-
Carterknowle Church is about People
We are looking forward to meeting you
Copyright © 2005-2009 Carter Knowle Seventh-day Adventist Church, 162
Carter Knowle Road, Sheffield, S7 2EE |
Contacts
Powered by WordPress and Ian Stewart's ThemeShaper with ideas from many generous WordPress users.
Optimised for 
.
Grace Notes
The Bible Says
Going to Jail
10 Mar 2010 at 11:00pm
I’ve been in jail many times. In high school I was part of a singing group that went to jail to sing to the inmates. I’ve gone to visit a relative in jail. We sat across from each other talking on a phone, separated by glass. More recently I’ve attended a weekly Bible study with four of my fellow church members to share God’s word with about 20 inmates at a local correctional facility. It’s been a joy to visit the jail.
But I wouldn’t want to live in jail. It’s one thing to visit a prison once a week for a couple hours. It’s another to stay there. When I walk through the metal detector and past three locked doors and hear the final “click” of the latch behind me, I feel my loss of freedom. It doesn’t bother me too much because I know in a few hours I’ll be leaving. I enjoy seeing my friends at the prison, but I always enjoy the freedom of driving away, knowing I can go home or stop and visit friends in town. I value my liberty.
God wants us to be free as well. The Bible says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Sin makes us slaves. Jesus has come to set us free. When we choose to follow God’s ways and live by the Bible, we live a life of freedom. The ways of this world seem like freedom, but they are really a trap that leads to bondage.
Choosing to Go to Jail
Can you imagine choosing to live in jail? Why would anyone want to give up their freedom on purpose? Yet that is what the person who turns away from God is doing. The Lord is the giver of life and freedom. When we choose Satan’s pathway, we are choosing to be slaves to sin. We choose to go to jail. Sin makes us a slave to ourselves. True freedom comes in obeying God’s laws that give life.
The Christian life is based on the service of love to God and love for others. People who are slaves to sin live only for themselves. They think focusing on their desires will make them happy. But, it is a trap and leads to death.
Are you in jail? Have you given yourself over to bondage while looking for happiness? Come to Christ. Pray and ask the Lord to forgive your sins. Jesus will unlock you from your prison and set you on a new path. Don’t go to jail. Walk in freedom.
______________________________
By Curtis Rittenour. Copyright © 2010 by GraceNotes. All rights reserved. Use of this material is subject to usage guidelines. Scripture taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION © 1982
Standing Up For Jesus
10 Mar 2010 at 10:03am
I walked into my four-year-old son’s room one evening. He had already been tucked into his bed. I was simply checking on him. When I looked in his room, he was standing up in his bed very straight, tall and very still. I asked why he was standing like that. He told me, “Mom, I am standing up for Jesus.” In the background, the song, “Stand Up, Stand Up, For Jesus,” was playing on his CD player.
That reminded me of some other stories where people stood up for Jesus.
There is a story of a twelve-year-old girl named Valya Vaschenko from Russia. She was asked by law to take an oath to “become a member of the Communist children’s group known as Pioneers.” She was a Christian. When she refused to do as she was asked, the director of her school and several other young girls were prepared to do it for her; force her to become a member. But as they read the oath and were about to put the scarf on her, she suddenly started praying to God out loud and began to sing a hymn, “We will stand firm for the gospel faith, for Christ, following His example, forward all, forward after Him.” Children like Valya, were usually heavily punished for praying and witnessing in their school. She chose to stand up for Jesus despite the consequences.
There is another inspiring story of a man named Tom White. He was an American Christian pilot who would fly his airplane over Cuba and drop gospel literature. His plane crashed one day and he was arrested by the Communists who put him in jail .
They asked him, “Who do you work for?”
Tom replied, “I work for Jesus.”
They said, “Oh, is that right? And how much money did this Jesus pay you for making these trips?”
Tom said, “I took these trips for no pay. My pay is the love and blessing that God gives me for obeying Him.”
He Chose to Sing
The Communists could not understand Tom’s answers and put him in solitary confinement where Tom was in the pitch black darkness with nothing and bitter coldness seeping in. But he chose to sing. He sang every Christian song he could think of. The guards would come and ask him what he was doing, and he would tell them he was singing about Jesus. The guard even told Tom, “If you love Jesus, don’t sing.” But Tom kept on singing.
Eventually, he was brought back to his original cell. The Communists were convinced that he was not “a super spy trying to overthrow their government.” After many prayers, letters, appeals from U.S. Congressmen and even Mother Teresa, he was released.
