June 2025
Dear Friends
What would you say is most needed for a country, or a
family, to thrive? Hard work and
enterprise? Law and order? Compassion and kindness?
If God has more than a little to do with our thriving or
not-thriving then I suggest that our most-needed list should be topped by
these:
First, Grace. In
the Bible this means not ‘graceful’ but rather the undeserved kindness of God. He gives or withholds (as he chooses) – rain,
crops, business success, family happiness, good government, military strength,
health, sanity, and life itself. Since
every breath we take is a gift from God it follows that no person, family or
nation can survive or thrive without our Creator’s gracious giving. No man has ever given to Him but every man
receives all he has from Him.
And second, Faith, which is not the ability to
believe in unfounded myths but simply means ‘trust’. Faith is the conviction that God is
trustworthy and so we can rely on every word of his Word, the Bible. We like to think that we live in a scientific
age where we have personally proved all facts but in reality nearly everything
we know comes from the testimony of those who we trust.
Faith is the natural partner to grace. God gives; faith is the holding out of our
hands to receive. Faith takes us from grumbling
to gratitude, from self-justification to confession of our faults, from self-sufficiency
to dependence on God’s provision, from pride to humility, from disobedience to
obedience, from worry to trust.
Even if you’ve never done this before why not ask God to give
what you need, and to give you the open hands of faith to receive his gift? Ask for yourself, for your family, for our
nation. Jesus tells us that God his
Father loves to give good gifts like the best of fathers. (Matthew 7:7-11)
Sincerely
Graham Burrows
