiven our sins, that in itself is awesome. But he is working in us to remove, the guilt and pain, heartache and anguish that sin has caused in our lives.

Sometimes we only see the big miracles in our lives, when often the greatest can be the small ones, because these are the ones that we can see in this lifetime, where the bigger one we will not see until we reach our home in glory.

Labels: Calm, Cause, Compassion, Effect

I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2: 3

The release last month of the Indiana Jones movie and last years National Treasure 2 have brought us back into the mode of treasure hunting, well at least those who like that kind of thing. I remember the big craze, in the back end of the 80’s and 90’s when people brought metal detectors to look for bits of ancient treasure they could dig up, most of them to no avail.

The original word in Greek is “Thesauros” where we get the term “Thesaurus” from. The word treasure here is a fountain or library of limitless wealth. All there is to know about wisdom and knowledge, is found in Christ. There is nothing outside of Christ that can be found and if it could, would not be worth knowing.

The verse tells us that all this treasure of truth is hidden in Christ, but it is not all unattainable.

Col 1:27 For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you.

Because of the work of Salvation that we have embraced and welcomed, part of our inheritance, is that we have access to this great treasury. In fact because Christ lives in us, we have access to this great resource. The main problem that we face is not traps, rolling balls and problems that we have to solve like in a good treasure hunt film, but ourselves. We have to keep reminding ourselves of what we have in Christ. These treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in us, because Christ is in us.

The reason we get confused or forget is because we get caught up in our own little worlds, and forget to ask the one who knows all things. This whole plan of salvation is truly mysterious and wonderful, but it is ours, we are a part of it. Paul writes in this verse that he wants us to have confidence in who we are and what we are. Instead of seeking for wisdom and knowledge from all the sources that the world go to, ask the Lord to reveal these truths to us, piece by piece and treasure by treasure, then we will begin to understand what we truly are, and how awesome it is to be loved by an awesome God

Labels: All, Resources, Treasure, Wisdom