MAC KIRK

ST Michael and All Angels - Sept 29/Sunday OCT 1. As we rejoice today in the Mystery, the Truth and the Love that is in our Lord and His Word, a few introductory comments on this occasion which is so important. Man tries to humanize God, but that is a mistake. God is not human, and our belief and our thinking about God should be based on Revelation, that is His Holy Inspired and Inerrant Word, not our own human feelings about Him. So we think so and so about God and His revelation which is a great mistake because if we start from the human and move to the Divine, we miss the Mystery, the Truth and the Love that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord if we receive Him by faith. Today we celebrate the feast day of our parish and we enter an area that is certainly in Scripture but this is an area of great mystery . We can only as Christians bow before what we hear in reverence. When I think of angels I think of that marvelous vision of Isaiah in Chapter 6 of his prophetic book where there

Is Christ our Life? Philippians 1:21 There is another Scripture in Colossians that links in with our text for today, " For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Phillipians Colossians 4 from the traditional 1928 BCP lectionary says, " If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above....( and then vs. 4) Easter Day, p. 164. When Christ who is our life , shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." My almost favorite author, the RC Monk at the Abbey of Gethesemani in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton, reflects on how theology, that is our belief system about doctrine is not enough to bring us to heaven:" Faith is primarily an intellectual assent. ..It has to be something more than an assent of the mind. It is also a grasp, a contact, a communion of wills ...By faith one not only assents to propositions revealed by God, one not only attains to truth in a way that intelligence and reason alone ca

Loving Resolution and Forgiveness in Matthew 18 How timely are the Scriptures. They tell us how to deal with conflict resolution or at least how to attempt it. Some are not going to respond. If people who are in the Church do not respond to one on one, more than one, and then the Church , then they are not to be treated as brethren if they were ever such at all. This is simply an acknowledgment that an attempt has been made at restoration and the person refuses to listen to the wisdom of others and the Church. " If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." 18:17 We might say that the current Church in many places ignores this whole area of discipline. There is the devotion of the Church---the Prayer Book. There is the Doctrine of the Church- the 39 articles and the Catechism & there is the Discipline of the Church . Every family has this. Love without boundaries is not love. We have the choice to be a Church t

Romans 12:9-21 - Thoughts Difficulties are in our lives for a reason. They are there to mold us, form us, and give us faith in God's ways, not ours. Who would sign up for evacuation of a whole state? As we think and pray for those who are fleeing the storm, we too have storms to deal with in our own situations. Sometimes they are things we could avoid if we did things correctly, but sometimes they are things not of our own making. It hurts and we cry out. We come to the end of our own selves and efforts and as Christians we turn to the ways and will of God. But in these circumstances of our lives we grow if we see them as opportunities for good and not for evil. There is enough of sin and death in our world that we do not need to be part of the problem. As Christians, we should be part of the solution . We read in Romans that our love should be real. 1. " Let love be without dissimulation. That English word means to feign, or to simulate, disguise or conceal.

To the Faithful of the GAFCON movement and friends from Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, Metropolitan and Primate of All Nigeria and Chairman, the GAFCON Primates Council. My dear people of God, Gafcon is not just an organisation, but a movement that God has raised up and by his grace continues to work through. I have just returned from a visit to the Anglican Church in North America and rejoice in its continued growth and vitality. This is yet another reminder of the wonderful partnership we enjoy as confessing Anglicans and which we will celebrate with great joy as we gather in Jerusalem next year for our third Global Anglican Future Conference. Gafcon is about hope and the future. It is about godly unity and faithful witness for generations to come, and I want to state these positive things very clearly as I share my reasons for not attending the Primates Meeting in Canterbury next month. I attended the Canterbury Primates Meeting held in January 2016 because I believed it might be p

Members of One Another ⦁ Members of One Another Romans 12:5 "After the finishing of the principal points of Christian doctrine, consists in the declaring of precepts of the Christian life. And first of all he gives general precepts and grounds: the principal of which is this, that every man consecrate himself wholly to the spiritual service of God, and do as it were sacrifice himself, trusting the grace of God. (a) By this preface he shows that God's glory is the utmost goal of everything we do. (b) In times past the sacrifices were presented before the altar: but now the altar is everywhere. (c) Yourselves: in times past other bodies besides our own, but now our own must be offered. (d) In times past, dead sacrifices were offered, but now we must offer those which have the spirit of life in them. (e) Spiritual. Geneva Study Bible- Biblehub" Romans 12:2 ⦁ ⦁ We are " members one of another" in the Church and the Body of Christ. There are 58 "