Thursday, 12 May 2016
Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Tithing
The following piece on Tithing was discussed at the recent Anglican Synod in Grahamestown.
The first commandment.
Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind and with all thy soul.
Before we speak about tithing can we speak about God?
1. How important is he in our lives? Does he merit full obedience? Is he number one in our lives?
2. This is a decision we have to take at all times in our lives.
3. If the answer is “Yes” then we have to be his representatives to promote our God on our earth, our land and in ourselves. We only have us to tell the world what Jesus did for all our people and how he can ensure our salvation.
4. This has to become important to us.
We will support God Our Father through our ministry and through our tithes and giving. Render unto ……… God those things that are God’s.
Leviticus 27:30 states. “All the tithes of the land, whether the seeds of the land or the fruits of the land is the Lords. It is Holy to the Lord.” All we have belongs to the Lord.
Genesis 28:22 states. “All that thou shall give me, I will surely give the tenth to the Lord”
The desire to tithe will come very readily if we put God first in our lives. Why? We are returning to God what is rightfully his. If we keep it we cannot tell the world God is real and paramount in our lives. We are shortchanging him.
God’s ministry needs these funds very desperately and this is why all our financial obedience is vital.
Giving a tithe is acknowledgement that all we have is from Christ and our tithe is returning a small part of his favour for the purposes for which it is (as you all know) sorely needed for Gods ministry.
Tithing works
(Mal 3:10) Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Let me give you some examples of how God rewards tithing.
St Patricks in Hogsback started in 2005 to tithe. The first annual tithe amounted to R 600.
Ten years later, with a congregation of not more than 50 persons at the most, and more than half of them not Anglicans, the annual tithe income was R 94 015. This is an increase of approximately 150 times our original tithing income. “Test me and see?”
Why did this happen?
Our chapel council decided to tithe on all our income and religiously paid our 10% to the needy. So in 2015, St Patricks paid out R 16 554 as our tithe. (Test me and see if …)
In addition St Patricks was able, together with our annual Diocesan assessment, able to give 40% of our income to the needy, on top of paying our priest. (Test me and see if I ……)
Tithing, according to Rev Billy Graham, makes us effective partners with God.
An extreme example! Richard Warmbrand tithed his meals to less privileged prisoners, while he was in prison!!!!
Some examples of those who tithed and God rewarded.
Mr. Cromwell of Quaker Oats tithed more than 60% of his income.
Mr. Colgate of Toothpaste fame did likewise.
Mr. Rockerfeller Jnr tithed his first 1.50 dollar income.
Mr. A. A. Hyde even started tithing when he was in debt and God favored his business fourfold. God is the first creditor.
Mr. W. R. Speight says, “Money can’t be put to a higher use than honoring God.”
There are numerous other examples of Christians who have been faithful and tithed and God has prospered them extraordinarily. (Test me and see …..)
Those who receive tithes are still obliged to tithe themselves. We must tithe our tithes received!
A Christian who tithes will be surprised at:
1. The amount of money he has for the Lords work.
2. The deepening of his spiritual life after paying his tithes.
3. The ease of meeting his obligations with the remaining 9/10ths.
4. Ease of increasing the 10%.
5. The ease of managing the 9/10th remaining.
6. The surprise for not adopting the plan sooner.
Our Diocese now has to resort to commercial fund raising to provide the necessary ministry to its people because of the lack of tithing among our congregations. This reflects poorly on our trust of, and faith in God. Jesus died for us for what?
What is the solution?
Each congregation (including the Diocese and the Cathedral) must consciously decide to tithe in faith, at the start, at least 10% of their gross income as the relevant council determines. (Test me and see if I will not reward you). In a short time the 10% will increase but the income will escalate because we are all faithful. We, as representatives of our parishioners, will get this message to our congregants because we put God first in our Churches - but we must start with ourselves.
Finally I pray for Holy Spirit guidance and active support for all our people in our Diocese. Then our finances will overflow and we can truly honor God magnificently. And won’t our Bishop, then, praise God and the Holy Spirit?
