Capernwray Harbour Community Blog

When I go to the Movies or rent a DVD, I usually gravitate towards action themes. I especially got into 24 when it was showing- I would be on the edge of my seat (literally) the whole time. The heros get themselves into such unseemly predicaments and humanly-speaking there is no way out, but of course, Jack Bauer would always find a way. It’s all fiction and wouldn’t happen in real life, we say, that’s why it’s so entertaining.

But when I go through the Bible and read the stories told over the centuries, I see that there are some Mission Impossible-type events there too. It’s exciting to see how the Lord intervenes in such a super-human way. In Exodus 1, the king of Egypt wants to control the Israelites by reducing their number. So he orders the midwives to put to death all the male sons born to Israelite women. They disobey his orders because they fear God. So the King orders for all the boys to be thrown into the Nile. A God-fearing mother from the house of Levi places her son Moses into a wicker basket and lets it float on the Nile. Her daughter keeps an eye on the basket until Pharaoh’s daughter finds it and adopts the infant as her own son. Moses then becomes a great leader of the people of Israel, leading them out of Egypt under the Lord’s authority.

Another extraordinary event is recounted in the book of Acts 7 v 9-10. “The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. Yet God was with him, and rescued him from all his afflictions, and granted him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him governor over Egypt and all his household.”

Sometimes life seems out of control, and there isn’t an obvious way out. Unfaithfulness, drugs, murder, bankruptcy, hatred…can convince us that hope has run out and we can only give up. This is the enemy’s trick and he waiting for this outcome of despair. In Romans 8 v37-39, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit shares: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And furthermore, “all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Eph 3v20)

THIS is the God we serve!

Author: Esther Bieber

We are called to follow Jesus and this is what He invites us to do. Its an amazing invitation really when you think about it, we don’t have to convince Him to take us along, or prove to Him that He needs us, that we are a big asset to Him and that its to His advantage to have us on board, which would be an exercise in futility, because Jesus does not need us, and yet He wants us and so He invites us to follow Him.

Sometimes I don’t like following Jesus because it makes me vulnerable, and I am no longer in control, but on more reflection I have tried being in control of my own life and that did not turn out to well either. But this attitude only advertises my unbelief, it advertises that I don’t really believe that Jesus is who He says He is. I am so glad that my relationship with Jesus is on the basis of His faithfulness and not mine.

In Matthew 8 v 23-27 the disciples follow Jesus into a boat, and while Jesus was sleeping the disciples were scared for there lives because the boat was being swamped by the waves. When the disciples awaken Jesus saying “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!” Jesus says to them “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” Then Jesus got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm.”

The disciples followed Jesus into the boat, and all was well they enjoyed sailing on the calm waters while Jesus slept.  This is often how we think that life should be when we are following Jesus We know that it won’t be easy or at least we say we do, But often I find I can begin to doubt Jesus or doubt His leading when things get uncomfortable.

Romans 14 v23b “whatever is not from faith is sin.” To live life not trusting Jesus is sin, no matter how noble the act might be its sin, because God created us to live dependent upon Him, anything short of that is sin, its falling short of how God created us. God is faithful to remind us of this. The disciples had no need to fear while they were in he boat because Jesus had led them there, they followed Him into the boat, it was the best place for them to be, as they looked around at there very real surroundings and inwards at there very real emotions they had great reason to fear. And yet they needed to remember how they got there (by following Jesus) and that He was with them.

The disciples were familiar with boats and familiar with being on the sea, they were fishermen and this is the very area they needed to learn to trust Jesus in. The same is true for you weather its a location, people or something within us, an emotion that we are so used to, or used coping with, in all these areas of comfort and familiarity, weather we like them or not, we need to learn to trust Him. You don’t need to fear if He has led you there. And if you have gotten there without Him, then He will call you back to Himself, because He is Saviour and He cannot deny Himself.

“Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?”

Author: Ben Ellershaw

I have been reading about the churches in Revelation and was reminded again of the warnings that God gave to several of the churches there.  A good reminder for me and maybe for you as well. This is a two part post as I was so impacted by what I was reading, I didn’t feel I could finish it in one blog post.

