Every Day Light with Selwyn Hughes

For Reading and Meditation:     Mark 10:46-52

We are seeing that the first step to mental and spiritual health is receptivity - we must be willing to empty our hands of whatever we are holding and receive Christ. Life has been defined as response to environment. You and I live physically when we respond to our physical environment - we take in food, light and air....

For Reading and Meditation:     Luke 8:40-56

We continue meditating on Christ's first prescription for happiness: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Over the past few days we have seen that the phrase "poor in spirit" refers not to material poverty, but spiritual poverty - a willingness to throw away our own self-sufficiency and...

For Reading and Meditation:     Luke 19:1-10

We spend one more day meditating on the first of the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Dr Raymond Cramer, the minister and psychologist whom I mentioned earlier, says that in the psychology of Jesus, it is the one who has a problem that gets the Master's attention. When...

For Reading and Meditation:     Galatians 2:15-21

We turn now to consider the second of our Lord's Beatitudes: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). It is important to note that there is a very definite order in these sayings of Christ. Every one is carefully thought out and is given a...

For Reading and Meditation:     2 Corinthians 1:1-11

We continue meditating on our Lord's second Beatitude: "Blessed [or happy] are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." The word "mourn" has reference to more than just sorrowing over the death of a loved one; it includes all those experiences in life where we may feel crushed, broken or sorrowful. I feel...

For Reading and Meditation:     James 1:1-12

We are meditating on the second of Christ's Beatitudes: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Yesterday we saw that the meaning of this statement is that when we are willing to experience sorrow and grief, then God is able to use these encounters to sensitise our spirits and make our ministry to...

For Reading and Meditation:     Psalm 51:1-12

We are looking at the Beatitudes as containing the principles which enable us to experience good mental and spiritual health. I cannot think of anything more psychologically in harmony with the best thinking of today's social scientists than the words of Jesus: "Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." We...

For Reading and Meditation:     Hebrews 4:12-16

Yesterday we ended with the case of the woman who said that she didn't know how to mourn, when in reality her problem was she didn't want to mourn. Whenever we are unwilling to face a negative emotion, it implies that we are not in control of it, but that it is in control of us. Christians are often taught to pretend...

For Reading and Meditation:     Psalm 139:1-24

We continue meditating on the right way to handle our negative feelings. We said yesterday that the two wrong ways to handle hurting emotions are to deny them or express them. Denial pushes them down inside us, while expression dumps them on to other people or things. Neither of these, in my view, is a Biblical way of...

For Reading and Meditation:     Isaiah 51:1-16

We spend one last day meditating on Jesus' words: "Blessed [or happy] are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Facing negative feelings such as grief, sorrow, hurt and emotional pain is essential if we are to know our Lord's purpose for our lives. When we are willing to go down into the hurt and feel it, then...

For Reading and Meditation:     Psalm 149:1-9

We come now to Christ's third prescription for happiness: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). How we have shied away from that word "meek". We have thought of meekness as weakness and thus have a totally wrong concept of what Jesus meant....

For Reading and Meditation:     1 Corinthians 6:1-11

Yesterday we touched on the point that the universe will not respond to the aggressive, who approach it in a demanding spirit. It is the meek - those who are yielded, submissive and compliant - who inherit the earth. Thomas Huxley is quoted as saying something which we commented on earlier: "Science says to sit...

For Reading and Meditation:     1 Peter 3:1-12

We are seeing that meekness is not a natural quality, but a spiritual one, and by reason of this all Christians should possess it. Over the past couple of days we have examined the importance of meekness and seen something of its nature; today, we examine what meekness is not. First, meekness (or humility) is not...

For Reading and Meditation:     Colossians 3:1-15

It is time now to focus more precisely on what Jesus meant when He said: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Meekness, as Jesus is using the word here, refers to an attitude of heart and mind that is entirely free from a spirit of demandingness and accepts the will of God in its entirety. I...