Conclusions - 5 March 2010

As I look back over the week I wonder how we have done.  Do we make the right choices, cultivate only good habits, resisted the urge to make poor excuses and accepted our true status?  If you can truthfully answer yes then you are doing better than I am.  Probably the fairest answer I can give is sometimes, but I’m working on it.

I have read the entry for today in ”The one year devotions for men” by Stuart Briscoe.  

It tells me that in old Jerusalem would-be worshippers would ask the priests “who was permitted to enter the Lord’s Temple.”  It lists ten conditions to be met, which I felt might be more daunting than the Ten Commandments.  If those were to be put to today’s potential worshippers I suspect the decline in general church attendance could be quite drastic.  The following two I have picked out might trip up quite a few, if we are all being honest.  Oh! and that’s in there too.

8.      Saying what they mean and meaning what they say.

10.  Having business dealings that are above reproach.

I think the conditions were fairly well laid out in Psalm 51.  Verse 1 says,

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?  Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?”

The remaining four verses (see I don’t want to overtax you at the end of the week) set out the conditions.  I am sure that we all strive to attain the standards required set before us in the Psalm.  I appreciate that I always seem to have some way to go even though I do keep trying.

However, I can claim to be an expert on exactly what is required to be a perfect follower of our Lord Jesus.

An expert is one who may not know the exact answer to any question, but knows exactly where to look.  I have my Bible.

Lord, guide me through your Holy Bible and in my everyday life, that I may aspire to become more like our saviour Jesus Christ than I believe I am at present.  Amen.