Watch the flood gates!!
The first commandment.
Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind and with all thy soul.
Before we speak about tithing can we speak about God?
1. How important is he in our lives? Does he merit full obedience? Is he number one in our lives?
2. This is a decision we have to take at all times in our lives.
3. If the answer is “Yes” then we have to be his representatives to promote our God on our earth, our land and in ourselves. We only have us to tell the world what Jesus did for all our people and how he can ensure our salvation.
4. This has to become important to us.
We will support God Our Father through our ministry and through our tithes and giving. Render unto ……… God those things that are God’s.
Leviticus 27:30 states. “All the tithes of the land, whether the seeds of the land or the fruits of the land is the Lords. It is Holy to the Lord.” All we have belongs to the Lord.
Genesis 28:22 states. “All that thou shall give me, I will surely give the tenth to the Lord”
The desire to tithe will come very readily if we put God first in our lives. Why? We are returning to God what is rightfully his. If we keep it we cannot tell the world God is real and paramount in our lives. We are shortchanging him.
God’s ministry needs these funds very desperately and this is why all our financial obedience is vital.
Giving a tithe is acknowledgement that all we have is from Christ and our tithe is returning a small part of his favour for the purposes for which it is (as you all know) sorely needed for Gods ministry.
Tithing works
(Mal 3:10) Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Let me give you some examples of how God rewards tithing.
St Patricks in Hogsback started in 2005 to tithe. The first annual tithe amounted to R 600.
Ten years later, with a congregation of not more than 50 persons at the most, and more than half of them not Anglicans, the annual tithe income was R 94 015. This is an increase of approximately 150 times our original tithing income. “Test me and see?”
Why did this happen?
Our chapel council decided to tithe on all our income and religiously paid our 10% to the needy. So in 2015, St Patricks paid out R 16 554 as our tithe. (Test me and see if …)
In addition St Patricks was able, together with our annual Diocesan assessment, able to give 40% of our income to the needy, on top of paying our priest. (Test me and see if I ……)
Tithing, according to Rev Billy Graham, makes us effective partners with God.
An extreme example! Richard Warmbrand tithed his meals to less privileged prisoners, while he was in prison!!!!
Some examples of those who tithed and God rewarded.
Mr. Cromwell of Quaker Oats tithed more than 60% of his income.
Mr. Colgate of Toothpaste fame did likewise.
Mr. Rockerfeller Jnr tithed his first 1.50 dollar income.
Mr. A. A. Hyde even started tithing when he was in debt and God favored his business fourfold. God is the first creditor.
Mr. W. R. Speight says, “Money can’t be put to a higher use than honoring God.”
There are numerous other examples of Christians who have been faithful and tithed and God has prospered them extraordinarily. (Test me and see …..)
Those who receive tithes are still obliged to tithe themselves. We must tithe our tithes received!
A Christian who tithes will be surprised at:
1. The amount of money he has for the Lords work.
2. The deepening of his spiritual life after paying his tithes.
3. The ease of meeting his obligations with the remaining 9/10ths.
4. Ease of increasing the 10%.
5. The ease of managing the 9/10th remaining.
6. The surprise for not adopting the plan sooner.
Our Diocese now has to resort to commercial fund raising to provide the necessary ministry to its people because of the lack of tithing among our congregations. This reflects poorly on our trust of, and faith in God. Jesus died for us for what?
What is the solution?
Each congregation (including the Diocese and the Cathedral) must consciously decide to tithe in faith, at the start, at least 10% of their gross income as the relevant council determines. (Test me and see if I will not reward you). In a short time the 10% will increase but the income will escalate because we are all faithful. We, as representatives of our parishioners, will get this message to our congregants because we put God first in our Churches - but we must start with ourselves.
Finally I pray for Holy Spirit guidance and active support for all our people in our Diocese. Then our finances will overflow and we can truly honor God magnificently. And won’t our Bishop, then, praise God and the Holy Spirit?
