October 2007

Psalm 101 – Honouring God in our walk

I think we live in days where the whole idea of holding the values of what we believe has become rather muddied to say the least. In this Psalm David wants to encourage the followers of the Lord to do four things in honouring the Lord in their day to day walk with Him.

  We see in verses 1-2 that we are to behave wisely. David is particularly focusing on how we need to behave in our homes. I can honestly say that as a parent it is always a challenge because I am ever so aware that my children respond much more to what I do rather than what I say. Now this is not to say that every parent has to be perfect before their children but I think it is fair to say we need to be real and authentic in our faith before our children. I think also we as mums and dads need to be able to live the reality of our faith in a day to day scenario. I have met parents and especially dads from my experience, where their Christian life has been very much a roller coaster ride and it becomes very difficult for the children to as it were read the signals coming from a parent that is not consistently for the Lord.

  We need to look wisely verses 3-4. I like David’s determination when he says I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. Then David also says in Psalm 119 verse 37 where he prays to the Lord; that the Lord would turn away his eyes from looking at wicked things and revive him in His way. I can say that for a man the constant dilemma for us is the choices we have when we look around us. I know when I was recently in South Africa and came out of the airport immediately you are on the main highway and you are greeted with billboards that are less than complimentary in terms of keeping your mind on spiritual things. So the great struggle is that every time we are confronted with this sort of thing we are faced with a choice and that choice can be to give into the temptation or to say no to it. We are faced with the same sort of choices with the television, videos, DVDs and so on. What we look at is so important as it will determine what we think, and how we think can determine how we act or walk before the Lord. I know on a number of occasions where I have allowed temptation to get the better of me, where I have sat down with my children to watch something that certainly could only be described as questionable and I have had to go and apologise to them for not looking wisely at what was being presented and leading them in the way that was honouring to God.

  We need to speak wisely verses 5-6. We need to see that how we speak of others can reveal what we think of ourselves. One of the great struggles I think for every human being is the challenge of not speaking slander or gossip of another person or not allowing pride and the feeling of superiority to cause us to speak in a wrong way of someone else. We need to recognise that words wrongly spoken can really cause enormous hurt. As one writer says we need to recognise that our tongue can be used for words of encouragement or words of hurt. My prayer is that as a dad I will speak words of blessing and encouragement. We must not accept words from other people that are gossip or slander but we must help people to be accountable in the way they speak.

  Now of course this comes home with great concern when we as parents are giving a wrong example in this area. I know in my own experience that frustration and disappointment in another person or a work mate etc can cause us to speak words of hurt rather than words of encouragement. I pray as a parent particularly that God would guide us to be faithful followers of Him, and as we are He will make us faithful in the way we use our tongue so that we might always speak words of healing and words of encouragement.

  David encourages us to act wisely verses 7-8. I think it is fair to say that in this day and age we are living in an integrity crisis of major proportions. It is sad to see that in the Christian church marriage breakdown is now allegedly mirroring the world in terms of 50% of marriages ending in divorce. Not only this, we have another problem in terms of how we are acting as Christians in that many of our youth groups are being imploded by illicit sexual relationships that do nothing but cause harm and hurt to those who are involved with it. Then we need to realise that in all of these things we are talking about, the danger then is further amplified by the fact that we try to hide our sins as it were so we can pretend that nothing has happened. I like the way the writer of Proverbs says “he who covers his sin will not prosper but whoever confesses and forsakes them will find mercy”. I think when it comes to this whole idea of acting wisely it is important that as mums and dads and as individual Christians we walk with integrity in the world. I think also we need to recognise that this is not only vitally important in our homes and in our churches but also in our work places and in the community. I think it is very significant indeed as we read of the New Testament church in Acts chapter 2 where the church was marked with a constant attitude of prayer, where they are described like this in verses 46-47 “so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favour with all of the people. The Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved&rdquo.

  Now I think it is most interesting to hear Luke describe the fact that this fledging New Testament church had favour with all of the people and that clearly means not only the people inside the church but also the non- Christians outside the church. I think then it is more significant that the result of this sort of relationship in co-operation with other attributes, meant that the Lord was willing to add daily to the church those who were being saved. When we walk with an authentic attitude in our daily lives with God then we see that God is pleased to add genuine converts to the church and not decisions who can’t be found with a search warrant a year or two later. So I think it is very important that for us as the Lord’s people, the moment we get out of bed our desire is to honour God in thought and word and action.

- Carl Carmody, Editor of Challenge

Praise

1. Praise the Lord for the great opportunities He is giving us to get out the good news of Jesus Christ both here and overseas.
2. Praise the Lord for opportunities Carl had whilst travelling in the United States to promote the work of Challenge into quite a number of different individual churches as well as to ministers fraternals etc. These are prized opportunities and we trust the Lord for great outcomes in terms of ongoing support for the work we are doing in South America and Southern and Central Africa.
3. Praise the Lord for the opportunities that He is giving to us in countries like India, Nigeria and Egypt. We are very hopeful of starting our work in India next year in the city of Hyderabad and praise God for the opportunity of working together with A.E.F. headed up by Jonathan James here in Perth.
4. Praise God for a tremendous team of volunteers who help out every month for the wrapping and distribution of the paper. We know without their input we would find it very difficult indeed to do the task.
5. Praise God for the many faithful people who give over and above their subscription and many also who give to us on a regular basis plus those who give as a one off gift. We are very grateful and thankful for this support for the work of Challenge both here and overseas.
6. Praise God for the building we have. We have no debt on it or indeed the contents of the building. Praise God for His ongoing protection of the building.
7. Praise God for our faithful team who really know what it is to do the hard yards in making sure the good news gets out on time.

Prayer

(There are a number of key things we need to continue to pray about especially in relation to our work overseas)

1. We are in desperate need for funds for our Southern Africa work as we are really trying to double our input of gifts for this area. The cost of our paper will be increasing next year and we are endeavouring to raise the bar as far as our budget is concerned.
2. Please pray for another editor for Carl. We have a person who is thinking and praying about this and we would continue to ask for prayer as he seeks God on the matter.
3. We would value prayer for a promotions person to take on the Australian distribution of the paper. We are struggling at the moment to maintain our distribution because it has become very difficult to do the type of promotion that is necessary. So having the right person to come into the work and take on this duty here in Australia would be a wonderful blessing indeed.
4. We need to be much in prayer for the financial needs for new staff and our existing staff who live on a very modest income. Please pray for their particular needs.
5. Please pray for the ongoing needs of Kenya with Pastor Paul Dondoh. In particular finances for bibles, bikes and for his Hi-Ace van. At this stage we have around $2,000 towards his van. Paul is requiring something like $6,000 in total for this purchase
6. Please continue to pray for the South American edition which is now going into Uruguay as well as Argentina. We are looking to print around 25,000 for this next edition and need ongoing support of about $15,000AUD per year to make ends meet.