Horsemeat anyone?

Image taken by Trapper49 on www.kozzi.com

The following extract is from the BBC News website: ‘Tesco have used full-page adverts in national newspapers to apologise for selling burgers in the UK that were found to contain 29% horsemeat. Traces of horse DNA were also detected by the Food Standards Agency of Ireland in products sold by Iceland, Lidl, Aldi and Dunnes. But a beefburger rarely contains 100% beef. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has two classifications for burger products - standard and economy. A standard beefburger can only be classified as such if it comprises a minimum of 62% beef. The percentages take a tumble when it comes to economy or "value" burger products’.

What does this mean? One thing would seem to be the need to find cheap food. Cash-strapped families, and individuals, are always trying to find the elusive ‘bargain’ to try and make their limited resources go that little bit further. So, why the furore? Why has the government insisted on food testing and regular reports in the news about their latest finding? I suspect one of the main reasons is that feeling that we have all been deceived. We have been told something when the reality is radically different. What we thought we were buying and eating is not all beef but contains some horse!

Being deceived is not just a matter of horsemeat. Many people will speak with emotion about the partner that deceived them. Others will tell you of ‘scams’ perpetrated by unscrupulous criminals who prey upon the vulnerable. It seems true to say that ‘you can fool some of the people all the time’. Humanists would say, ‘There is probably no god so enjoy life’. Christians would indicate that this is a deception, one that could have disastrous consequences for the life beyond this one.

What about you? The story is told of the atheist heckler who shouted at a preacher on Hyde Park Corner. The preacher simply said, ‘If you are right and there is no God and no life beyond this one, what have I lost? However, if I am right and there is a God, whom you have rejected and despised in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, what have you lost?’ This is an important question. Jesus Christ died upon a Roman cross, was buried, and rose again the third day to provide a full and free salvation for sinners like me (and you!). Are you one of the deceived who follow the common theory that there is no God, no one to whom we must answer? Have you been deceived?

An Estimate

It was in the relatively early hours of the morning quite recently that I was awoken by an accident right outside our house. In fact, the driver had lost control of his vehicle, knocked down part of our wall and then ploughed into the drive posts and knocked them down. It was quite a mess and the car looked a wreck. Fortunately, the driver wasn't badly hurt but was taken by ambulance to hospital just to make sure. Now we have the task of getting someone to rebuild the damaged wall and replace the posts at the ends of the wall. 'Get an estimate from a builder, and submit it to the insurers', we have been told.

This got me thinking. What is an estimate? It's not exact but it is intended to give us a rough idea of what it will cost to get things repaired and restored. An expert eye will be able to give us a figure from which we can get the go-ahead for things to be fixed.

If we were asked to put an estimate on human life, what might we say? What is a life worth? Reading in the news of a bungled murder by two people who had been paid to kill someone, I wondered what value they had put upon the life of their potential victim. What is our life worth? The value will change, depending on who you ask. I would expect my family to put a higher price on my life than my employers! However, the gospel (the message of the Bible) tells us that the highest price placed upon a human life is that which God has placed. God's love for each one of us caused Him to give His only Son to die upon a Roman cross outside Jerusalem. The reason? It was because God loved us, valued us so highly, that He was prepared to punish His Son for our sin and guilt that we might go free.

We cannot measure the value of that tremendous gift of God's love. We cannot measure the price that the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, had to pay to remove the penalty that we would have to pay on account of our sin. But the question that has to be asked is this, 'Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour?' Are you prepared to acknowledge and accept the estimate of value God has put upon your life? Sadly, for some, life is cheap. Many live life for the present and ignore the price that God was willing to pay to secure your future with Him. What about you?

Snow!

Don’t know whether you like snow but we’re in the midst of a cold period and the snow has been falling heavily. For the children, snow has a degree of “fun” about it – making snow figures, having snow ball fights, or sledging down the nearest slope. It also means that school might be closed, and there’s the opportunity of an extra day off. For some adults it is a reminder of a far off childhood. For others it contributes to a dreadful journey, and the added dangers of ice and slippery surfaces.