These are two amazing examples of people who made the decision to stand up for Jesus, no matter what the price.
The Bible says, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).
Will we stand up for Jesus?
______________________________
By Erika Gladden. Copyright © 2010 by GraceNotes. All rights reserved. Use of this material is subject to usage guidelines. Scripture taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®.
Jesus Freaks, DC Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs: Stories of those who stood for JESUS: the ultimate Jesus Freaks. Albury Publishing, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1999. pgs. 278-279 and 256-260.
Bread from Heaven
10 Mar 2010 at 10:03am
The Israelis were in a tight spot. They had just made their escape from Egypt, where they had been held as slaves for many years. Numbering perhaps two million men, women and children, they now found themselves in the Sinai Desert with no food. In their despair, they began to complain and to doubt that God, who had given directions for their escape, was really with them and guiding them.
Sound familiar? You know, it’s easy to trust God when things are rosy. But when the bills are high, and the funds are low, we sometimes wonder if God really cares what happens to us.
But God was there with the Israelis all the time. They just needed to learn that lesson. God said, “I will send bread down from heaven like rain. Each day the people can go out and gather only enough for that day. That’s how I will see if they obey Me” (Exodus 16:4, CEV). God kept His word. He rained down “manna”—bread from heaven—during all the years of their wilderness journey.
One Day at a Time
There’s a lesson for us here. Just like those Israelis of long ago, we need to learn to trust God one day at a time. The Bible says, “As your days, so shall your strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25, NKJV).
We learn to trust Him by praying to Him and studying His Word, the Holy Scriptures, every day. You can no more live the Christian life without doing this, than you can live without eating. And, just as no one else can eat for you, you can’t depend on someone else for your spiritual food.
Daily Bible study and prayer are food for your soul. They’ll build you up and give you strength for each day’s needs. God is inviting you to “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8, NKJV).
______________________________
By Bob DuBose. Copyright © 2010 by GraceNotes. All rights reserved. Use of this material is subject to usage guidelines. Scripture taken from the CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH VERSION ® and the NEW KING JAMES VERSION © 1982.
Hope for Haiti
4 Mar 2010 at 4:13pm
I can’t stop thinking about Haiti. The horror of thousands of rotting bodies, people trapped for days in rubble, the agony of people not knowing if their loved ones were dead or alive. Those heart-breaking images of parents clutching their dead children are almost more than I can bear. Their devastation, their pain, their fear is overwhelming.
And I feel so powerless to help. I don’t personally know anyone in Haiti. I have no medical skills to offer and slim financial resources. Yes, I did send a text message to make a donation to a charitable organization. And I spent an evening in my kitchen baking cookies for a fund raiser, and another evening attending a benefit concert sponsored by my children’s school.
But when the concert was over our family went home together to a well-stocked pantry and comfortable beds. And I couldn’t help thinking, “There has to be more I can do.” One cannot simply ignore such raw human suffering, especially when as a Christian I know that the believers in Haiti are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
As I was reading my Bible today I began to realize that there is something significant every Christian can do, regardless of his or her skills, knowledge or financial status. It is, in fact, the greatest thing we can do because it releases God’s power to manifest itself in Haiti.
Be Specific
We can pray. Not just “Please bless Haiti” but specific, earnest prayers for things we know are within God’s will. Even if we are not personally acquainted with people, it is always right to ask for spiritual wisdom and understanding for them. We can ask that they be granted the kind of peace that can only be accounted for through knowing Christ. We can ask that they be given strength and patience to endure their sufferings (Colossians 1:9-11).
We can pray that believers will not turn away from God in their grief, but will be brought even closer to God. We can ask for the kind of faith that is strengthened in crisis. We can ask that they be reminded of the homes awaiting them in heaven and the joy of being united forever with loved ones. And we can pray that through this catastrophe non-believers will be awakened to their need for God and led to accept the gift of salvation.
I cannot give money or help with fundraisers for Haiti every day. But I can pray that powerful angels from God will walk among the people there. I can ask that hope will spring from ashes and eternal life for many will be the ultimate result of this tragedy.
______________________________
By Brenda Dickerson. Copyright © 2010 by GraceNotes. All rights reserved. Use of this material is subject to usage guidelines.