Watch the flood gates!!
Friday, 6 May 2016
Saturday, 30 April 2016
Monday, 25 April 2016
THE GLORY OF LOVE
Service by Margaret Fourie
Readings:
Acts 11:1-18
Ps 148
Rev 21:1-6
John 13: 31-35
Message
In our reading from St John's gospel this morning, we
have another of these mysterious passages which over the years have become
familiar enough to us, but which may well have not much meaning for us. "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and in
him is God glorified. If God is
glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself...." What does this mean? What does all this glorifying look
like? Picture the scene. Jesus and his disciples have just finished
the meal, and Judas has, minutes before, left the group to go to the
authorities. In a few minutes, they will
leave the upper room and go into Gethsemane, where he will, after some prayer
and agonizing, be arrested, tried over and over, and then condemned to death. Not the sort of glory most of us would
choose.
Perhaps we can shed some light on it from this
angle: those of you who are also single
will know what I mean when I say that every now and then someone will tell me,
"You are looking wonderful! Is
there someone special in your life?"
or "You look so radiant you must be in love!"
In other words, everyone knows that when you are in
love, you shine with a special radiance; there is a special happiness about
you, a glory. Certainly being in love is
one of nature's great beauty treatments.
We have all seen the very plain person suddenly become beautiful because
somebody has taken a special interest in them and has perceived them as
beautiful.
Loving and being loved is
transforming, a source of glory.
Perhaps Jesus was feeling very
close to God at that moment: he would
have needed to! Perhaps he was suddenly
very conscious of being surrounded by love - the love of the Father and the
love of these men - and of loving them in return.
In Lystra in Greece, St Paul was preaching the love of
God to a crowd of people when his eye fell on a crippled man: "he fixed
his eyes on him" says the REB. He
saw him and really looked at him, noting his need and understanding his
response of faith. He was more to Paul
than merely someone in the crowd. Maybe
there was something of the glory of God in his face as Paul saw him, for the
Bible says, "seeing he had the faith to be cured..." so it must have
shown. Maybe for the first time in his
life, this man knew himself unconditionally loved as he heard the gospel. Paul's response to this man's faith was to
pass on to him the glorious wholeness of Jesus, and he is healed.
The effect of love is transformational.
You may have had the experience of falling in love,
where suddenly the whole world is beautiful and you are conscious of being
powerful and competent beyond your wildest dreams. Suddenly everything is easy - even getting up
in the morning! Perhaps you have also
had the awful experience of having the relationship terminated - that feeling
of the light going out, of being worth nothing at all, of being unattractive
and of not wanting to do anything at all, in fact not being able to do much.
When we are loved we can do anything; when we are not
loved we are paralysed.
Those of you who get the Hogsback Times will also have been as upset
as I was about Shane’s hurt and
anger. The pain of being betrayed by
those you have loved is extreme. It
would take a closeness to God like what Moses experienced on Mt Sinai, or Jesus
on Mount of Transfiguration to turn that betrayal of Judas’s into glory.
Over the last few days in morning prayer we have been
reading about Moses and his time up and down Mount Sinai. Every time he spent time with God, on the
mountain or in the Tent of Meeting, when he came out he had to veil his face
because it shone so brightly with the glory of God. Being with God, spending time with him in
closeness transformed the shy, stammering Moses who had to speak through Aaron,
into the man who glowed with confidence and glory, and who could address the
crowds himself.
Love is a transforming thing. Jesus tells
his disciples after the last supper, "Love
one another; as I have loved you, so are you to love one another. If there is this love among you, then
everyone will know that you are my disciples." It will show, not only in actions, but also
because love glows and love transforms.
The awareness and acceptance of God's enormous love
for us, and the giving and receiving of love among ourselves will transform our lives.
The main way in which most of us will experience God's
love is through other people: sometimes it is given to us to know that God
is directly involved with us - we may have one of those sudden insights, or
experience a strange outpouring of God's loving mercy, but usually it is the
mediation of other people around us that makes
up our experience of God. It is the
privilege of the people of God to love with God's love.
