Will Vaus

The Gospel lectionary reading for today is from Matthew 7:1-5 where Jesus says... Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. Swiss psychologist Paul Tournier once wrote, Without being fully aware of it we mentally twist this commandment, as if Jesus had said: "Judge not unjustly." He said: "Judge not." He did not deny that there is a mote in my neighbour's eye, but he asks that I should first concern myself only with the beam in my own. This abdication of all spirit of judgment is extremely difficult for us, and seems l...

Swiss psychologist Paul Tournier once wrote, We are nearly always longing for an easy religion, easy to understand and easy to follow, a religion with no mystery, no insoluble problems, no snags, a religion that would allow us to escape from our miserable human condition, a religion in which contact with God spares us all strife, all uncertainty, all suffering and doubt, in short, a religion without the cross. Today we come in our study of The Apostles' Creed to the very centre of our faith: the cross of Christ. It is the crux of Christianity. However, there is a great temptation to go around it, to have a religion merely of positive thinking, a religion where we can pull ourselves up by our own moral boot-straps and better ourselves, not a religion that involves the cross, not a religion that requires a suffering saviour to pay the ultimate price for us. That is the temptation, but we dare not give into it. T. F. Torrance once wrote that we should not "try to sneak arou...

The Israelites failed repeatedly to claim their inheritance. In Joshua 17:12-13 we read, “Yet the Manassites were not able to occupy these towns, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that region.” The Israelites failed to fully claim their inheritance, but not because there was any lack of power supplied to them from God. The Lord was absolutely faithful in all his promises to them, as we will read in Joshua 21:43-45. Is this also a picture of us? I wonder: in what ways do we fail to claim the promises of God? The good news is that there is still time to claim God’s promises. We need to stop procrastinating and become faithful finishers. Joshua reproved the Israelites for their procrastination in claiming their inheritance. In Joshua 18:1-3 we read: Then the whole congregation of the Israelites assembled at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there. The land lay subdued before them. There remained among the Israelites seven tribes whose inhe...