The church at Ephesus

This church was doing all the right things. Revelation says that they didn’t tolerate evil men, test everyone who said they were “apostles” before accepting what they said and they had not grown weary in the trials but had persevered. But this was not enough for God. In chapter 2 verse 4 he says “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.“ Wow. God then told them that had to repent and return to their previous actions or he would remove them from the lampstand….or take away their prominence and usefulness. These are humbling thoughts. For me, I realized that things I do that seem good, and even zealous obedience to everything the Lord asks of me isn’t enough for Him. He wants our entire soul to be completely His. He wants our love of Him and our surrender to Him to completely drive our actions. I don’t know what specifically drove the actions of the church at Ephesus but I know many times my own actions are driven in my desire to look good for others, or the desire to please God, not a response to Him. Take it back to the beginning and or you are serving futilely as anything done without Christ really in it isn’t accomplishing anything in the kingdom. (1 Corinthians 3:10-15)

The churches of Pergamum and Thyatira

Both of these churches had similar problems in that they were allowing untrue doctrine to creep into their midst. Pergamum was holding fast to His name and not denying their faith and yet also holding onto the teachings of Balaam the man who had previously caused the Israelites to sin in the wilderness. God obviously dislikes this arrangement. Yes it is good that they were following the truth but God doesn’t stop at half hearted belief and trust in His plan. He desires complete obedience. The duplicity of this arrangement also cause confusion for both the believers and those outside of the faith looking in as well as presents and incorrect view of who God is. It is also hypocritical, one of the biggest sins of the modern church today. There is just one truth. Jesus. And if we aren’t subscribing to only Him, then we are in trouble. The other church at Thyatira had a slightly different problem. They were allowing witchcraft and teachers who propagated lies to be part of the church. This is an example of extreme tolerance, another sin of the churches today. It is not ok to allow people who are in teaching positions to spread lies about Christ. God is clear on truth-there are no questions about it. Allowing teachers who subscribe to their own version of twisted truth is something God hated in this church. I am also reminded of the verse in Matthew that states that man cannot serve two masters….it is either God or manna. God expects his people to be true to him. He is very stern to Thyatira and tells them that Jezebel will be punished and He will show His people that He is the one who searches their hearts.

I had to stop here when I was studying because both of these hit me hard. I definately do actions out of motives that aren’t Gods and I allow daily influences of the world to creep in and distort the truth I know and influence my interactions with the world. Humbling, really, to see how often I fail at these things. I would encourage you to search your hearts for the truth behind your actions and your mind for lies that you have believed or allowed to be part of your life. There are no places for these things in a Christian’s life. And then seek forgiveness for those things so you may continue to impact and influence a world desperately in need of the truth of Christ.

Author: Grace Slowik

Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:

And the government shall be upon his shoulder:

And his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The mighty God,

The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

“For us” One is the best Christmas Gift’s we have received and will receive.

When Christ entered the world He openly declared War on sin, it was D-day, although He knew He would win. Although the “nativity play” is all cute and all that jazz it was and is a war. This started the ultimate battle that would decide the fate of all mankind. But we forget. Christ never stops fighting.

God has blessed us with this Gift and the birth of Jesus is the start of the many Gifts that He would lavish on us. He is our priest, meaning he can relate to us in all walks of our Faith, which I think is another amazing Gift. I could go through the bible and give examples of very basic or obvious Gifts that He has blessed us with.

This designed for us to be content, in other words not to “want” sin, but we are hard wired to sin.

The Government… this could be taken literally to an actually government. A thought was shared with me about this that I would like to share, and that is that the government can represent us, as we are own government. The 1^st Gift. To run something is hard work, and we would never be a t peace where we could enjoy. You know what I mean if you have know time to be still.

Wonderful counsellor, Wonderful also means amazing, amazement produces wonder and wonderful produces amazement. He will mentor us, be with us, help us, I don’t need to explain this as it explains it self. 2^nd Gift.

