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.

NEW BLOG

Hey folks,

You will have read below that I’m heading to Switzerland on Friday with a team from CEF to the Euros! We have set up a blog for you to keep up to date with what we are up to and any specific prayer points that arise.

The blog address is:

http://cefeuro2008.wordpress.com

So feel free to use this as ur base for prayer, and keeping in touch with us all while we are out there!

Who will you support?

The BBC are basing their campaign for Euro 2008 on “Who will you support?”. All the home nations failed to reach the finals in Switzerland and Austria, so they are hoping to get the public to support another team for the Championships and to watch them on the BBC. You can see the advert here.

But the teams and the countries are not the only ones who need your support. I presume much of my audience on here are Christians, and so I am asking for Your support in prayer! Why?

CEF are taking a team of 14 (15 if you include young Lydia), young people to Switzerland during the first week of the Euros to do outreach work at different big screen fan locations. This will take the form of tract distribution to the hundreds and thousands of fans in the locations, bringing them the word of God, in a language they can hopefully understand. We as a team need your prayers as we take part in this task. We want to see God work in a mighty way through the distribution of these tracts and see people enter from the kingdom of darkness, into marvellous light, and to see their mindset changed from being football dominated, to Christ-centered! Will you support us in this quest, not for European Glory, but for God’s Glory?

If you are interested in what, who and when to pray for, please get in touch.

Alternatively you could download this prayer letter, which will give you all the information you need to know! Prayer Letter

Easter Conference 2008

Just a quick rambling about conference this year, what a conference it was. Reese Kauffman, President of CEF Worldwide was the main speaker and was excellent, don’t think anyone had a bad word about his preaching.

One of the real challenges I got from his talks was in the first morning Bible study, and he quoted James 4:8 “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”

He followed up with this statement, “You are only as close to God, as you choose to be.” That was to me a scary thought. I want to be close to God, as close as possibly, but the choices I make and the actions I take influence that closeness. We can ask God all we want for Him to come close to us, but here it is us making the decision to draw close to Him, and then He will draw near to us. What decisions am I making everyday that draw me close, or push me away from God? A thought that really does strike home. Do I waste time on the Internet, listening to music, watching TV or do I use it wisely trying to get closer to God, by coming to Him, in prayer and study.

It’s one of the rare occasions where we need to take the first step, and it’s a crucial first step we need to take. To know Christ, we need to make the effort to draw close to Him, and then He will draw close to us.

Any further thoughts or comments about this? Anything else at conference challenge you! Feel free to comment!

Power of the cross contd

As you will have seen I posted the video of “The Power of cross” by Keith and Kristin Getty. What an absolutely outstanding song, with such great deep meaning. I only want to highlight one thing that stands out to me every time,

“Christ became sin for us”

What an awesome thought, the pure and perfect holy unblemished Son of God, became sin for us. 2Corinthians 5 :21 says: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God “

Why did He become sin for us, so that we could be made right in Him!

This Easter let us be truly thankful for the perfect Son of God becoming sin for us, and praise and thank Him, that we through His death AND resurrection have been forgiven and made right with Him.

Oh, to see the dawn
Of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood.

CHORUS:
This, the pow’r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh, to see the pain
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Ev’ry bitter thought,
Ev’ry evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Now the daylight flees;
Now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life;
“Finished!” the vict’ry cry.

Oh, to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.

FINAL CHORUS:
This, the pow’r of the cross:
Son of God—slain for us.
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Power of the Cross

Have a watch at this awesome Easter song, many of you will know it anyway.

Will blog more about it in the next day or two

Attractiveness

Well blog readers, hows it going? Sorry it has taken so long to blog, a lot of different things happening and that. This blog is about attractiveness, but not to one another, but in the gospel. This blog has come around to hearing a couple of sermons by my former pastor, Dr. Hamilton Moore on Titus 2.

