A new found faith

Hello gentle readers. I have been concerned recently that my faith has taken a bit of a blow. This has been due to my own inability to fight my temptation to sin. I have (yet again) promised the Lord that I shall do better from now on. Here is my prayer.

Oh Lord, please give me the strength to carry on in my fight against temptation.
I know that you never put temptations in our path that we cannot resist.
We fail to resist them because we are weak and sinful.
We are also full of pride and vanity.
Oh Lord help me to fight these evils.
I ask this in the name of your Son - Jesus Christ.
Amen.

God bless you - N

Justified by Faith vs Good Works

Why does there have to be a conflict between the two? It is clear from Paul that we are to be justified (made right with God) by our faith. Paul explains that we shall never get to God through our own toil. To do this we would have to be perfect - and which of us is perfect? So we are accepted by God for the same reason that Abraham was. Because we believe in Him and trust Him.

Some might interpret this as an excuse to do no good works.

If all I have to do is believe, then what's the point in being good also - ha ha I'll get to heaven just by believing!

But of course this is far from the truth. We do not do good works in order to win favour from God, we do them because once we have accepted the truth of Jesus we have to accept His teachings. And once we have accepted His teachings we have to act as He would want us to act.

The good works that we do are a natural consequence of our faith - they do not oppose our faith, they grow out of it.

God bless you - N

Bit of a failure at Lent ...

... in the very first week! I feel bad about this. After all, the promise that we make at lent is a promise to God. I am determined not to fail again. And I offer this prayer to our lord.

Dear Lord,
Please forgive my weakness in failing to avoid my vice.
Please give me the strength to succeed from this day forth.
Thank you Lord for always being so understanding.
I know that I am unworthy of your forgiveness
And so I cherish this gift all the more.
I ask this in the name of your Son - Jesus Christ
Amen.

May God bless you all - N

Ash Wednesday

Hello my friends. It is Ash Wednesday. A day for considering your true self in relation to God. We are all sinners - yes all of us. Ash Wednesday is a day to fall on your knees before our Lord and pray for forgiveness in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. Consider the depth of your sin and tremble before God. It is only by His divine mercy - the sacrifice of his only Son - that we are offered the chance of redemption.

This is my suggestion for such a prayer.

Dear Lord,
I am a sinner,
my sins are manifest for you to see,
you from Whom nothing can be hidden.
Forgive my O Lord for my ugly sins,
O Lord! Give me the strength to fight temptation whenever it occurs.
And Lord prepare me to serve you better.
I ask this in the name of your Son - Jesus Christ.
Amen.

God bless you - N

Things to be thankful for - and something to think about

There are many things to be thankful for. But the greatest of these is God's mercy. Despite the fact that we disobey Him time after time, God always gives us another chance. He knows all our strengths and our weaknesses. It would be wrong however to think that this gives us the right to sin as much as we wish. Once you have identified your sin, God expects you to make a proper effort to correct it.

There are many people (myself sometimes included) who make a small effort to correct sin and then happily give up the attempt, as if this will fool the Lord. I feel that, although we are the grateful recipients of God's divine mercy, we abuse this gift at our soul's mortal peril.

God bless you - N

Being Positive

I realised that my last post 'A sick World' was a little negative. It is often the way, after a bad day, that I become a little gloomy. I should, at those times, remind myself that God loves me - despite the fact that I sometimes feel unlovable.

Thank you Lord for persevering with me,
I am not worthy of your love yet you give it freely.
Please Lord help me to be more deserving of your love,
I ask this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen

God Bless - N

A sick world

We are living in a sick world where much that we do, and aspire to do, is out of keeping with God's will. God is patient, and God is good. But He has demonstrated before that He is prepared to wipe the slate clean and start again.

Repent now before it is too late.

And may God bless you - N

Prayer is the answer - The Lord's Prayer

I am often tempted to sin. We all are. And at those times, our lord Jesus Christ is far from my thoughts. The Devil has a way of pushing Jesus from our minds when he tempts us. This is a problem. At the very time we most need God's strength he is absent. As far as I can see, the only way to remedy this is through prayer. We must pray regularly that we are not led into temptation.

Fortunately, Jesus told us how to do this. And he even told us the words to use. Many of us have known these words from childhood; but I'll repeat them here.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

Such a simple prayer, but it is the only prayer you need.

May God go with you - N

Prayer for a colleague who committed suicide

A few days ago I heard that a colleague has committed suicide. He worked across the hall from me. He was a quiet unassuming young(ish) man. He had an estranged wife and two children. Although I did not really know him very well (none of us did) It still came as a shock when I was given the news of his death.

Suicide is, I know, a sin. However it would be callous not to feel sympathy for the man and, even more so, for the family he leaves behind. On the day that I heard of his death I went to a local church in my lunchbreak and lit a candle for him and said a short prayer. This is my prayer for him.

Dear Father,
Please receive this man into heaven,
Please forgive him for the harm that he has done to others and to himself,
Let him now find the solace with You that, it seems, eluded him in life,
Also Lord I ask you to bring comfort to his family and those that loved him,
I ask this in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ
Thank you Lord.

Amen.

God bless you - N

Merry Chrismas 2005

Hello Readers. I cannot believe it is a year since I posted my last Christmas blog. Quite a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. My attempts at resisting temptation were not as successful as I had hoped. But I remain optimistic (no, 'determined') that I can conquer my personal demons this coming year. I must remember to pray more regularly. It is easy to underestimate the power of prayer.

I hope all of you have a happy new year, and, God willing, I shall blog more frequently in 2006.

God bless - N