Growth

In my prayer time yesterday, God revealed a very simple but very real truth.

As a person (physically) the act of growing is to gain your own indepedance and to move away from parents.

This is not the case with God.

When we grow (spirtually) it's the act of losing our independance and growing towards God not away from Him.


Thats it.

Short and sweet.

Love you x

I'm a loser

I like Paul.

He's a great character with a fantastic background.

Just to read where he came from and the journey he took is SO cool.

He started off as a Jew (but no ordinary Jew). His job was to find, hunt down, and persecute christians.

The Pharisees and 'religous' leaders of that time would have thought that when they got rid of Jesus all their problems would be over. However, after Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples and they all started performing miracles and seeing the early christian church grow, these 'religous' leaders would have been a bit worried again.

They needed to nip this 'cult' in the bud, before it got too out of control.

Saul (aka Paul) was a very effective persecutor, and his name was feared throughout the early christians. But God chose Saul, and after revealing Himself in 'illuminating' ways, Saul finally 'saw the light'.

Paul (no longer Saul) now made it his mission to spread the word of Jesus throughout many lands.

It amuses me that in Galatians, Paul is defending the right of the gentiles (non jews) to know the Lord and not to have to become a Jew. Previously, this same dude was killing christians because they didn't follow the law of Moses!

Ironic.

I guess I like Paul's story because God took the most unlikely character, someone who was going out of his way to prevent the spread of the gospel, to be one of the fore-runners for missionary.

We see this all the way throught the bible.... Abraham (too old), Moses (had a stutter), Noah (a drunk), David (danced in his pants), Jonah (racist and coward).

The list goes on and on.

God uses normal people.

God uses losers.

He's got nothing else to work with!

Love you x

Cry out to Jesus

To everyone whose lost someone they love

Long before it was there time

You feel like the days you had were not enough

When you said goodbye

And to all of the people with burdens and pains

Keeping you back from your life

You believe that there's nothing and there is no one

Who can make it right

There is hope for the helpless

Rest for the weary

Love for the broken heart

There is grace and forgiveness

Mercy and healing

He'll meet you wherever you are

Cry out to Jesus

For the marriage that's struggling just to hang on

They've lost all their faith in love

They've done all they can to make it right again

Still it's not enough

For the ones who can't break the addictions and chains

You try to give up but you come bakc again

Just remember that you're not alone in your shame

And your suffering

When you're lonely

And it feels like the whole world is falling on you

You just reach out

You just cry out to Jesus

Cry out to Jesus

To the widow who suffers from being alone

Wiping the tears from her eyes

For the childrens around the world without a home

Saya prayer tonight

How good are Third Day ?

Theif in the night

Its my day off today (which is nice 'cause I had to work all weekend!).

Anyhoo, a guy from Barrats came to take photos of our house to put in their ad to sell our house.

I knew he was coming at 13:00 and so I could get the house looking 'up to scratch'.

Because I knew when to expect him I could get all the hoovering, dusting, polishing, washing up done aswell as putting away anything that didn't need to be out. And to improve the overall appearance of the house.

It got me thinking about the second coming (and Phil's song from sunday night!), but if we knew Jesus was coming back at 13:00 then we'd get all our stuff sorted.

All the mess that had accumulated over time would be dealt with, not straight away, but just in time to see His return. We would leave everything until the last minute.

I thank God that we don't know when Jesus is coming back, because the world would be more of a mess than it is now. Sure, we'd see mass conversions hours before He was due to return, but that isn't the point.

It's about living every day as if it's our last here on earth.

It's about looking at how and why we live our lives and asking ourselves "is this what Jesus wanted from me ?"

Jesus is coming back . . . so don't look busy, get busy!

Love you X

Mountain of God

Im currently working my way through Exodus.

Ive got to the bit where Moses is the go-between for God and the Isrealites.

It makes me chuckle to think of Moses running up the mountain (at the age of 80 ish!) and God saying "tell the people the LORD says..." and then Moses running back down to the Isrealites and telling them what God has said. Then the people say "Moses, tell the LORD...." and Moses runs back up the moutain.

This goes on for chapters!

I struggle with the fact that I'm human (and destined to screw up!), I think if only I'd have been around back then when God revealed Himself in fire and thunder and wind and through Moses.... THEN my faith would be unshakable! But we see that the Isrealite (inspite of this very visual God) still make the same mistakes we make.

Moses comes down the mountain (after getting the 10 commandments) and finds that the Isrealites have made a golden calf and are worshipping it!

Third Day have done a song caled Mountain of God (chorus)

Even though the journey's long

And I know the road is hard

Well, the One whose gone before me

He will help me carry on

After all that I've been through

Now I realize the truth

That I must go through the valley

To stand upon the mountain of God

Love you x

John 2

Everyone knows the story.

Jesus is at a party (a wedding reception), the social event of the Jewish year!

He's there with his mom (family was very important). And in this story we see Jesus first miracle (or sign).

Running out of wine wasn't just a pain in the ass, it was seen as shame or disgarce upon the family name.

John suggests that miracles (signs) were always pointing to something else.

Even though Jesus said this, what He really meant was that...

Jewish comparrisons:

When Jews would hear (or read) these stories it would conjure up other images in their head.

Regardez . . .

Wedding - This story is set in a wedding. Weddings were always large occasions in the bible, and almost always represented the relationship between God and people. The church is Christ's Bride (for example)

"The master was pleased" - God is our master. (pretty simple!)

Third day - (not the band!) The wedding party takes place on the 3rd day.... hmmm what else in the bible could of happend on the 3rd day? The Resurrection.

Wine - Heaven.

This 1st miracle was the anticipation of heaven and earth coming together.

We all know this story as Jesus turning water into wine, BUT nowhere does it mention this fact.

Its through Jesus power and authority, but its more about the servants doing what Jesus tells them to do.

Jesus DOES turn the water to wine, BUT he does it through others.

Real miracles happen when we do what Jesus tells us.

This is what it looks like when heaven and earth meet.

Love you x