But is it true?

But in Church last night we reflected that Hebrews tells us that By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

By faith.

Before God blew with his wind the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving! (Exodus 14:15 NLT) And with that step of faith, God (who it is impossible to please without faith) blew.

Lurv

His love to you has been MOST FREE.

It was unbought, and even unsought. In Hosea it is written, "I will love them freely". and surely, if ever there was a case in which that verse was transparently true, it is in my case. Was it not so in yours? What was there in you that could have won his love? If he could see any beauty in me, it must have been first in his own eyes. They say that love is blind; and certainly, though our heavenly bridegroom is not blind, yet he was somewhat kinder still; for he saw our deformities of sin and folly, and yet he loved us notwithstanding, all.  Let us love him because he first loved us. Beholding the generous upbringing of a love which we could not deserve and would not seek, let us freely love in return.

This love of our Lord's, so free, so full, so forceful, was and is MOST AMAZING.

We shall never bear better or more surprising news than this, that Jesus loves us. Nothing more surprising ever came to me than to learn "he loved me, and gave himself for me." Others may, perhaps, see what is wrought by the Lord's grace in us, and this may make them the less astonished at the Lord's love towards us; but we know ourselves, and see our blemishes as well as our beauties, and hence we know that there is nothing lovable in us by nature. We are amazed at our sin, and more amazed at his love. We shall go on reading in the golden Book of Christ's love throughout all eternity, and the longer we study it the more we shall be astonished that ever the Holy and the Glorious and the Ever-blessed should have espoused in love such insignificant, polluted, and fickle-hearted creatures as we are.

The love of Jesus is love MOST PRACTICAL.

Christ loves not in word only, but in deed and in truth. There is a greater force to my mind in Christ's deeds of love than in all the words which even he could have uttered. His deeds emphasize his words. Words cannot to the full express the mind of love: language filters from the lips, while feeling gushes from the heart. Jesus has written out his love in living characters. "O Master! never man spoke like you, and yet it was your most eloquent discourse when you said but little, but stretched your hands to the cross, that they might be nailed there. Then you poured out your heart, not in oratory, but in blood and water.  Said I not well that his is practical love? It is love full of tenderness, rich in bounty, lavish in thoughtfulness, firm in constancy, strong as death, mightier than the grave.

Think, again, that it was PERSONAL LOVE.

The Lord Jesus Christ loves each one of his people as much as if he had not one more. All the heart of Christ goes out to each one of us. The great sun shines today on this round earth, and while it pours its limitless flood of light on all, that one tiny daisy, as it bathes in the brightness, is able to say, "The sun is all mine." Though there be myriads of flowers in the meadows and the gardens, yet this one flower may freely possess all that the sun can give, or rather all that the little flower can receive, as much as if it were the only flower that blooms. So Jesus is to me, to you, to each one of us, all our own; neither lose we anything by the fact that he is all the own of so many millions.  The Lord Jesus, his own self, delighted in us, even in us who are not worthy to be named in the same day with him. Glory be to his holy name for ever!

C H Spurgeon September 1887

Help

30 . . . Jesus said, “A man was going down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Some robbers surrounded him, tore off his clothes, and beat him. Then they left him lying there on the ground almost dead.

There was, last week, a man sitting on the pathway outside our church buildings . . .

31 “It happened that a Jewish priest was going down that road.

He was hypothermic and had drunk too much and it was below freezing and all he wanted was to die and his wish looked like coming true.  We called an ambulance.

When he saw the man, he did not stop to help him.

The ambulanceman talked to him for a while.  Because the man didn't 'consent' to come(though in fact he could not have moved if he did) . . .

He walked away.

He walked away and called a police officer.

32 Next, a Levite came near.

The police officer turned up in a big van.

He saw the hurt man, but he went around him. He would not stop to help him either. He just walked away.

She walked around and spoke on her radio.  Because 'the man didn't consent' she drove away too.

 

33 “Then a Samaritan man travelled down that road. He came to the place where the hurt man was lying. He saw the man and felt very sorry for him.

But the volunteer workers in our Church Drop-In centre felt sorry for the man.

34 The Samaritan went to him and poured olive oil and wine on his wounds. Then he covered the man’s wounds with cloth.

Whether he consented or not they ushered him into the hallway of the church and put a blanket over him.

The Samaritan had a donkey. He put the hurt man on his donkey,

They called the man at Wycombe Homeless Connection, a Christian Charity run by our group of churches.  He came and sat with the man.  And talked with the man.

and he took him to an inn. There he cared for him. 35 The next day, the Samaritan took out two silver coins and gave them to the man who worked at the inn. He said, ‘Take care of this hurt man. If you spend more money on him, I will pay it back to you when I come again.’”
And persuaded the man to go with him until he could enter the Night Shelter that evening (run by volunteers from the churches)

36 Then Jesus said, “Which one of these three do you think was really a neighbour to the man who was hurt by the robbers?” 37 The teacher of the law answered, “The one who helped him.” Jesus said, “Then you go and do the same.”

And thankfully for the man in 21st century Wycombe - his followers still do.