In Titus 2 v 10 we read “so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.”(NIV). He started off by looking at the fact that if someone was to be trying to sell something, they would make it out to be the best, to be attractive. If we are going out on a date, we would make sure we were making ourselves attractive for the other person. Likewise we need to make our lives attractive for those unsaved around us in our communities, our workplaces, our schools/colleges, and our families.

Why the need to be living attractively? Titus was urging the Christians in Crete to live attractive lives because of what is said in v12 in the previous chapter. “Even one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”" How well does this describe much of our society today, people lying about so much, violence is so widely prevalent, and we have many people who live lazy and gluttonous lifestyles. This description of the people of Crete at the time, can so easily be used to describe large parts of our society.

How to live attractively? Titus 2 starts with a list of things, for all people in the church, no matter who they were, old or young, male or female, slave or master, and how they should live, and how they should encourage others to live as well. Check out what they should do here.

Why live attractively? We want to show the community that we are in, of the “great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ”, who came to “redeem…from all wickedness and purify”. We have a reason to be different, a reason to live an attractive life, and live a life that shines out in the community in this present age. Let’s, be different, let’s be holy, and let’s live an attractive life to show the lost communities and people we associated with Jesus, and His desire to bring them back to Himself.

Christmas…the reason for the season

Well in two days time I’ll be sitting here, stuffed full of turkey and ham and roasties, and drinking the umpteenth glass of Shloer, and hopefully if I’ve been a good boy playing with something good that Santa has brought me, or if bad, looking glumly at a lump of coal!

But Christmas, I’ve truly discovered is about so much more than that. For a while I was disillusioned with Christmas carols, all the services and all the varied messages you hear at Christmas, and was wondering, what on earth is the true meaning of this? In-fact, I prayed that about a month ago, that this Christmas I would find what Christmas was really all about. Now don’t get me wrong, ofcourse I know it’s all about Jesus coming as Saviour to Bethlehem as a baby, about E(I)mmanuel – God with us etc, but too me it was just all jargon with little meaning to the listeners and Christmas carol phrases stuck into sermons and plastered all over cards.

So I was reading the Christmas story and came across this verse, that the content of it took place around 9 months before “Christmas Day” as we now know it.

Matthew 1:21 “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

That is the meaning of Christmas there, God providing the way for us to be saved from sin. This to me is not emphasised enough in our Christmas Carol services, we hear the stories of the angels, shepherds, wise men (plural we presume, how many, we don’t know), Mary, Joseph, and Isaiah 9 prophesy. But I cannot recollect a sermon on this verse, which is the reason why. It sum’s up the gospel so well, something that themes of gifts and following after God etc, while yes eventually get around to and have their place, but this verse is about The One who the season is all about, and His reason for being here, yet it is so often neglected in my humble opinion only.

So this Christmas let’s actually tell people the real reason of Christmas, that Jesus was born to save from sins, and to an extent get away from the Christmas story as such of the stable and that, yes its relevant, but its not going to see people saved from their sins! Don’t get me wrong, a lot of good stuff is preached and spoke about at Christmas, but lets get away from all the other characters and their actions, and lets look at the central character of the season. This Christmas, and indeed New Year, let’s talk about Jesus, all that He has done for us, and let us preach the gospel not only in word but also in deed.

May I close and say, Happy Christmas to all you poor people who read my blog, and Blessed New Year to one and all!

Wow, an update!!

Had been going so well at this for what, maybe a couple of weeks, but alas, it dried up again. But here we are a long awaited for the sad few who look me up!

So whats been going on lately, uni work has been busy, and been speaking a good bit lately, something I love doing, communicating with people, especially young people. Spoke at our JYC in church, toTag our youth fellowship in church, and the 208 Donegall Rd Bible study group, and next week at JYC again. Topics from “Bridge of salvation”, How to do Bible Study, and walking with God, great Christian principals, but something that can be so easily forgotten by people, not just the young today.

Walking was something I mentioned I would come back to in one of my earlier blogs. Walking with God, a phrase so often thrown about flippantly by people today. What does it mean? How do I do it? I came across lots of verses in the study, but a lot of the verses, and infact the main theme of nearly all the verses, all the main themes, and to me the main thing in walking with God is HOLINESS.

