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Tuesday 31 March 2009

The words of Matthew, of his wife, that his Father taught him.

An excellent wife who can find? Indeed I have.
She is far more precious than jewels.
I trust her with my life,
and I will never lack gain.
She does me good, never harm,
all the days of her life.
She brings my sustenance home after work,
and lovingly makes our dinner and feeds me.
She buys many gifts for me and others.
She irons my shirts late at night.
She keeps me warm when I am cold.
She dresses beautifully and I am proud she is mine.
She brings home money to keep us
and the future never phases her,
for it is in our Father's hands.
She speaks wisdom, kindness
and always tells me she loves me.
She cares for our house and is never lazy.
I say of her:"
Many women have done excellently,
but you, Melanie surpass them all."
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but my wife who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Adapted from here.

Friday 13 March 2009

Storm the gates!

Jesus said this to Simon Peter just after he confessed the Lord as the Christ:

"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matthew 16:28 (ESV)

I was meditating on this scripture recently. I hadn't noticed until now the importance of Jesus speaking of the gates of hell. He didn't talk about a mobile army of hell that would attack us. Indeed He seems to imply that we, as the church, ought to be the one doing the attacking. Now I don't know about you but gates don't tend to do much walking around or attacking, at least not in my experience. The way I see it, gates are the ones that tend to be attacked and always on the defence. So the gates of hell, the established kingdom 0f darkness need to be attacked.

Church, we need to go on the offensive. Recall, though,

"we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12 (ESV)

So we fight against the devil not other humans. Indeed though living Christ-like lives, through prayer (Ephesians 6:18, intercession and declaring the Word of God (the sword of the Spirit - Ephesians 6:17) we storm the gates of hell to free the oppressed, give strength to the weary, bind up the broken-hearted and lift up the poor.