The worst snow showers we might experience do not really compare with what some people experience every year. Snow falls in large quantities, to the extent that the fall of snow causes what is called a “white out”. Such an event is quite rare in this country.

This made me think of a verse from the Bible. God was speaking to the His people through the prophet Isaiah. He said, ‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’. That was quite an invitation. God was willing to forgive the sins of His people. God was willing to cleanse – to change what was scarlet into something as white as snow.

God is still inviting people to come to Him today. We have to come to see things as God sees them – to see that we are sinners in his sight. We can try and paint a picture of respectability about our life. We can try and excuse or explain why the things we have done wrong are not quite as bad as people ought to think. We can even live in denial, saying that we are not sinners and have never done anything wrong. Are we prepared to see things in our life as the scarlet stain of sin?

If we accept God’s invitation, and confess that we are sinners, then our sin can be washed away – our life made white like snow. We don’t have to do anything. All we have to do is accept the work of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. He died upon the cross outside of Jerusalem that He might bear the guilt and punishment of God upon our sin. If we accept His sacrifice, and believe in Him as our Saviour, then perhaps we can look at snow in a completely different way. Snow, and the sheer whiteness of snow, if how our life will look before God. What a transformation is possible!

Happy New Year

http://www.wordcalendar.org/happy-new-year-2013-wallpaper-around-the-world.html

By the time you read this we may be in the year 2013. 2012 with all its spectacular events will have passed. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Olympics, and the Paralympics will be fading into history as we start the New Year. Are you looking forward to 2013? Are you optimistic of what this year may bring? Some may be starting a new job, with prospects of a whole new career. Some may be looking forward to their wedding, planning, and preparing for the “big day”. Others may still be looking for a job, any job, while others are starting afresh after the failure of their relationship. However, one thing affects us all and that is summarized in a well-worn phrase, “time flies”. Sorry for mentioning it but there are just 360 days to Christmas 2013!

Once the holiday period is over and we start back to work the daily/weekly routine carries us ever onward and we don’t notice the passage of time. The things that we planned to do, and to which we set a deadline for completion, are suddenly upon us – incomplete and pressing! The promises we made we realize we haven’t kept. Where has the time gone?

This is a difficulty that relates not just to our home life and our work life, but also to our spiritual life. Have we thought about what lies beyond time? As we pass through death into eternity, have we made any preparation or plan for “what next”? It is one thing to add such things to our resolutions for the year, but are we really serious about getting right with God and preparing to meet Him. The Bible bids us all to “prepare to meet thy God”. Sadly, many people get so caught up in the routines of life that they give it no thought at all. Perhaps they hope that they will have time later. At the end of life, perhaps, they’ll have time then to sort things out. Yet in the Christmas message there is news that God loves us all, that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die as a sacrifice for sin, and that the Lord Jesus Christ can be our Saviour today.

Why put off a decision about eternity? Get right with God through a confession of your sin and faith in His Son. Enjoy His peace in your heart, whatever 2013 may bring!

“This was never meant to happen”



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20657114

‘It was a prank . . . we couldn’t foresee what would happen’. These are the words of the Australian DJs interviewed after their call to a London Hospital resulted in the suicide of a nurse. Shortly after the announcement of the fact that the Duchess of Cambridge was expecting a child, she was taken into hospital in London suffering from acute sickness brought on by the pregnancy. Whilst the Duchess was in the care of the hospital the two DJs were involved in making a telephone call to that hospital, posing as members of the Royal family. For whatever reason, the call was not identified as ‘a prank’ and was directed through to the suite where the Duchess was staying. The nurse who then answered and provided information to the callers did not realize that the call was a hoax. Later, she was so upset by the discovery of the hoax that she committed suicide.

Something that was conceived and carried out as ‘a laugh’ went horribly wrong. Something that should never have got as far as it did would seem to have contributed to the death of an experienced and dedicated nurse. Like our readers, we would offer sympathy to those who have been badly affected by this tragic turn of events.

I suppose we can all look back to events in our lives when ‘if only’ we had known how things would turn out we would never had set out on the pathway that we did. ‘If only’ can be the most tragic words it is possible to utter. We didn’t realize. We hadn’t anticipated. We didn’t think.