Everlasting Father….He is our father, the perfect example as we can never be as good as Him; well this is two gifts in one. My earthy Dad is a good Dad, but because He has flaws and he recognises this which is good and he has o rely on the Father as well as me. My Dad’s father figure cant for me can’t even begin to compare the Heavenly Father, and you know about this it will last! Forever! . It isn’t about how good our Dads are or the failures or whatever it’s that fact that this baby when He was born brought us one step closer to the Everlasting Father. The 3^rd and 4^TH gifts.

The Prince of Peace; when we abide in these and believe in this amazing Gift He will be our peace. Peace means all is well; and this is what Christ did when He died and rose from the dead that at the end of time all would be well. But right now He in us brings us peace; it’s like leaving a deposit. 5^th gift.

To finish with the Mighty God, the Mighty Almighty to be exact. Its emphasis on who He is, the Everlasting Father, prince of peace, wonderful counsellor; Its emphasis on these as well that he is mightily almighty on all these Gifts. Which will last forever, unlike candy and other presents that we get.

Jesus being at the centre of the dirty stable is a picture of Jesus being at the centre of out hearts, and when He is centre we recognise the gifts that were given to Him that are for us. So remember what Christmas is all about. If you take mas off you get Christ. And that’s what we get - Christ!

Author: Joel Childs

As I was reading through Acts 3, the Lord challenged me in this: how do I respond when the Lord doesn’t give me what I want?

In v 1 to 10, we read the story of a crippled beggar who is brought to the temple gate every day to collect money from the Jews who are going to pray. It is the perfect place to be since the Jews thought that giving to the poor would earn them credits in heaven, so it was a more lucrative opportunity. Peter is walking by, and when he sees the beggar, he stops and asks for his attention. The beggar now thinks that Peter will be giving him some money, but he doesn’t. But Peter says to him : “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have, I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ, walk!” And the man got up, walked, jumped and praised God! He didn’t get what he had asked for, but what he received far exceeded what he could have dreamed of having…the Lord had given him a whole new life!

God loved us, and gives us what is good for us, and that isn’t necessarily what we want. In Luke 11 v 11-13 we read: Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks you for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? ”

What a great reminder to trust the Lord, He knows what He is doing in our lives, and we are in the best place possible when we are in His care, and accept His ways for us!

Author: Esther Bieber

2 Chronicles 20:1-25

The kingdom Judah has just been invaded by a large army and in response to this, they run to the LORD to seek his help. The leader of Judah, a man named Jehoshaphat stands up and prays (vs5) to the LORD. The LORD answers them telling them “Go down and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf” (vs18). After this answer they all worship Him. A day later they remember what He had said and begin praising Him and worshipping Him, while they worship Him, the LORD goes in to the camp of the Enemy and He destroys them. The tribe of Judah goes up to where they were told to go and they get there and see their enemy destroyed. Judah then goes and takes the spoil of the enemy, and there was a lot.

The tribe of Judah didn’t have to fight the enemy, it was always the Lord that was going to defeat their enemy. All they did was put their trust in Him knowing that His nature is good and always will be good, and they rejoiced in this, after and before.

How many times when we see our enemies (sin, or troubles) we ignore them or try to fight them ourselves thinking that we can win, and with a good reason that we are in control, that’s why we try.

We are hard wired to sin and feel alone in our battle’s, we must always when we see our enemies know that it’s Christ that we run to, that it’s Christ we know has won for us. We trust in His resurrection, we must also trust in His Victory that we have with Him. It is Christ who must always fight our battles; why? He has won! He doesn’t want us to fight them, He wants us to rely on Him, to trust in Him that He’s going to win the battles of the flesh, He’s already won the war of the flesh! We declare war on our flesh when we trust Him.

Christ  is bigger and better and stronger than any of enemies, let us run too Him! We trust that he has won the War in victory of His ressurection. He’s with us! and always will be with us, He doesnt want to leave us alone in this. He will always be Good to us like He was to the tribe of Judah. The knew it! and they rejoiced!