A Cold Branch
4 Mar 2010 at 4:12pm
I stared at the fire in discontent, wondering why the tree branch wouldn’t stay lit. We had been sitting by the fire for the better part of an hour and by that time the situation had become symbolic. No matter how long I left the branch in the fire, when I pulled it out, the flame wouldn’t last longer than a couple of seconds. I was growing increasingly jealous as I watched my friend’s branch endure the cold night and bring warmth to those around him.
I understand that it sounds silly, but like I said, in my mind the situation had become symbolic. Just like in my spiritual life, I couldn’t understand why my fire wouldn’t last in the cold air. See, my branch was old and worn, as opposed to my friend’s branch that seemed new and would light up at even the smallest feel of the fire.
When I first discovered the fire of Jesus Christ, I was like a thrilled cavemen and the smallest encounter with Him could light me up for weeks. As the trials of this life took their toll on me, God became just a part of my everyday life, I made Him smaller and smaller, underestimating His power and losing my still-growing faith. I rarely exposed myself to His fire, and my “branch” became cold.
Let It Go
At this point “just enough” of Jesus wouldn’t do anymore. It was not enough to have a brief encounter with Him. I needed to be lit on fire with His love—to feel Him in my life like I used to when I was a baby Christian. I needed to stop holding my own branch, controlling how deep into the fire it would go and how long I would leave it there. I needed to let it go…into the fire.
Oh yes, it sounds crazy, and it probably is. But that’s what my Savior deserves from me—reckless abandon—to toss pride and self-reliance into the fire and let myself be completely consumed by Him. Then I would no longer live, but He would live in me (Galatians 2:19).
My life and my choices are no more. A cursory glance at the Bible becomes instead, a surrender to His Word. I was not to take the branch out of the fire at any point—surrender to Christ needed to be absolute.
So that night I tossed my literal branch into the literal fire, and wrote the words pride, jealousy, and bitterness on a literal piece of paper and tossed it in right along with the branch. And I prayed that I would have the strength to surrender the same in my heart, so that my flaws, and my self, would be utterly consumed in the fire of Jesus Christ.
______________________________
By Raquel Levy. Copyright © 2010 by GraceNotes. All rights reserved. Use of this material is subject to usage guidelines. Scripture taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®.
The Storm
21 Feb 2010 at 11:00pm
“Never seen this before,” the rancher said, removing his old hat and scratching his head. We were standing next to the barn looking out towards the East. “Better saddle up and see if you can find ‘em,” he continued, “it’s getting dark.” With that he turned and walked away. I immediately saddled up one of the horses and started off at a slow gallop towards the rolling hills east of the ranch.
I was a fifteen-year-boy spending one year on a large cattle ranch in Washington state. Besides several hundred beef cattle, there were eighteen cows we milked twice a day. Right now they were the problem. By nature they always came to the barn at milking time, but today was a no-show.
As I continued riding my horse up the grassy slopes it became darker by the minute. Just before total darkness, I spotted the cows and managed to get them on their feet and headed back to the barn. And then the storm hit. Strong winds and rain beat down on me. It became so dark I couldn’t see the horse’s head in front of me.
Abrupt Halt
I rode on, fear now overtaking me. I had no idea where I was. Then suddenly my horse came to an abrupt halt. I tried everything but he wouldn’t budge. Confused and afraid I sat there not knowing what to do as the storm continued to rage around me. Out of the darkness a bright streak of lightning flashed across the sky. For one brief moment the whole countryside was lit up from the enormous bolt. And then I saw the reason my horse had stopped. Right in front of me was a sixty foot drop-off into a canyon below. I can still visualize that terrifying sight.
I quickly turned the animal around and rode off, still not knowing the direction to the ranch. I remembered hearing that an animal has an inherent ability to find its way home on its own. What else could I do? I relaxed the reigns and started off. Sometime later I saw the glow of the light above the barn. When I arrived the cows were already in their stalls having found their own way.
Later that night lying in the warmth of my bed, I thought of all that had happened. As I looked out my window the storm had passed and a full moon shed a soft glow into my room. And then it came to me, that verse someone had taught me when I was just a little boy: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . you are with me…”(Psalms 23:4). Wow! God was with me out there in the storm! I wasn’t lost to Him. He saw that young and frightened boy and directed that lightning strike just at the right time. That’s just Like God! He’s always right there to guide us through any storm.
Even the one you might be in right now.
______________________________
By David Snyder. Copyright © 2010 by GraceNotes. All rights reserved. Use of this material is subject to usage guidelines. Scripture taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®.
Newsfeed display by CaRP