However, the Bible has left important facts on record. We might not have read those facts. We might be ignorant of what it states, but the warning is there. God says, ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die’. We cannot say ‘if only I had known’. God has told us of the consequences of our mistakes, our sins. If we continue on that chosen pathway of life we will be separated from God forever – spiritual death! But the remarkable thing about God is that He is willing to forgive, and to deal with the problem of our sin. ‘God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’. Through faith in Christ and His death on the cross we can be forgiven and brought into peace with God. What about you? Don’t be one who will forever regret, ‘if only . . .’

Floods



(c) Owen Humphries, Guardian website

 ‘Forecasters have warned there may be worse to come and after residents in the south west suffered from the floods over the weekend, people in the Midlands are now braced for the worst as bad weather moves northwards’, Channel 4 News, quoted from Google News. After one of the wettest summers for some years, many people are facing further rain and the very real danger of flooding in their homes. It is one thing to have a burst pipe and water in parts of the house. What must it be like to see water flooding into the downstairs level of your property and rising to two or three feet deep? It may be you can retreat to higher levels within a house, but ultimately the clean up time will arrive. Then, there is the process of insurance claims to try and provide funds to renovate and rebuild.

The agony of anyone in this situation must be finding that the insurance policy is not there. For whatever reason, there is no backup. What a real tragedy to find that everything is ruined and we have no insurance to cover the loss. For some, such an act of negligence would be unforgiveable. Surely, some would say, after this last summer you could have made some preparation for the possibility?

Many people are of the false opinion that “it can never happen to me”. They see the sorry plight of others and think that they could not be caught out like that. They confidently state, “I’m covered”. Perhaps I could ask you, “are you covered?” I’m not seeking insurance business. I’m simply asking, what preparation have you made for when you meet God? We all will. Rest assured. We all have to face God, either to accept His Son as our Saviour, or to face Him as our Judge. The Bible tells us of one man’s message, which was “Prepare to meet thy God”. Are we listening?

The preparation we need to make for this occasion is equally simple. As we are all sinners in God’s sight – we have all done things that are wrong – we need God’s forgiveness. We can only find it through believing in God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because some 2000 years ago Jesus died upon a Roman cross! I know, as a fact, and can state “Jesus died for me – He bore my sin and paid my debt”. Take Him as your Saviour. Believe in the sacrifice that He made and you can be prepared to meet Him as your Saviour and Lord, and not as your Judge.

UK government threatens firms over hidden customer data

Image taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_program

‘The UK government has repeated its threat to legislate if businesses do not voluntarily release data gathered on customers who ask to see it’. This opening sentence on an item of news, 17/11/12, caught my eye. It reminded me of a training event I attended some years ago when the extent of information gathering by major retail companies was revealed and how that information shapes the plans of those companies.

What most of us don’t realize is that as we swipe our “loyalty” or points card we are automatically giving information to the store that supplied us with that card. They get to know our spending habits, what we buy and how often, where we shop and the distances we are prepared to travel to obtain the goods we require. Just how much information is gathered, stored, and used is difficult to determine. After all, we don’t really know and we don’t have access to our information normally.

I was reminded of a verse in the Bible. ‘All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do’. The writer is reminding us that there is a God to whom we must answer one day. That God does not merely record our shopping habits but stores every detail of our thoughts, words, and deeds. If we stop to think about it we must realize that the Biblical conclusion based upon the evidence gathered is accurate: ‘all the world . . . guilty before God’. Can we really question that fact when every detail of our life is scrutinised by God?

However, the good news is that God has supplied a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. We can have our sins forgiven. We can know our guilt removed. Through the death of Jesus Christ upon a cross outside of Jerusalem some 2000 years ago, we can find salvation. Through faith in Christ – a confession of our sin to Him and a willingness to trust and follow Him in our lives – we can be saved from sins guilt and penalty. Those who have come to faith in Christ can speak of the burden that has been lifted from their life. They can speak of the joy of forgiveness and peace with God. Can you? The Christian life is not easy but a relationship with God in Jesus Christ is the best in life!