Stainglass window
Christmas 2011
3rd Dec Advent Party
12th Dec @ 2pm
Carol Service at Oak tree Court
16th Dec @ 2.30pm
Carol Service at Stratford Court
17th Dec @11am
Carol Singing outside Co-Op
18th Dec Nativity and Christingle Service and Carol Service
24th Dec @ 11pm (Service starts at 11.30pm
United Service at URC Etwall Rd
25th Dec @10am
Christmas Day Service
"Knowing God"
Dear Friends,
Through July and August on Sunday mornings, we shall be looking at the first six chapters of the Old Testament book of Daniel. Many of the stories are familiar from childhood, yet they have an important lesson to teach us. In his book "Knowing God", Jim Packer says that Daniel and his three friends (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) provide us with the best example in the Bible of what it means to know God personally for ourselves:
1. Those who know God have a great energy for God
"The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action" (Daniel 11:32). When God is being defied or disregarded in society, those who know God feel they must do something. when Darius suspends the practice of prayer, Daniel challenges the order, and ends up in the lion's den. When Nebuchadnezzar orders everyone to bow down to a great statue, Daniel's three friends object, and are thrown into a fiery furnace. Those who know God are sensitive to the situations in which God's truth and honour are being challenged, and stand up for what they believe- even at great personal risk. Are we willing to do the same?
2. Those who know God have great thoughts of God
The book of Daniel portrays a God who rules history, and who shows his sovereignty in acts of judgement and mercy towards individuals and nations. In the face of might and splendour of the Babylonian empire, the book reminds us that the God of Israel is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that God's hand is on history at every point, that history is no more than "His story", the unfolding of the eternal plan, and that the Kingdom which will triumph in the end is God's. Such thoughts fill Daniel's prayers. Is this how we think of God? Is this the view of God, which our own praying expresses?
3. Those who know God show great boldness for God
Daniel and his friends were men who stuck their necks out. They knew what they were doing; they had counted the cost; they had measured the risk. Once they were convinced that their stand was right, then thir attitude was like that of the first Christians: "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29)
4. Those who know God have great contentment in God
There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with the full assurance that they know God, and God knows them, and their relationship guarantees God's favour to them in life, through death, and for ever. It is the contentment that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego display in the fiery furnace: "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter (no panic). If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it......(they knew their God). But even if he does not, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your God's or worship the image of gold you have set up (It makes no difference! Live or die, they are content!) (Daniel 3:16-18) Do we know that peace and contentment in our own lives?
May our studies in Daniel help us know God more, and so demonstrate that great energy, those great thoughts, that great boldness and that great contentment that comes from God alone.
Your friend and pastor,
Jonathan Calvert