Advent24

 Matthew 21;44   And  the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and  when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” Jesus in this verse is talking to the religious leaders of the day and castigating them for not recognising Him.  He has spoken really harshly to them in parables which demonstrate God's anger at their arrogance and unbelief. He has said that the inheritance which has been so far reserved for the Jews is now going to be thrown open to the Gentiles because they have believed despite having none of the privilege of Torah education.   This is not gentle Jesus meek and mild.  This is furious Jesus confronting those who should have been leading people into the presence of God but who have been obstructing and condemning and self serving.  It is clear from reading this whole passage in Matthew that Jesus sees right through the whited sepulchres of these guys hearts.  He knows they are plotting against Him. Here...

  1 Peter 2:5   You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I like this verse. Its a simple visual aid to help us see God's plan and where we fit into it.  We are bricks in a wall.  All of us are the same, none more important than the next. We fit together perfectly.  We are being built into the wall by a master builder who knows exactly what He is doing.  We are built on solid foundations - Jesus our cornerstone and the spiritual practises of the prophetic and the apostolic.  We are all touching at least six other bricks which are cemented in around us. Together we are an edifice in which the presence of God can reside. Our job is to minister to God through Jesus by offering our prayers, worship and service to Him. 9  But you are a chosen people,  a royal priesthood,  a holy nation,  God’s special possession...

Ezekiel 36:26-27 New King James Version (NKJV) I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. I've got a really poor memory and always have had. Theres not much that I can recall from my childhood unless Ive got the prompt of a diary post or a photograph.  But one thing I do remember is reading these verses in Ezekiel for the first time not long after Id become a Christian at the age of 16.  I remember being deeply moved and rather excited that these words. spoken to a prophet generations before I existed, had come to fulfilment in my own life.  As a baby Christian I was aware that God had given me a heart transplant. I knew I was new.  I was amazed and thankful. This promise is pretty awesome when you look at it carefully.  We are promised both a new heart ...

  Do not move your neighbour’s boundary  stone  set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the  Lord  your God is giving you to possess.  Deut 19;14 Cursed is anyone who moves their neighbour’s  boundary   stone .” Deut 27:17 The  Lord  tears down the house of the proud, but he sets the widow’s  boundary   stone s in place. Proverbs 15;25 Do not move an ancient  boundary   stone  or encroach on the fields of the fatherless, Prov 23;10 Judah’s leaders are like those who move  boundary   stone s. I will pour out my wrath on them like a flood of water.  Hosea 5;10 It would seem that boundaries are important to God.  Its easy to spiritualise and make these scriptures into a lesson on morality. But these old testament scriptures are actually about land and the high value God places on everyone having their own place to live, especially the orphans and the widows.  H...

 So this is the most important stone in the Bible. The one that was rolled away on resurrection morning by an angel who sat on top of it waiting for the women to arrive so they could share the monumental message that Jesus had risen from the dead (Matt 28;1-8) Here's something I hadn't considered before.  The stone wasn't rolled away to let Jesus out.  We know that the risen Jesus could walk through walls.  He could have chosen to 'disappear' from the tomb and 'reappear' in the upper room in front of the disciples.  But He didn't choose to walk through walls till a bit later.  Why?  I mean, it might have been even more impressive to have appeared alive to the disciples and then Roman guards roll away the still sealed stone to find nobody in the tomb.   Thats probably how I would have played it.  Jesus chose something different.  And He always does everything for a reason. So, first off, the stone was moved by angels, not by Jesus ex...

    But Lot’s wife looked back,  and she became a pillar of salt. Gen 19: 26   OK, so a pillar of salt isnt technically a stone, but for the purposes of this blog it is. When I was in the midst of depression a few years back I found myself unable to live in the present and do today well.  I was constantly either looking back to my past and berating myself for the decisions I'd made - second guessing the outcomes that different choices might have effected- or I was looking forward to an impossible-to-guess future and stressing about what it might look like and how I would cope with it.  It was a miserable place to be. I only really started to see it for what it was when I started taking medication which straightened me out.  I gradually came back to 'today' in my head.    Lot's wife is usually condemned for her sin in harking back to what she had been told to leave.  For not trusting God and disobeying His express command not to watc...