Sometimes it is not easy (or even possible) to love someone
and we will need help. You;ve heard me tell
of my Mom whose aged mother had moved in with her. She told me, "I cannot love her. I just cannot manufacture love for her. She drives me round the bend. So I said to God, 'I cannot love her, but I
am prepared for you to love her through me'." In this way she became the conduit for God's
love for her mother. It is the
responsibility and the privilege of each of the members of the family of God to
express God's love for each other in tangible, truly caring ways. we are in a real sense the continuing
incarnation of our Lord.
Some of you may be feeling
·
insignificant, unimportant in
the scheme of things. Some of you may be
·
downright depressed.
·
Some of you may have come this
morning in spite of the sense you have of not being ready to face God.
·
Perhaps you wanted to creep in
and then out again without really being noticed, because you hoped that the
familiar rhythm of the liturgy would comfort you.
·
Some of you may have had
disappointments,
·
or be feeling abandoned or
unloved.
You will be having difficulty living life to the full;
you may even be having difficulty with living at all. (We don't like to let others know this, do
we?)
Whatever your crippling situation may be, there is a
chance of glory for you: spend a bit of
time now meditating on the extraordinary love of God for you; look
around you at the people in the pews with you this morning. This is your family and here you can
experience the love and acceptance of people around you and share that love
with someone else. Look to see where you
can exercise your own facility for being loving, and then learn to accept the
love that is offered to you.
For there is glory in love. It transforms us and makes everything
possible.
"As I have loved you, so you are to love one
another. If there is this love among
you, then everyone will know that you are my disciples." Know both these loves - the love of God and
the love for each other so that you too may be transformed and energised, and make everything possible for your
sisters and brothers in the faith.
Sunday, 24 April 2016
Pew leaflet 24 April 2016
To download the pew leaflet in PDF printable format click https://goo.gl/eKBM8c
Sunday, 20 March 2016
Palm Sunday- Breaking the Spell
Isaiah
50:4-9a
Phil 2:5-11
Luke 23:1-47
Today is Palm Sunday when we celebrate the
triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem on his way to die. We read the story in the gospel reading. It was all very carefully stage-managed, and
Jesus was very carefully fulfilling several prophecies about the Messiah and in
so doing, proclaiming himself messiah and forcing the hands of the Jewish
authorities. God sometimes intervenes and forces the issue – not waiting for people
to get around to doing what they say.
He knew that they would take the challenge, and
that they would have to take action and probably kill him because he knew that
they were planning to kill him anyway - remember when Lazarus died the
disciples didn't want him to go to Bethany, so close to Jerusalem, because the
Chief Priests and Scribes were planning to kill him then?
So why did he do it?
To "break
the spell"
(tell Yellow fingers story with Sir Galahad)
We often feel as if we are under some sort of
spell - listen to what St Paul says in Romans 7. Rather like being turned into a frog and
every time you want to sing, a 'gribbet' comes out! In fact, these stories of evil spells are really
paradigms of spirituality, and the rescue by the virtuous, innocent one is the
motif for the gospel story. The princess has to kiss the frog - the worst and most humiliating thing she could
have to do, but also the most loving
action towards something apparently unlovable. Also Beauty and the Beast.
Essence of Fall was disobedience and a desire
for power. Jesus is obedient and humble,
so reverses the pattern and is able
to remain without sin, and thus breach the stronghold and break the sin. He was the first one to enter Hades and be free to leave it. It is hard for us to understand the
redemption process, and every parallel we use has a weakness somewhere, as does
this one.
Where does
that leave us?
Are you still
under the evil spell of Satan, or will you step out of your castle and be free,
for look, your King comes, obedient and lowly, riding upon an ass, the foal of
an ass. And he has come for you. Because he loves you more than you can ever
begin to imagine.
Amen..
FormorePlam Sunday photos, click here: https://goo.gl/photos/wpXtPt8KKWacpqiH8
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