Paul’s words to the Ephesians remain relevant to us today. ‘Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.’ (Eph 6:18-19)

We can pray at any time, not only for the eight on the trip, but for their families back at home in the UK, for the church in Goldthorpe during their absence and for Christians everywhere, especially Fredrick and Reeba and the church members in Bangalore. Our prayer is for God to give us the words we need and the courage and boldness to make known the mystery of the gospel fearlessly. Each of us is very aware of our inadequacy for this task in our own strength, but we know God is able to supply the words and strength we need (see Jn 14:26, Mk 13:11).

Practical prayer needs include:

• God’s protection in travelling & during our time in India
• the need for good health and strength while we are away
• good relationships among the eight of us and with the people in India, for unity and single-minded vision and purpose
• good spirits and patience in dealing with all the different aspects of the trip, for each one of us to be full of the joy of the Lord
• help in ministry
• God’s blessing on all we do and all the people we meet. We especially want to be a blessing to Fredrick and Reeba and the ministries they serve.

Regular updates and photos will be posted on the GPCC – Trip To India site and confidential prayer requests will be shared through the GPCC Prayer Group Facebook page. If you want more details about this, please see Garry.

Tonight’s meeting focussed on the forthcoming mission trip to India (9-23 April). Eight of us are going out to Bangalore to visit Fredrick and Reeba whose ministries we support.

This does not simply affect the eight of us, however, for all of us are involved in this trip through giving and prayer. Paul urged the Ephesians to ‘pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.’ (Eph 6:18-19) This kind of prayer encompasses all of us, at all times of day and night, and helps us to understand that the main purpose of the trip is to be Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making His appeal through us (see 2 Cor 5:14-21).

An ambassador is a representative for a country, ‘an accredited diplomat sent by a state as its permanent representative in a foreign country.’ We go to India as representatives of GPCC, but we also need to understand that this calling applies to all of us at all times. Whatever we do in India, whether it’s in a gospel meeting, meeting with the ladies on the tailoring programme, talking with children on the streets, praying with people in their homes, teaching the children in Sunday School, or anything else which may come up during these two weeks, we believe it will be as though God is making His appeal through us. Everything we do, as Paul tells the Colossians, is done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, with thanksgiving to God. (Col 3:17) – and this applies to each of us in our ordinary, everyday lives, whether we are at home in Goldthorpe, at work, living in our neighbourhoods or on the trip to India.

John spoke this morning at Cherry Tree Court about God’s grace. In John 8, we see how the woman taken in adultery was brought before Jesus by people who wanted to embarrass and humiliate her and trip Jesus up at the same time. Jesus’s response was to show grace to the woman, for in saying that the one without sin should cast the first stone, He highlighted that all present, with the exception of His sinless self, were not blameless either. The woman was indeed guilty of breaking God’s law, but she found freedom and grace in Christ’s response.

Grace has been defined as the ‘unmerited favour of God’. We do not deserve it and cannot earn it. The following acrostic gives us further clues into what grace is:

God’s gift to us (Eph 2:8-9)

Restores relationships (since we can only enter God’s holy presence because of His grace)

Always available (‘anytime, anyplace, anywhere’)

Calvary’s Cross (the means by which Jesus purchased our salvation)

Extends to everywhere (for God loves the whole world, Jn 3:16)

Communication in any relationship is essential, as these quotes show:

Part of good communication lies in the dissemination of information. If we don’t know what’s going on, how can we communicate well?

At church, there are a number of ways we try to communicate information. The ‘boring notices’ are not the most exciting way of keeping people informed about things, but they are crucial to letting people in the building know what is happening. Sometimes we prepare newsletters and Power Points if there is a lot of information to take in. This method only works with the people who are in church at a particular time and who listen, however!

This blog on the church website is another way of disseminating information and I try to keep this up-to-date so people know what is happening. This is especially useful if things happen during the week between meetings and is also a way of giving ‘thought for the day’ type information.

We also have a church Facebook page  for those of you who like social media and have just set up a Facebook page specifically about the India trip, on which we hope to post updates and photos while we are in India. We have also set up a church Facebook prayer page, but this is a closed group so that prayer requests can be confidential. If you would like to be added to this list, please see Garry. This page needs to be used sensitively and items posted there will be confidential, for prayer only.

In addition to this, we have a prayer chain at church which telephones prayer requests to people, so if you are not on Facebook, don’t worry! – you can still pray!

There are doubtless many other ways of disseminating information, and if you have suggestions as to how we can improve this, please do let us know. The most important things we can do to help communication are to keep the channels of communication open, to listen carefully and to respond graciously.

The world of make-believe is essential when growing up; watching children play ‘let’s pretend’ reminds us of how role play can be crucial in our development. Dressing up, pretending to be doctors and nurses or teachers, is an integral part of learning how to fit into the real world. The imagination is not something which is only important in childhood; there is a place for it in all our lives.

As we grow older, however, there is a tendency for an unhealthy kind of pretence to fill our lives. We learn to be tactful, to be kind and considerate in our speech, and we learn that it’s better to think before we speak, which are all good things… but we also learn to hide our true feelings, to disguise our motivation and to cover over our sins with all kinds of rationalisation and justification. This kind of pretence is not helpful to spiritual growth, because it results in fragmented, disjointed lives.

God wants us to be whole. He wants our lives to be fully integrated, so that there is no dissonance between what we say and how we live. We need to practise what we preach. Hypocrisy is such a dangerous sin because it leads to play-acting, to be pretending to be something other than who we are. Jesus’s strongest words of condemnation were for the Pharisees (see Matt 23:1-39). He reminds us that we should not do things simply to be seen by others (Matt 6:1-18), but should do everything as unto the Lord (Col 3:17, Col 3:22). We have to be prepared to look at our motivation and ensure our behaviour matches our beliefs in every area of our lives.

Phyllis Diller once said, ‘Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.’ The Bible is clear that anger or wrath in people is rarely righteous. It is, of course, right to be angry about things that are evil or wrong; God’s wrath is described throughout the Bible as something which is holy and pure. But so often, our anger is not because of evil or injustice; it is because something has gone wrong for us and we want, in our selfishness, our own way. That’s why Paul says, ‘Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold’ (Eph 4:26-27) and why James says, ‘Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.’ (James 1:19-20)

Wrath can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage and even hatred, often being associated also with a refusal to forgive and a tendency to desire vengeance. Dante described vengeance as ‘love of justice perverted to revenge and spite’, and it can be notoriously difficult for us to sift through our feelings of anger to separate what is true and right from what is ignoble and selfish.

When we feel angry, it is time to dig deeper and find out why. It is also time to seek God for help, so that our anger does not manifest itself in ways that will damage other people. As Ambrose Bierce remarks, ‘speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.’ We can’t take back words once they are spoken; we can’t undo the actions committed in anger. All we can do in those situations is ask for forgiveness and seek to restore what we have damaged. It’s better for us to deal with the source of anger – usually our pride, stubbornness and selfishness – before it grows into words and actions, however.

Self-control is one of the fruit of the Spirit. Self-control is the answer to anger. Instead of those explosive outbursts or those frozen rebuffs (silence can be just as much a manifestation of anger as noisy tirades), we need to allow God’s Spirit to melt anger and to replace it with love, compassion and kindness. Paul reminds us of our former way of living, saying: ‘You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.’ (Col 3:7-9) He specifically urges us to ‘be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’ (Eph 4:32) A life of love has to be careful not to allow selfish, unrighteous anger to grow.