Interesting Facts About Bees

Nov 5, 2023

We learnt some interesting facts about bees tonight, including the fact that bees fly 55,000 miles to make 1lb of honey! Honey, known as the ‘food of the gods’ and highly beneficial in many ways, is made from nectar (produced by flowers and harvested by the bees) combined with enzymes secreted from glands in bees’ mouths.
We also had a go at tessellation – since the honeycomb is made of hexagons which fit together perfectly. It was much harder to try and fit other shapes together! A honeycomb is made of wax, and the bees start by making circules. The heat in the beehive softens the wax and makes it flatten into hexagons, which helps the bees to make the most honeycombs using the least amount of wax.
Such efficiency reminds us of the wonders of creation!

Bees & The Kingdom of God

Nov 5, 2023

Tonight, we looked at the fascinating subject of bees in our Little Big Church service and discovered that bees have a lot to teach us about the kingdom of God.

There are different kinds of bees (queen bee, worker bees, drone bees) and each bee has a different role to play. The queen bee has a longer life expectancy than the other bees and is responsible for laying eggs and maintaining the overall health of the hive. She is the only bee in the colony that can lay fertilised eggs which will develop into worker bees or new queen bees. The worker bees, on the other hand, are responsible for hive maintenance, pollination, and honey production. The drone bees have no reproductive role and are only present to mate with the queen.

In the same way, we are all individually important to God and all have different roles to play. We belong to a community, just as bees work together in a hive, and in the church, diversity and variety are important: unity is not uniformity! Paul likens the church to a body, where each part has a different function, but every part is necessary (1 Cor 12, Romans 12). We should never feel useless or unimportant, but should seek to find out what pleases the Lord and what our particular role in the church should be.

Just as bees work together to serve the queen bee, we need to remember that we must work together to serve the King of Kings. Greatness in the kingdom of God comes as we serve God, and we serve God as we serve other people (see Matt 25:31-46, Matt 26:25-28). The church may seem to be a poor reflection of God at times, but the church is God’s idea and He wants us to let His light shine through us so that others may come to know Him. (Matt 5:14-16)

The Burning Bush

Nov 5, 2023

On this Bonfire Night in the UK, Dave spoke this morning from Exodus 3:1-6 on the burning bush – the means that God chose to call Moses to set His people free. Moses, at this stage of his life, had possibly forgotten his calling to lead God’s people; he was in a dead-end job in Midian as a consequence of his murder years before. Sometimes, we feel our past holds us in chains, but Moses was about to discover that God had not forgotten him.
Often, we view good and bad as being like weights on a scale; we hope our good deeds will outweigh our bad and then God will forgive us and let us be with Him in heaven. Ultimately, our good deeds can never be enough to wipe the slate clean, however (even if we have not sinned as Moses did), but God is able to free us and cleanse us totally through Jesus because He wants to. Salvation is unearned and undeserved. Moses was told to take off his shoes for he was standing on holy ground; God’s holiness means that sin can never be ignored, but He has made the way for us to be holy.
Holiness means to be ‘set apart’ for God. We need to stop making excuses and depend on God to help us to live for Him. We need the Holy Spirit living inside us: the burning bush Moses experienced needs to be a fire inside us as God dwells in us by His Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is working in us, He will make us holy and enable us to live for Him.

Blu-tak thoughts?

Nov 3, 2023

I spend a good deal of time sticking posters up with Blu-tak. I don’t know the history of this amazing product, but I do benefit from it!
My husband, an engineer with infinitely more patience than I have, rolls a small ball of Blu-tak between forefinger and thumb before affixing a poster to the wall. It’s noteworthy that his posters tend to stay stuck to the wall much longer than mine do…
Attaching something to a wall sometimes requires more than Blu-tak, though. Sometimes we need a picture hook to hang a photograph. Sometimes we need screws and rawlplugs. It all depends on what we are attaching and how permanent we want the attachment to be!
Hebrews 3:1 says, ‘Fix your thoughts on Jesus.’ The word translated in the NIV as ‘fix’ means to ‘observe fully, to behold, to consider, to discover.’ It means to think decisively to a definite and clear understanding.
To fix your thoughts on Jesus is, I feel, a job for superglue, not Blu-tak! It requires effort, determination, a set attitude. What we think determines to a large extend who we are and what we do. The battle is won in our thoughts.
But the Bible goes on to tell us to fix our hearts and minds on things above, not just our thoughts (see Col 3:1-2). It’s not enough simply to think about God intermittently, as an optional extra in our lives that enhances us in moments of need. God must be the centre always. He must permeate every critical decision we make, our assessment of the world and our situations. The popular phrase ‘What would Jesus do?’ needs to penetrate our everyday thinking.
For this to happen, we need more than Blu-tak thoughts. We need the concentrated power of real glue, the fixed attachment of screws and rawlplugs, and an ongoing determination to look to Jesus in every situation of life.

Losing Heart

Nov 2, 2023

One of the most significant statements in 1 Samuel 17 is found in verse 32: “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” (1 Samuel 17:32) Difficult circumstances are not the real problem in our lives. Losing heart is. As the saying goes, “An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t put you down unless you allow it to get inside you.”

The Bible has much to say about not losing heart:

  • Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. (2 Cor 4:1)
  • Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. (2 Cor 4:16)
  • Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Heb 12:3)
  • Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Gal 6:9)
  • Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Cor 15:58)

The secret to not losing heart is to keep remembering God’s love, mercy, renewal, commitment and faithfulness. This is also where fellowship can be so important, for other people have a wider perspective at times and can encourage us when we feel like giving up (see Ecclesiastes 4:12). David’s actions gave heart to the Israelites; we can celebrate other people’s victories and rejoice with them. (Ps 20:4, Rom 12:15)

Defeating Doom & Gloom

Nov 2, 2023

1 Samuel 17 shows us the relentless pressure of living with doom and gloom, with the Israelites ‘dismayed and terrified’ by Goliath’s constant taunting and fear-mongering. We live in an age of doom and gloom, with 24/7 news telling us of wars, disasters, catastrophes and injustices all the time. Social media and the ever-present presence of the smartphone add to the picture; there is no wonder that people feel despairing, depressed and defeated most of the time. It’s very hard to be positive when there is a one-sided drip-drip-drip of negativity and hopelessness pounding your brain every day.

What can we do to combat this? David had not lived in a stress-free environment as a shepherd; he had had to deal with lions and bears wanting to decimate his flock. Nor was he universally popular; his brothers were scornful to say the least when he arrived on the scene: instead of protecting him, they simply criticised and ridiculed him. So we cannot say it was easy for him! But he had soaked himself in God and therefore he was not afraid of the enemy or of ridicule and scorn. If we want to avoid living life dismayed and terrified, we must learn to fix our hearts, minds and thoughts on God (see Col 3:1-2, Heb 3:1, Heb 12:1-3) and must learn to take control of our thoughts. (2 Cor 10:5, Phil 4:8) The battle was won long before David launched the stone at Goliath. The battle is always won in our minds first.