Barnabas Ministries UK

Rev. A. Hocking

Rev. A. Hocking has been an Assemblies of God minister for over 50 years and is now a retired Prime Timer within the Fellowship. He has served a number of churches along with his wife, Claire. Alan also was on the Radio Council and has greatly contributed in this ministry and still maintains and active interest and commitment. Along with me, he serves along the National Committee of Prime Timers and has proved most helpful. He is now writing some Christian articles to aid people to a faith in Jesus Christ.

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED

Are you contented?  Most of us if we are honest, are far from contented.  Of course, if we are financially well off, then it is perhaps easy to feel contented.  Although I once heard of a millionaire who was said to be the most miserable man on earth!   But if we are finding it difficult to make both ends meet, and when we go to the supermarket, we find that the prices are all up again, then we soon get dissatisfied.

If we base our lives on what we have or have not got, and are happy or sad according to whether we can buy that latest luxury or not, or go abroad this year or not, then our lives will be shallow and unsatisfying. 

The Bible says, “Be content with such things as you have”.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t try to improve our lot, but it does mean that we don’t let the fact that we can’t have all we want make us miserable.

Someone once said, “Contentment is found not in having everything, but being satisfied with everything you have”.    There is only one way to be really satisfied, and that is to turn your life over to Jesus Christ.   The Bible says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”   If you are looking for contentment, then you can find it in Jesus Christ.  He said, “I have come so that you can have life and have it more abundantly”.  Being a Christian or a Godly person isn’t dull and morbid but intensely satisfying.

Give Jesus Christ your life.  Pray this prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, I need the satisfaction you alone can give. Please forgive my sin and take my life, clean it up and make it worthwhile”.

Email us and tell us that you have accepted Jesus.  We would like to help you.   God bless you.

If you would like to know more, e mail us today – ejabarmin@blueyonder.co.uk

Rev. E. Anderson

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part
by Jon Walker

But Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children. So Sarai took her servant, an Egyptian woman named Hagar, and gave her to Abram so she could bear his children. “The LORD has kept me from having any children,” Sarai said to Abram. “Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed. (Genesis 16:1-2 NLT)

And so Sarai took it upon herself to solve God’s problem. After all, God told Sarah’s husband, Abram, that he’d have a huge family, more descendants than there are stars in the sky. (Genesis 15)

Sarai waited and waited for God to provide their first descendant, but the baby didn’t come. She waited week after week, hopeful that God would answer her prayers that God would make good on his promise. Every day, the tension and the frustration mounted. The musician, Tom Petty, sings: “The waiting is the hardest part.”

Like me – perhaps like you – Sarai began to wonder if God would ever answer her prayers. She wondered if God had forgotten about her, as if God’s promise had been mis-filed or improperly prioritized in the perceived bureaucracy of heaven. Perhaps – like you, like me – Sarai questioned whether God really knew what he was doing.

It appears Sarah’s thoughts walked as far as her faith would carry her, and then she stood looking at the mountains of her fear. Did God understand how important this was to her? How could God deny her the greatest desire of her heart? Was God even on her side?

Even as Sarai acknowledged God’s ability to fulfill the promise – “The LORD has kept me from having any children …” – yet she denied God’s sovereignty to decide when the promise would be fulfilled.

And so Sarai took it upon herself to fulfill the promise, no longer trusting God to do his job. The waiting is the hardest part, and Sarai was tired of the wait.

Sitting in a humid tent, she hears the support poles creak; she hears, through the open flaps, a camel snort; and she hears … was that a voice, like the hiss of a serpent, saying, “Really? Did God really say your husband would be the father of a family so vast it would surpass the number of stars in the sky?” (Consider Genesis 3.)

Sarai said, “God can, but he won’t.” Or maybe she said, “God can’t figure this out.” Looking through the tent’s door, she saw her servant Hagar, and in that moment she saw the solution, though she didn’t see the Pandora’s Box she would soon open. Perhaps she even though, “Of course! This is probably the answer God meant for me to see all along.”

Her faith was collapsing, but so was Abram’s, for when Sarai suggested the solution was through Hagar, Abram agreed.

So what does this mean?

·        Waiting for God is hard – God is not surprised when we’re honest about our frustrations and fears. Often God requires us to wait because he’s trying to show us the end of our faith, stretching our faith, not condemning us for the lack of it. In these moments, seek God and not the answer.

• Whose side are you on? – Sarai believed her assumptions more than God’s promise. She wonders why God was no longer on her side – “Why is the LORD keeping this from me?” – instead of confessing that she was no longer on God’s side. Ask God to help you identify the places in your life where you’re saying, “The LORD is keeping this from me!” What will you do with what he reveals to you?
• God opens and closes doors – Even as Sarai took matters into her own hands, she acknowledged God had the power to provide more heirs than there were stars in the sky. If we could ask Sarai, “Can God?” she probably would answer yes. If we then asked Sarai, “Will God?” her honest answer would appear to have been no. When faced with a delayed answer, do you break with God? What does manipulating an answer to your prayer say about your belief in the character of God? What does “giving up on God” say about the depth of your faith?
• Restoring your faith – Like mastery-based education, God’s interest is that you master the lessons of faith. He wants you to succeed in your lessons, able to walk further in faith each day. So failure is not defeat; he will continue to teach you – and stretch you – until walking by faith and not by sight is as natural as breathing. Tell God, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

June Clarke

PLEASE STOP MY BENEFITS

A WOMAN who spent six years in a wheelchair had to demand that her incapacity allowance be stopped after she said she had been healed by prayer

Benefits chiefs kept paying June Clarke despite her recovery because they said their computer didn’t ‘have a button for miracles.’.

Mrs. Clarke, 56, from Plymouth, Devon, slipped on a wet canteen floor at work in January 2000 and badly damaged her hip, pelvis and lower spine.

For six years Mrs. Clarke experienced progressive, intense pain and was un­able to continue working or walk more than a few steps.

Mrs. Clarke’s husband Stuart, a church pastor, said he prayed every day after the accident for ‘God to bring my wife back’.

Then last year she was invited to a Christian conference, where she stood up out of her wheelchair.

She said medics were amazed by her recovery, which she puts down to the power of prayer and patience.

Once Mrs. Clarke realised she was healed she contacted the Government’s Industrial Injury Department to put a stop to her benefits.

But despite her protests the pay­ments continued.

Mr. and Mrs. Clarke sent letters and made phone calls, but officials told then  the system was unable to recognise an apparently miraculous recovery.

Mrs. Clarke had been awarded an al­lowance for life and the computer was not programmed to allow that payment to end while she was still alive

After six months she saw an official government doctor who registered her as fully fit.

The allowance was stopped and Mrs. Clarke was able to repay the £3,500 she had been given.

Mr. Clarke said, ‘We would have loved to have used the money for a good cause, but it wasn’t ours to spend. It can’t be often that a Government department gets a complaint about unwanted cash:

A spokesman from the Department for Work and Pensions said, ‘Each case is treated individually. When a cus­tomer contacts us to say they no longer require to claim benefits we ask for a letter for security reasons.’