‘I am the vine, you are the branches…’ (John 15:5)

Through the love of God in the giving of His one and only Son, the offer of salvation has been given to each and every one of us and as Christians we have embraced that offer and accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. However, in order to grow and blossom in our faith, in order to enable the fruit of the Holy Spirit to flourish within us, we need to remain at one with our Lord and we need to allow His Word to guide our lives each and every day, and allow His Spirit to transform us from within. Only then will we bear good fruit.

‘…Lord teach us how to pray…’ (Luke 11:1)

Prayer is the most powerful ‘gift’ we have been given by our Lord, yet, sadly. It is perhaps not used as often as it should be or in the way it should be. Prayer is essentially a dialogue between ourselves and God and in these few short verses, Luke 11:1-4, Jesus, in answer to the request of His Disciples, outlines what lies at the heart of any personal prayer we might take before the Lord. An acknowledgement of the holiness and glory of God, an acknowledgement of our dependence upon Him to supply our needs, an acknowledgement of our need for His forgiveness, an acknowledgement of our need to forgive others and an acknowledgement of our need for His strength and guidance to help us through each day.

But of course we can come to the Lord in prayer for many reasons other than personal reasons. Praying for the specific needs of others, praying for those in authority to govern us in accordance with the teachings of God, praying the Church of our Lord that it may flourish and grow, praying for those in areas of the world where there is famine, drought, conflict, poverty and depravation, praying for the homeless and the refugee – and I’m sure there are many more you could add.

No matter what form our prayers take, however, there are a few things we need to remember. First of all we need to believe – we need to believe in our heart and soul, with every ounce of our being, that God will listen and God will answer. However, we need to accept that the answer may not come in the manner or timeframe that we want it to. We also need to remember to allow time in our prayers to listen – to listen for that small voice of God speak gently to us as we speak to Him.

Prayer is not, or should not be, a ‘mechanical ritual’ that we go through. It is an opening of our heart to the Lord that we might commune with Him and draw close to Him – and there is nothing else compares to it when it comes to entering in to a deep and meaningful relationship with our Lord.

‘For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost…’ (Luke 19:10)

As we continue through Lent and reflect upon our own relationship and our own walk with the Lord, we need to be completely honest about where we are on that journey – about our failings and shortcomings and even those occasions when we have turned away from Him. Such reflection can of course be difficult, even painful, yet this verse surely brings such joy and hope to our hearts. Through His Son, God has come to us – He has come to us – to draw us back to Himself and offer us salvation for all eternity. Amen to that!

‘What do you want me to do for you?…’ (Mark 10:51)

If our Lord was to speak to you today and ask you this question – what would your answer be?

‘I am the Lord and there is no other; apart from me there is no God…’ (Isaiah 45:5)

In Old Testament times there were many cultures and societies that worship a whole host of different ‘gods’, as there still is today. As Christians we can identify with this verse from Isaiah and say that we believe it to be true within our hearts. Yet still we have to be wary because the reality is that even for those who would make such a profession there are many other ‘gods’ that still seek to entice us away from our Lord today. Wealth, power, status, influence – I could go on. In our world today we are told that the acquisition or attainment of these is all we need. Yet even if we had all of these, and more, in abundance in our life but did not know our Lord, we would have and be nothing.

‘Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…’ (1 John 4:11)

Love is one of the key themes in this pastoral letter and in a sense what the author is saying here is that one the prime ways that we can demonstrate to others that we are Christians, is to love one another as God has loved us. It sounds simple and straightforward – and it is. Yet just pause for a second and consider how great God’s love for us was – and is – that He would give up His Son for us in the ultimate sacrifice. We may not be called upon to make a similar sacrifice, but what are we willing to give up in our love of God and of others – and is there anything preventing us from loving as we should?

‘…what must we do to do the works God requires…’ (John 6:28)

All too often, sometimes without realising it, we get caught up with thinking that we somehow have to do something to earn our salvation, that it is somehow dependent on how hard we try or how well we succeed in ‘working for God’. Not so. In answer to this question that was asked of Him, Jesus simply replied. ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent…’ (John 6:29).

There is absolutely nothing we can do to earn salvation, it comes to us through the Grace of God offered through His loving Son – all we need do is believe in Him and accept Him as our Saviour. However, if we truly do this, if we truly accept Christ into our hearts and allow His Spirit to move within us and transform us from within, then we will find ourselves working in His name, using the gifts and talents He has given us to play our part in the building up of His Kingdom.

What we do in God’s name doesn’t earn us salvation, rather it shows that through faith in Jesus Christ, we have been saved. Amen…

‘I no longer call you servants…Instead I have called you friends…’ (John 15:15)

What does it mean to be a friend to someone? Is it possible that one person’s idea of friendship might be different from another person’s idea of friendship? I suspect that for most people a friend is a companion, someone in whom they can place their trust, someone on whom they can depend, someone with whom they can share both the happiest moments in life and the saddest moments in life. Yet whilst this may be the case, the sad and harsh reality is that sometimes, even close friends can let us down.

In Jesus, however, we have a friend who will never let us down. Yes He is our Lord and Saviour, yes, He is the Son of the Living God – but He is also our Friend. Now just pause for a moment to reflect on that! Jesus is our friend, the one in whom we can place all our trust, faith, hope and joy and the One who will never let us down.

‘To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable…’’ (Luke 18:9-15)

There seems little doubt that in terms of the law the Pharisee did all that was expected of him, however, the real question he should have perhaps been asking himself was not how he compared to the tax-collector who stood close by, but rather how He compared to God!

Prayer is not about coming before God to tell Him how good we are, it’s about giving thanks to the Lord for all He has given us and done for us, about acknowledging our own faults and failings and seeking His forgiveness and about bringing the needs of others before Him. The Pharisee was interested in one person and one person only – himself. In contrast the tax-collector is only too aware of his faults and his need for God’s mercy and so comes before Him as he should – and we would do well to model our prayer life, not on the Pharisee, but on the tax-collector.