We Know it!……right?

Well then let us rejoice! Philippians 4:4

Author: Joel Childs

Jesus said “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”  John 14 v 1-3

Jesus says these words to His disciples at a time when they had good reason for there hearts to be troubled, they had good reason to be distressed, concerned and unsettled.  They had just eaten what we call the Last Supper, and Jesus has just told the disciples that one of them is going to betray Him, (Jn 13 v21) not an outsider but one of the twelve, one who was known and loved among them.

Then Jesus has a brief interaction with Judas (Jn 13v 26-30) after which Judas leaves, and they don’t know why he has left or where he is going.

Jn13v 33 Jesus says to His disciples. “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’.” And just think about that for a moment these men have left everything to follow Jesus. Think of the fishermen and how they left there boats nets and the multitude of fish they had just caught, (Lk 5) in order to follow Him, and now Jesus is telling them that He is leaving them!!

With all that has gone on you can imagine that the disciples were troubled. So Peter speaks up. “Simon Peter said to Him,”Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.”  Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.”  Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.” Jn 13v36-38

So if the disciples weren’t troubled before they definatley are now, especially Peter.  But right on the heels of all that Jesus says “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” Faith is Jesus is very active demanding a concious deliberate decision to set apart Jesus Christ as Lord in your heart, to arrange yourself under His Lordship and surrender.

Just as with the disciples, so its the same for us, there are many many things for us to be troubled about each and every day and they are very real to us. Many things that would distract us and lead us away from Jesus from trusting Him. 2 Corinthians 11v3 “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve (How did the serpent deceive Eve!  by twisting and adding to what she already knew to be true, she could not of been deceived if she did not know the truth to start with). “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”

There is always something to trouble us always something to lead us away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. And if we don’t actively choose to live by faith then we let our hearts be troubled. And if you do that often enough then you get used to your heart being troubled, and you learn to cope with it, to accomadate it, there becomes a certain amount of comfort in it because you are used to it, and although you don’t like it you run back to it because you feel in control and its familiar.  But instead of copeing Life is on offer and we are under obligation to enter in.

Every day, every moment, every new situation that comes up is a new context a new oppurtunity for you to apply this for you not to let your heart be troubled but to believe.    As you are well aware I am sure, its not that as soon as you are born again your troubles are over, but that in any given situation on any given day you have all that you need, because you have all of Jesus available to all of you.

And you have to choose each day, each moment, each situation that comes up as a believer to maintaine believing. It does not happen automatically.  ”Do not let your heart be troubled:” if you are not actively following Jesus if you are just drifting along, then your heart will be troubled.

A clear example of this is the children of Israel on entering the wilderness. They were in the right place, they left Egypt and were in the wilderness, that was where God had led them, they were always ment to go there, they just were not ment to stay there.  They were in the right place at the right time and they arrived the right way.  And yet there hearts were troubled, and in a sense it was legitimate they were in the wilderness in a barren place they had no food and no water, they were troubled for themselves and their families.   But the trouble in there hearts was illegitimate because God was with them, God brought them there and God knew what He was doing.

So that generation missed out on all they could of experienced and all they could of enjoyed, they missed out on Life all because they let there hearts be troubled.

They always thought that things were bad, but when things got really bad when things became unbareable, they always looked to a change of circumstance a change of location anything instead of a change of heart. They would say, O that we could go back to Egypt.

And you might find yourself doing the same thing, if only I didn’t have to work with this person, or if only I was at home, or if only I could leave home, or if only I had not married this person, or if only I was married.

If you got your own way and the things you wanted changed, changed, you probally would not be any better off, it might be a tempory fix, but no change would of taken place in your heart.

Jesus said “Do not let your heart be troubled; He did not say that He would remove anything that might trouble you. But, believe in God, believe also in Me. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so. I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

Do not let your heart be troubled, that only stands that only hold any weight because of who Jesus is. He is sufficiant for Life here on this tempory earth. And when He calls us home or comes back again He will receive us to Himself, that we might be where He is.

