Special Guest: Gary Raymond

We had a special guest for this morning's meeting. Gary Raymond is a retired police officer. He told us stories of his time in Rescue and Homicide. I had trouble taking notes for tonight's blog as I was more interested in listening to his stories than writing anything down, as a result my notes are a little disjointed but I hope I got the gist of his message.

He started by asking the question "Why do we go to church?" Some answers we came up with include to worship, to pray, to be fed, because God tells us we need to, to learn how to defend ourselves from the devil.

Next he asked why people don't go to church. No time, don't feel like it, don't believe, don't want to believe, scared were some of the answers we came up with.

If a police officer pulls you up for speeding, not knowing the speed limit won't be an acceptable defence. The law is there to protect us and the police are there to enforce the law. You would never expect a police officer to write out a speeding ticket for someone and then ask for it back telling the person that they would pay the fine and take the points off their license, but God did just this when Jesus died on the cross. His law is their to protect us, to make our lives better but instead of penalizing us for breaking it He took our sins on Himself so that our record could be clean.

When police officers give evidence in court the don't tell the court how they feel, they provide facts. We need to allow the holy spirit to show us the fact of God's love. Jesus will stay on our case even if we deny that we need Him. God doesn't want to be a remote God, He wants to dwell within us.

Phillipians 4:6-7 tells us "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

We eed to thank God at the same time as we make our requests. God can be trusted and He gives evidence.

God is very cleaver with His timing, even when we doubt it.

Jesus specialises in taking messes and turning them into miracles.

May God bless you richly this week.

Richard.