Hook Devotional at 11ish
Fri 24th Apr - #27. 5:2
Michael Mosley the BBC doctor has made a lot of money over the last few years with his 5:2 diet book sometimes known as ‘the fast diet’. On this diet you eat normally for 5 days a week and on 2 days you only eat 500-600 calories. It's not quite fasting but the point is, at the end of the diet your body will be transformed into a ‘new you’.
In our reading today it begins with the controversial subject of fasting -
18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
19 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
21 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
Mark 2
Jesus is doing something new in and around the people of Israel. The religious establishment don't like what He is doing. They pick up on Him and His disciples not fasting and ask “how is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?” In His response to the question He uses three illustrations to make his point. The three illustrations are a wedding, a garment that needed repairing and new wine and where it is stored. The point of the illustrations is to show that Jesus is doing something new that will go far beyond anything that Israel or the world has seen before.
For the religious people then they thought they could put God in a box. The Pharisees used their religion to control people through policing them and putting additional laws to what God had commanded.
This is how one minister has put it -
These questioners think that they can attach Jesus onto the way they already relate to God. But Jesus is not someone on Facebook who we can just add as a friend while carrying on with our old relationships; He’s our Bridegroom, who becomes the centre of our lives and changes all our relationships. Jesus is not an app we can download onto our old phone without the phone crashing; He’s a new phone with a whole new operating system. He replaces all our old ways of approaching God and life with His new ways.
Now consider -
Is there any way that you are living as though the Saviour has not yet arrived?
Much love
Tim
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1 Over 2 millions copies sold of the book
2 Dave Griffith Jones - Explore ‘Mark’
Hook Devotional at 11ish
Thurs 23rd Apr - #26. God is…
Last night we studied Isaiah 6v1-4 in which the prophet recounts the vision he had of God. It is a majestic and awesome vision:
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.”
What Isaiah saw on that unforgettable day stayed with him throughout the whole of his life. From then on he saw the Lord as the “The Holy One of Israel.” This became one of his main thoughts when he thought of God.
I wonder, what is your main thought of God? He has an infinite amount of attributes, but is there a particular attribute of our God that means so much to you because of an experience you’ve had, or that connects to who you are, or touches your heart with beauty and passion?
Here are some of my favourite thoughts of God taken from 10 different hymns and spiritual songs. I wonder if you can guess the songs?
1. “Who is a pardoning God like you, with grace so free, so rich, so true? “
2. “A God of faithfulness and without injustice, good and upright is he.”
3. “In Him there dwells a treasure all divine and matchless grace has made that treasure mine.”
4. “You are the everlasting God, The everlasting God, You do not faint, You won’t grow weary. You’re the defender of the weak, You comfort those in need, You lift us up on wings like eagles.”
5. “Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light, nor wanting nor wasting, you rule us in might; your justice like mountains high soaring above your clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.”
6. “No earthly father loves like you; No mother is so mild; No-one forbears as you have done with me, your sinful child.”
7. “Wisdom unsearchable, fathomless knowledge past understanding by our clever brain;”
8. “Merciful and mighty,”
9. “Age to age he stands and Time is in His hands beginning and the end.”
10. “There is no shadow of turning with thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not; as Thou hast been, Thou for ever wilt be.”
Our God is so very great. Think of Him today. In your busyness or in your boredom turn your thoughts to our Awesome God throughout the day, and your strength will rise as you wait upon the Lord.
Love from Paul
Hook Devotional at 11ish
Wed 22nd Apr - #25. Wristband
Last week Paul made reference to Paul Simon and his song ‘Bridge over troubled water’ in his sermon. This song was written in the 1960s and unlike many of his contemporaries Paul Simon is still writing songs today. In 2016 he wrote a song called ‘Wristband’, the song is about how the correct wristband can get you into all kinds of places such as nightclubs and access all areas at rock concerts etc.
In our reading today Jesus spends time with folk who certainly didn't have access all areas. Why? Because they were ‘tax collectors and sinners’.
Mark 2
13Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to Him, and He began to teach them. 14As He walked along, He saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed Him.
