Friends

A couple of weeks ago I was at the Bangor Worldwide Missionary Convention Youth Night, and something that one of the guys speaking said really struck me.

The guy had been on a gap year in Kurdistan in Iraq, and during the time there he made a lot of different friends, some christians, some not. During his time there he realised the importance of these different friendships he had, and his role in them. When with his christian friends, as he was wanting to encourage them and build them up in their faith, especially in such a spiritually depraved area.  When with his non-christian friends, his aim was to see them won for Christ, answer their spiritual questions, as it was important for these people who had never heard to hear as much as he could possibly tell them while he was there.

His challenge to us who were listening was how do we see our friendships, with both christians and non-christians. Even in our seeming comfort  where we have such freedom and access to God, His word, and the ability to freely learn and study His word, we need to be encouraging each other in our faiths. How often when with our christian friends are we talking about anything and anything, but not talking about our relationships with God, and about God Himself, encouraging and building up each other. With our non-christian friends, although we know that they need to hear, and many of them probably already have, we should still be encouraging them to come to Christ, and see Him. We don’t know when they could be caled from this scene of time, and find themselves in a lost eternity. How often can we sidestep spiritual conversations with our friends, for whatever reasons (embarassment, not caring, not knowing what to say).

Our friendships are the most important things to us, and we can all be “missionaries” in our friendships, encouraging our christian mates, and striving to see our non-christian friends saved. I’m still trying to figure out how to improve these areas, so any feedback would be good, and challenge each other how we can effectively change these vital parts of our lives.

Blogroll

Just giving a heads up to a few changes in my blogroll.

I’ve linked a few peoples blogs who I would regularly read. These guys all have one thing in common, a real passion for Christ in their lives.

David Kitchen- used to attend same church, he now is married and attending another church, but still a good mate. He still fairly new in the blogosphere, but has some gems on here.

Simon Thompson- introduced by “kitchy”, and has become a really great mate. Great speaker, and someone with a real burden for the things of God. Many useful insights on here when he updates. Can also be found in Inspire Books and Gifts, in The House of Vic-Ryn, Lisburn! (theres a plug for ya mate!)

Rick Hill- works with SU, and met him at one of their leadership weekends for SU’s a few years back. Also a great worship leader and someone with a real passion of seeing young people sold out for God.

Gareth and Lyndasy Gwynne- Gareth used to be my leader at CEF camps in Belfast, and is now working full time with CEF in Co. Armagh. Someone with a real passion for reaching children with the gospel, read and be encouraged about what God is doing through Him and his wife in that area. Regular prayer updates as well!

I hope you guys who read benefit from these peoples blogs, to be found on the right handside in the blogroll!

Pause for thought

This is something I was asked to write for CEF Youth Challenge website at the start of the year, and has now found its way both onto that site and also here. Hope you are challenged by it.

As I was asked to write this pause for thought, the thought came to me, how come I need to stop and think what I need to write? Why does something not naturally come to my mind? As I thought this through it suddenly came to me, is the things of God and His word at the forefront of my mind or is it filled with fruitless worldly knowledge and useless information.

Psalm 1 v 1-2

“Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.”

Here the Psalmist is exhorting us to stay away from “the wicked”, “sinners”, and “scoffers”, but to “delight”, and to meditate “day and night” on his law, or his word.* Most of us if we are honest struggle to maintain a daily quiet time on occasions, never mind meditating on the word of God both day and night. Here God is saying that “Blessed is the man who…meditates day and night.” God is saying here that He will bless those who stay away from those things listed, and who delight and meditate on His word. If we saturate our minds with the things of God, we will see things change.

We will understand more of His character.

Meditating day and night on the Bible, allows us to see more of Gods character. As we look at what God does in the life and situations of the many characters found in its pages, at the great theology we find about Him in all the other letters, prayers, and thoughts of others then our hearts are going to be blessed and encouraged by what we find out about Him. We will feel blessed to realise of the God who has such a great character would want to use us, and send His son to rescue us from His own wrath.

We will be brought into line with His character.

As we read more of God, and His requirements for us to live by, then we should become more and more conformed to His character, then we will be blessed. What a blessing it would be to overcome our daily struggles and battles against sin and to become more and more like the one we are called to be like. We will not only be brought into line with His character but become more like Him. The more we read about God, the more we will see our fallen state and nature, and want to turn from it and become more like Him. The more time we spend with someone, the more their character rubs off on us, and so by spending our day and night meditating on Gods word, and communing with Him, we will inevitably become more like Him.

We will see our world change because of His character.

If we saturate our lives in the word of God, and as a result of this know more, and become more like God, then we will see God work through us, and change many, many lives. Godly people have an appeal about them, they have something different, they are people this world look to and respect, and deep down want to be like. If we want to be godly people, and see and achieve great things for God then we must saturate ourselves in His word, become passionate about it, and live it out, so that we will see the world around us changed, by Him, through us. And what a blessing that would be, to see God use us, failures and sinners, but made perfect through Him, to bring others to Him.

There is a key word in this passage though, that will determine if we can achieve these things, and be blessed by God…DELIGHT! We mustn’t do this out of force of habit, or because it’s the right thing to do, but because we want to do it. Let’s really focus on asking God to give us that joy and delight in being different, in saturating ourselves in His word, and as a result seeing great things achieved by Him, and the blessings we can receive.