WordToday

  “My style was impetuous, my defenses were impregnable, and I was ferocious.” -Mike Tyson. Tyson is considered one of the best heavyweights of all time. In his boxing career he won 50 of his 58 fights- 44 of the 50 won through knockouts. He was also a man of supreme self-confidence as the quote above implies. When it comes to spiritual battles, I wish I had the faith and courage to match Mike Tyson’s confidence. How can I do this? How can I, a mere man, contend with this seemingly invincible enemy? Indeed, how can anyone on earth resist him?  You see my friend, God has put in our hands, portent tools that we can use against the Adversary. Paul put it this way; For though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it

  James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.   Working from home has been quite the experience- a daily assortment of work, unexpected interruptions, swinging emotions, impossible moments and very rarely, rest. In this mix I find the children’s uninhibited impulses and dialogs to be the most poignant. My son, after watching cartoon versions of Mr. Bean, insists on following me as I go for my daily ‘quiet-time’ walks. To be clear though, he does not actually follow me, and neither are my walks quiet. Instead he keeps walking into my path as he gives a word for word running commentary of the clips he has watched. I am not quite sure why it is important for him to n

I was enjoying a lazy Saturday morning warmly tucked in bed when my daughter burst into the room and shook me urgently. What was the emergency?   Daughter: Dad, I want you to come downstairs.   Me: Why, has mum come back (from jogging)? Just in case you are wondering, earlier on, I had a small argument earlier with wife about my fitness habits (or lack thereof). Since I’ve never won a morning argument, I mumbled something about being as fit as a fiddle. She retorted, rather angrily, with; “…indeed you are pure muscle!” . I took this as compliment and promptly drifted back to random Corona thoughts. Anyway, my conversation with daughter continued unabated; Daughter: No dad, just come downstairs! Me: No, this is my morning to rest. Now, I don’t know whether this describes it properly, but without uttering another word, she gave me a look that lay somewhere between pleading and a warning (not sure how women do it). I promptly got out of bed. I got downstair

  You will keep him in perfect peace     whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.   Isaiah 26:3-4 This is a lovely and much quoted piece of scripture especially in times of trouble. However, the common habit of taking a nip here and nip there of scripture is never quite as enriching as when you go back and read a whole portion in its context. The setting of this particular one is eschatological and makes for interesting reading especially in light of the times we live in. It begins all the way back in Isaiah 24 like this; Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty and makes it waste, Distorts its surface And scatters abroad its inhabitants. And it shall be: As with the people, so with the priest; As with the servant, so with his master; As with the maid, so with her mistress; As with the buyer, so with the seller; As with the lender, so with the borrower; As with the creditor, so w

“‘But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land.   I will make a distinction between my people and your people. This sign will occur tomorrow.’” Exodus 8:22-23 Our times (and some of our Pastors) have trained us that all good things in life must be attributed to God and all bad things to the devil. In a sense this is true. After all we have such beautiful verses like James 1:17   Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. We also have passages in the Bible that specifically pin bad events on our enemy, the Devil. Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 However this premise is not always true. Sometimes God allows bad things to happen to good peop

" There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven." Jesus (the) Christ   Last week we did our little family service and looked at the plagues that hit Egypt as God fought Pharaoh to release His chosen people. My wife as usual was worship leader and my daughter the backup soloist. My son played the guitar. I declared myself the highest and mightiest apostle-prophet-pastor all rolled into one! (I am told there is another in Kenya with more titles than me?) Thereafter I demanded a cup of herbal tea but no one seemed to pay any attention so I went on with the sermon. Jesus predicted a time when among other things, global pestilences will stalk humanity. I don't think the Covid-19 meets the criteria of pandemics that Jesus was talking about. He was probably referring to a time much closer to the end and to something much worse than this. The plagues of Egypt recorded in Exodus 7-12 are an