Holy has many meanings, perfection, pure, separate to name but a few.

Something scary about that, we cannot be holy as we are not perfect or pure, and many of us live lifes which are not separate from the world or sin, and that gives us a huge problem!! Can we therefore walk with God? Ofcourse we can, but its a sign of what we have to do to try to achieve as close a walk with God as possible. Prayer and Scripture Study, with service and fellowship are important, but without a striving for holiness none of these things can get us closer to God. Sin separates us from God, and therefore means we cannot be close to Him, and communing with Him in any of the above ways. Therefore we need to be keeping “short accounts with God”, and striving to make them shorter by cutting out the sins. Holiness is not the maximum God expects, its the minimum, and so we need to be striving to even achieve it never mind all the other things God expects of us such as service. So let us walk with God, by striving to be a holy people, in every sense and way. Look to be perfect, pure and blameless, and cut ourselves of from things of the world that are detrimental to our faith, and walk close with God.

O for a closer walk with God,
a calm and heavenly frame,
a light to shine upon the road
that leads me to the Lamb!

Where is the blessedness I knew
when first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
of Jesus and his word?

Return, O holy Dove, return,
sweet messenger of rest;
I hate the sins that made thee mourn,
and drove thee from my breast.

The dearest idol I have known,
whate’er that idol be,
help me to tear it from thy throne,
and worship only thee.

So shall my walk be close with God,
calm and serene my frame;
so purer light shall mark the road
that leads me to the Lamb.

Peace of God’s will

An acrostic based on PEACE that I was given by a friend at a time I needed it most. Hopefully you will find it useful in your walk.

PROVIDENTIAL– Is it providential? Do things “happen” or do you have to
break down a door in order to get through it? If you have to force a door
open or nudge the arm of providence, be careful ; you are about to enter a
realm outside your comfort zone, yes, but not a realm that is accompanied
with the peace of God.If things happen without your manipulation, proceed.
But if you have played “man the manipulator” and made things happen to
suit your wishes, stop! God almost certainly is not behind what you are
trying to do.

ENEMY– What would the devil want you to do? What would Satan want me to do
at this point? Figure it out- it won’t be very hard – and do the opposite.
Most of us have a very shrewd idea of what the devil would want us to do:
cheat, hate, have sex outside marriage, go deeply into debt, boast about
accomplishments, give into jealousy, gossip, point the finger, hold the
grudge. Do the opposite and you will almost certainly get it right.

AUTHORITY — What does the Bible say? That is your supreme and infallible
authority for faith and conduct. You will never improve on Holy Scripture.
The way to know the will of God begins with knowing the Bible well. It is
entirely God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16) and, therefore, written by the Holy
Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). You, therefore, should ask whether there is a
biblical warrant for what you are thinking of doing or embracing. If it is
not validated by Scripture, stop at once. NO need to proceed to the next
premises. God will never lead you to do that which clearly goes against his
own word.

CONFIDENCE — When am I most sure I am in the will of God i am the most
confident. When I know I am obedient, that I am doing what I have a mandate
to do, I feel confident through and through. A Greek word for this is
parresia. It means “boldness”. It is sometimes translated “plainly” (John
10:24). IT was what Peter experienced when he preached on the day of
Pentecost (Acts 2:29). It is a good, good feeling. But when I lose this,
it is often a signal that something has gone wrong.God wants you to feel
confident.

EASE — In your heart of hearts, do you feel ease? Are you troubled or
unsettled? Be very very careful. From my own experience, even when I am
scared and conscious that I am taking a hard decision but have peace
inside, I am seldom disappointed when I proceed.

For this acrostic to be a safe guide for you, all five of these points must
come together. If only four are true, that is still not enough. To have
PEACE we need all of them. But if five are there, I can safely promise you
it will be a positive and happy way forward. RT Kendall