As Gods children there is no legitimate reason for our heart to be troubled. Don’t let it, rather believe.

Author: Ben Ellershaw

I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations lately and what other people expect of you. Being at home has opened a whole set of new expectations from my parents and family that are different than what I am used to. That isn’t too big of a stretch. Of course people have expectations of us. We have expectations of others. But that got me thinking again to the amount of expectations we say that God puts on us, or the amount of expectations we put on God. We have a set of rules that we set up to live up to God’s expectations but do we really even know what those are?

In Mark 7, Jesus speaks to the Pharisees about their expectations. They had expressed their disgust at the disciples for eating before washing their hands which was a cultural expectation set up by the religious leaders themselves. They asked in verse 5 “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?” Jesus responded “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’ ” In other words, there are no actions to back up the good words of the Pharisees. They come up with all these rules, but God views it as empty and meaningless-hypocrisy in a word.  But how can God just not except our offerings as it were? The answer is found still further in the chapter.

“Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.” Mark 7:8. Jesus goes on to site an example. The Israelites were told to honor their parents and not to speak evil of them but the Pharisees said that if someone put the things aside that should be used to help them for God (or Corbin) that this would take him of the hook, no longer having to care for their parents or “honor” them. So to honor God, the rules were put up to actually disobey the commandments that God had already previously put down. Invalidation by interpretation. But this invalidation actually ruins the truth. This religious expression ruins the testimony of the truth.

Can you see why God would hate this? God doesn’t want a religious expression but a relationship. When we do things to please God, we invariably end up twisting His truth into our own. And that is the witness we present to the world…not His truth but our own twisted version of reality. God hated it when the Israelites did it amd He hates it when we do it.

So what then does the Lord require of us to do? If doing things for Him doesn’t work what then? He simply requires obedience to His words. Very specific isn’t it. He doesn’t want us to neglect the commandment of God (Mark 7:8). So instead of coming up with things you think He wants-just sit down, take a few minutes, open your Bible, and read. Then do what it says!

My best friend Ted (who also happens to be my husband) often challenges me when we pray together. One of the things which is on his heart is for us to give our time, material goods, love, prayers… as an outpouring of our love and gratitude towards the Lord.

In the book of Acts, we see how the believers from the early church couldn’t help but share their possessions, and it became contagious! “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they shared everything they had. … There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time, those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to everyone as he had need.” ( Acts 4 v 32-34).

When we love the Lord and we truly see how much He has done for us, we can’t help but want to please and obey Him. The closer we walk with the Lord, the more natural it becomes to want to be generous, and not for our own good reputation, but simply and humbly out of gratitude towards Him. What we have is not our own, it belongs to the Lord. We are merely giving Him what is already His … and this pleases Him.

In preparation for the beginning of Bible School in Costa Rica, I have been really busy trying to be ready for it. Through this process I have been reminded of the importance of taking the time to read the scripture, not because of a requirement as a Christian, but because through it, the living Word is revealed. John 1:1 says that “the Word was with God and the Word was God”. The living Word is the Son of God, Jesus, and He will reveal to us when we read the Bible if we approach to it with the expectation that He will do it. He will tell you who He is, His nature and character.

The Bible is about Jesus and everything we read in the “book” is to get to know the person that lives in us and because of His spirit we can have access to everything He is and His abundant life and the quality of this life is not earthly, it is eternal, meaning everlasting life. This is a life that we cannot explain and at the same time is the best thing that can happen because we are going to be in His presence forever. This is life!!!

It is not a matter of trying to learn everything about the scriptures and try to give answer to every situation that happened and is explained in it. Is not a matter of work through it in my own effort because is part of what a religion ask me to do. God doesn’t want sacrifices, He want obedience, which comes from a real relationship with Him, abiding in Him in order to know Him better. Is not “doing and doing, learning and learning” if our relationship with Him is not of fully dependency, we are not going to be able to bear fruit, because we are trusting in what we do instead of trusting and knowing who He is. John 15 says: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me…If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you”.