The end is nigh!

Hi all!

Work has asked for an exact date for my departure! I asked my manager for a night to pray before giving this as I still don't have my 60 prayer soldiers, or anywhere near the £1,200 a month I am aiming for, and I am still a bit sketchy about where I'll be staying! The Lord knows :-)

I want to leave plenty of time after I have left work for leaving preparations, hand-overs, and getting rid of unneeded junk. I aim to take the train and be fairly mobile once in York, so I want to travel as light as possible.

All I have on my mind is clothes, toothbrush, bible, laptop. I'll be leaving the car 'cos it costs to run, I doubt I'll need the guitar straight away, the printer is fragile and bulky, I never listen to those CDs anyway, and I haven't touched those books for ages. I'll be praying about what to give to who, and what to throw away! Mum will have the printer and speakers back. What am I going to do with all that stuff in the loft??

Had the second part of the root canal yesterday. There wasn't supposed to be a third but my dentist doesn't want to fill it up yet in case it's still a little infected. The third part will be Mon 23rd Feb so I guess I won't be leaving before then! In this x-ray you can see the thin test strip of filling material, when it was up my tooth and protruding out it felt like I had a paper clip stuck in my tooth!

Just want to share what I saw in my quiet time a few days ago:-

Ezekiel 33:11 "Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"

I read that and thought, who are the wicked?

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned, and
come short of the glory of God..."

John 3:18 "...but he that believeth not
is condemned already..."

It's easy for me to meet a really nice person who is really moral, kind to others, works hard and is really humble..., and think, now this person can't possibly deserve to go to hell, can they? Or to imagine those living in the Third World who have led hard lives, living in poverty, in slums, going without food, water, clothing, shelter, education, medicine..., and think, now they can't possibly deserve to go to hell, can they? What could they have done? The Bible says that all have sinned, all have been brought forth in iniquity and conceived in sin, our default position is condemned, we start off as wicked enemies of God. However (such a wonderful word!) God has no pleasure in the death, even of the wicked! He desires that they turn to Him, and this is how He achieves that:-

Ezekiel 33:7-8 "So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand."

A watchman. Someone who knows the about the judgement to come, surrounded by and responsible for people who are not aware of it and who will perish unless the watchman warns them to repent. That's me. If you are born again that's you too. It's also the 16,500 missionaries that Gospel For Asia has sent out into the harvest fields, but time is running short, the labourers are few, much of the harvest is going to waste. Pray the Lord of the harvest that He would send labourers into the harvest, and pray that He would send you too! Pray for the lost, pray for your families, pray for your friends, pray for your enemies, pray for your work mates who you see everyday. And pray like their lives depended on it!

Just one last and rather random thing. I was reading this chapter round about the time I was recording video of myself singing praise songs and uploading them onto YouTube, with the intention of directing Christians to read my blog.

It was taking more time than I had at first thought, yet yielded little result, and I questioned whether I was doing it for God and His purposes or just my own vanity and entertainment. It was then that I got to this verse in my reading:-

Ezekiel 33:32 "And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not."

I was so surprised! It seemed like God had inspired that verse all those millennia ago with me this very day in my bedroom in mind. Which I guess, when I think about it, is exactly the case!

Thanks again for reading!

JP