Streams of Living Water

From a short story written by Miller called, “Recollections of Fergusson” (Robert Fergusson was one of the late 18th Century Scottish poets).

 ”I was in your kirk on Sabbath last, hearing worthy Mr Corkindale. Whatever else he may hae to fear, he’s in nae danger o’ ‘thinking his ain thoughts,’ honest man.”

 Later on, Miller (through one of his characters) presents a very shrewd and perceptive view of the call to the ministry of the Gospel in relation to the education of divinity students:

“…twas better for the Kirk when the minister just made himsel’ ready for it, an’ then waited till he kent whether it wanted him.”

I hope this admission doesn’t age me too much, but when I was hitting my early twenties, my ambition was to wear a suit to work every day, drive a jazzed up Vauxhall Cavalier (because they were the standard company car of the day) and have a job with loads of foreign travel. Yuppyville was where I wanted to live and work – that was the target I was aiming at so that if I ever reached it, I would have felt as if I’d made it. But the question James wants to ask us tonight is this – is yuppyville everything? Have you truly made it when you get there? Read the rest of this entry »

How much do you love God? That is the question which James is asking us in 1:12-19a. In our good times and our bad, are we learning to love Him more? In particular, does the testing of our faith add to or take away from our love for Him? Read the rest of this entry »

Is it true to say that ‘all good things must come to an end’, just like this short series on the Psalms is coming to an end tonight? Over the last couple of months we have been through the highs and the lows of the book of Psalms; we have been baffled by their sheer depth and enlightened by their utter reality; we have felt elated and we have felt depressed; we have seen our own sinfulness and we have seen the perfection of God. But tonight, I want to close by telling you that there are some good things which won’t come to an end – things which the Psalm we are going to look at tell us all about. These last type are called Messianic Psalms because they speak directly about the Lord Jesus Christ – that’s not to say that the other psalms don’t, simply that these psalms, par excellence, give us unparalleled access into the mind and heart of our Master. And what these psalms tell us won’t come to an end is the glory of the name and the triumph of Jesus Christ. His worthiness will never end and the praise of His name by His grateful people will never come to an end. In fact, there is a very real sense in which because these are good things, they will never come to an end. The splendour and majesty of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will shine eternally – they will never dim not supposing eternity means eternity. Read the rest of this entry »

God is passionate about families. They are His basic blueprint for the flourishing of Christian society. Take away the Christian family and you take away the foundation of civilized society and soon it descends into chaos. No wonder the devil takes as his top priority the destruction of Christian families, for in doing so, he can both destroy Christian societies and spite God in the process. But 2,000 years ago, the Lord Jesus Christ lived, died and was raised from the dead to put an end to the devil’s dominance over human societies. His coming signalled the end of the time of Satan and ushered in the Kingdom of Light. His coming made it possible for us to live as God designed us to – as functioning and loving members of families. Read the rest of this entry »