Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
James 1:17-18

In a world of change there is nothing more reassuring than consistency. When everything around you seems to be up for grabs there is nothing that gives peace in the way that something that has not changed gives peace. How much more so then do we take reassurance, how much more do we know peace when we learn first that God is utterly faithful and wholly unchangeable (nothing can change Him).

We might sing the song ‘great is thy faithfulness O God my Father… thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not, great is thy faithfulness God unto me’ and rightly so how completely thankful we should be that God by His grace takes an interest in me, showing His compassion to me. Listen to what Thomas Watson (another Puritan) says ‘If all be a gift, see the odious ingratitude of men who sin against their giver! God feeds them, and they fight against him; he gives them bread, and they give him affronts. How unworthy is this! Should we not cry shame of him who had a friend always feeding him with money, and yet he should betray and injure him? Thus ungratefully do sinners deal with God; they not only forget his mercies, but abuse them. ‘When I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery [Jer. 5:7].’ Oh, how horrid is it to sin against a bountiful God!–to strike the hands that relieve us!’

By His grace alone He has called us, rescued us, from ourselves and all the darkness that inhabits us, through faith alone in Christ alone, so that God alone gets the glory that is the perfect gift from above to you and to me today.

As part of our ongoing attempts to maintain the website from the 9th June we will now be providing a thought for the week rather than a thought for the day. the plan is to make this a more reliable output of the site and to make this feature more helpful in addressing areas of life. As for now here is today's thought:

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever....
Psalm 136:1-3

Someone has said that ‘For God, praise is the sweet echo of his own excellence in the hearts of his people.’ The purpose of our lives is to give praise to God, to worship Him with our whole self. This worship is not to be based in the first place on what he has done for us although He is most definitely to be praised for that. This worship is not to be based on what he might do for us in the future although we should praise Him in this regard to for His promises are both great and sure. The primary foundation of our worship should be that He is worthy, His nature and character command our praise purely on the basis of who He is.

We see that in this Psalm the source of our praise is to be who He is- He is good. So it should be in our lives. We must understand that for something of God to catch fire in our lives, and I mean really catch fire we must first long for a deeper understanding of who He is because as we do that we understand that God does not serve us, God does not run around after us like some sort of trying so hard to please waiter to our pompous and arrogant customer. He is the LORD and He is good, and we are as Mark Driscoll puts it ‘kindling for a fire’ without His steadfast love that endures forever. It is through reflecting on God and His person and character that we get a true perspective on ourselves.

And we are left to wonder about the God’s love to us that does not shift (steadfast) and that lasts for all eternity in Jesus Christ (enduring forever). I wonder how He could love me a sinner condemned unclean- ‘how marvellous, How wonderful and my song shall ever be, How marvellous, How wonderful is my saviour’s love for me!’

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
2 Timothy 4:7

A famous athlete once said that they ran from the ‘b of the bang.’ The implication being that they ran hard from the first noise the gun made and that they would keep running until the tape snapped at the end of the race. Paul likens the Christian life to a race here and calls upon those who come after him to follow the example he sets.

He has fought the good fight so has invested his life in something that matters, the only thing that matters. He has finished the race so has not been sidetracked or brought down mid-race. The mark of the good fight fought and the race completed is the keeping of faith, it is finishing with Jesus as the highest priority and greatest treasure in your life for His glory which is always to your good.

When a man's ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Proverbs 16:7

There are few things more stressful in life that conflict with other people. This verse helps us to understand a way in which we might address the issue of enemies and how to live among them. It is not, as we might at first assume, that we ought to find ways to please them in an attempt to wriggle into their affections or that we might overcome them by behaving in similar fashion to them, thus becoming their enemies. In fact they are not even to be our first thought.

Rather, our first thought is to be how to live a life, pursue a way that pleases the Lord. The way that this happens is through living like Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit- recognising that we need His grace and His strength to live a life pleasing to God and that without those things we are completely incapable.

As we pursue this way of living it will be more likely that we will be at peace with our enemies. This is by no means to say that the Christian life is an enemy free existence but rather to say that when we grow in grace and holiness our enemies are less likely to find the catalyst of our sin to mirror theirs and so the relationship is less likely to deteriorate in the same fashion. In many ways that is what Jesus was speaking of when saying to His followers to turn the other cheek- live in Godly fashion and by doing so you will not contribute to the conflicts that you find yourself in by displaying the grace at work in your life and bringing glory to God by how you live.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you."
John 15:12-14

This is a profoundly challenging verse when we take time to think about its implications upon how we live, act, speak and think. It is that Jesus Christ who died on a cross to demonstrate the full extent of His love for sinners like you and me commands that we love one another to that same extent.

It is that Jesus has set us an example of self-less, self-sacrificial love that stands in stark contrast to the most common attitude of our hearts which are inclined towards selfishness. This love for others in response to Him who first loved us in a way that ultimately we can never fully imitate is something that we need to ask for His grace for as without His grace we will remain inclined to selfish ways. His love on the cross has made our selfless love for one another a possibility because it has brought His amazing grace to bear upon our lives. It is that as we love as He loved He demonstrates through us the Gospel and His saving transforming power at work in our lives.