15While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples, for there were many who followed Him. 16When the teachers of the law and the Pharisees saw Him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked His disciples: ‘Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?’
17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’
These tax collectors and sinners surely shouldn't be eating with this Rabbi!
Shouldn't Jesus be spending time with the ‘holier than thou’s and those who have the right wristband?
Jesus again tells us why He came into the world. He came here for the sick, the sinners, those on the margins (v17). Is this you? If so, you’re in good company!
In Jesus’ Kingdom, the wristband is for anyone who would call on His name.
You got your wristband yet?
Much love
Tim
Hook Devotional at 11ish #24. Marbles and the cross
I don’t know about you but I’m finding it hard to think straight and clearly at the moment. It’s hard to focus. My thoughts are like marbles spilled out from their box rolling off in many different directions.
I guess part of the problem is the change of work situation, the awareness of needs, and the desire to contact as many people as possible. Scattered thoughts. You will have your own difficulties that are peculiar to this lockdown and social distancing situation. Please do share them with us for prayer. But this is my prayer request: that my thoughts and action lists would not be so scattered, but brought into a clear frame of thinking so that I wouldn’t get all anxious about getting things done.
So I was really blessed this morning to read a quote that a very thoughtful member of Hook sent me on email. It is from that wonderful African theologian and preacher, Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D). He was preaching a sermon on John's account of the cross of Jesus and he imagined the women who witnessed the death of Jesus gazing up at Jesus as he was shedding his blood and offering his life as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world.
Here is what Augustine says:
"As they were looking on, so we too gaze on his wounds as he hangs. We see his blood as he dies. We see the price offered by the redeemer, touch the scars of his resurrection. He bows his head, as if to kiss you. His heart is made bare open, as it were, in love to you. His arms are extended that he may embrace you. His whole body is displayed for your redemption. Ponder how great these things are. Let all this be rightly weighed in your mind: as he was once fixed to the cross in every part of his body for you, so he may now be fixed in every part of your soul."
Now read them again because the words will grow more powerful the slower and more meditatively you read them. Focus on the word “you”.
And I am reminded of Hebrews 12:1-3 — ...”And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
So, in whatever other way the marbles of my mind roll away (losing my marbles ) this is what I need to have my mind fixed on: my Saviour shedding his precious blood for me.
I think you need to do that too.
Love from Paul
Hook Devotional at 11ish #23. DIY SOS
I’m not the greatest at Do It Yourself. If Frank Spencer from the sit-com ‘Some Mothers Do 'ave em’ got an E grade in his carpentry at school, I would have obtained an E minus. I am hopeless at DIY, ask Cliff, he has seen some of my handiwork or shoddy workmanship as some would call it!
At the end of today’s story, however, the roof isn’t the only thing that needs to be put right.
Let’s read it through -
Mark 2:
1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that He had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and He preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to Him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralysed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Immediately Jesus knew in His spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and He said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralysed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So He said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
For Jesus the biggest problem in this story isn’t the disability or the hole in the roof. It is the sin problem: that we all have.
I tell the children that the best definition of sin is this -
S = Shove off God,
I = I’m in charge and
N = No to your rules.
The consequences of sin is that it cuts us off from God, it spoils all our relationships and our bodies have defects and they get worse as we get older. Hair or lack of? Eyes that need spectacles and knees that go click - that’s me and I haven’t told you about my character flaws! Sin, we are told, earns us death (Romans 6:23)
The story of sin started in Eden with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3) and it will be a problem for the whole human race until God calls time on the world. Sin was the problem for the paralysed man. The teachers of the law had a problem with Jesus because they knew that it was only God who could forgive sin. So if God was the only who could forgive sin, who is Jesus? That’s a good question, so far we have seen Jesus’ authority in a number of ways - the calling of the disciples, the driving out of demons, the healings, his teaching and we are only in chapter 2!
Jesus is still a mystery and slowly some people will see who He is but until then, they ask the question - Who is this man? Who is this one who does things that we have never seen before?
Much love
Tim