4
5
6
7
13
| To declare God’s righteousness
| To serve one another ‘for Christ’s sake’
| To pray for one another ‘in His Name’
| To forgive one another ‘as your Father
in Heaven forgives’
8| To address the Eternal God -
as our Heavenly Father!
This is an impressive list! Positive activites
that we can fully engage in, without further
consultation or need for any localised
authority. We can just get on with it, knowing
that the Lord will approve, with the proviso
that we engage in them in the same manner
and for the same motives, as Christ would
endorse.
Why do we write about these things?
We (in the West) live in a very Christian-
influenced world. The ‘church’ will NOT allow
such license as Jesus gave us! It wants to
control its members. “Pastors/ministers must
have a suitable qualifications to speak for the
church” or “Only the Priest can arrange
forgiveness” or “We appoint Evangelists to
preach the Gospel” or “Church writings /
authority take precedence over the Bible.”
The church will usually appoint a hierarchy, a
chain of command or its own authority, and
may also set a high priority on cash contribu-
tions, using questionable means and motives.
None of this has scriptural authority.
The Truth alone sets one free
How blessed we are to be different, to
embrace the Truth! Our Lord only allows His
Followers to serve Him under HIS personal
Headship. Paul draws attention to “The body”
and “the Head” as integral, one united entity.
Christ does call for spiritual shepherds to feed,
care for and to guide His flock. These are
“under authority” NOT the authority!
Let’s use this freedom
we have been given
to serve our Master
and wait on Him
...till He comes
Little by Little
| Bro Bob Lloyd (USA)
W
e recently heard someone quote an old
saying which says, “The greatest
things done on earth have been done little
by little.”
When we refer to things done on earth we
naturally are speaking of the deeds of man
and not the wonders of God. There is quite
a lesson to learn from this fact of doing
great things little by little.
In the vast world in which we live today,
everyone wants to take short cuts to the
top. Few are willing to do things little by
little and yet when we study nature we see
that God teaches us that great things are
done slowly.
The giant Sequoia trees, the oldest living
things in the world, grow exceedingly slowly
but look at the height and size that they
attain. In all of nature God seems to be
teaching us that the worthwhile things are
done little by little.
We turn to our Bibles and learn the same
lesson. Adam and Eve were in a fortunate
position but they wanted to take the short
cut and ate of the fruit in hopes of becoming
wise.
Moses was ready to deliver the Israelites
when he was forty but God taught him
patience and humility as a sheep herder for
forty more years before God felt that he was
ready. By this time Moses was much wiser
and not as eager as he had been when he
slew the Egyptian.
We all seem to want to run before we can
walk and our hardest falls come when we
~ continued ...