A couple of weeks ago, my husband was telling me that heard from others about a gathering of people that has emerged around the world, calling themselves the Sunday Assemblies. Basically, it's a church without God. Wow. It made me start to think about the difference God's presence makes. I believe God’s presence is visible, tangible, recognisable and powerful.
Questions. We all have them. We all ask them. But do we take time to ask the right questions? Do we enter into conversation with Father, Son and Holy Spirit and ask them what they are doing - what do they want to reveal to us?
Recently I have been thinking about the story in Acts 9:1-19.... Saul's experience on his trip to Damascus. Grab your Bible and have a read. Many of you know the story already but read it again..... Saul was a man who was out to get the Jesus-followers.... those ones who had encountered Jesus and were saying he was the Messiah, God's son. His purpose was determined and clear ... Lock them up, shut them up, get rid of them. Then Jesus met with Him in the most incredible way. This is what Jesus does... It's who He is. He loves people to encounter Him and His love. So as His followers / disciples He calls us to walk out life as He did while He was on earth..... Loving people, listening to the voice of our Father. When I re-read this story, there were a couple of things that really jumped out at me.... A couple of things that…
A couple of years ago, Caroline and I were sitting in a Church Planting workshop learning about other people’s experiences in starting new churches. As I sat there God spoke 3 words to me about Port Macquarie – “Walk every street.” God interrupted me with a thought that was injected mid-stream in my mind, loud and clear. How great that God gave me a specific instruction of something I should do as part of planting a church! It was so clear that I didn’t feel any need to ask “why”. I just figured that if God said it then I’d just get on with it and see what He does as a result.
This week I was reminded again that generally, as humans, we don't know what we don't know. We all learn as we go on this journey of life. I had an experience this week that showed me that my way of doing things isn't always the best way and often we need someone to teach us or show us the way.
“Love looks like something.” Richie Seltzer (from Imagine Church, Calgary) said this at a conference I went to earlier this year, and last week it came back to me and was bouncing around in my head a bit. As I thought about it more this passage from 1 Corinthians came to mind. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.1 Corinthians 13:13–14:1 (NIV) NIV has been my main “go to” Bible version for many years but in more recent times I’ve been looking to other translations to help dig a bit deeper. Here is the same passage in wording of the Amplified Bible: And so faith, hope, love abide [faith—conviction and belief respecting man’s relation to God and divine things; hope—joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love—true affection for God and man, growing out of God’s love for…
Cain and Abel - perhaps the best-known brothers in history - both brought offerings to God. One was acceptable and the other not. What's that all about? I was challenged by a blog post a little while ago that began with the assertion that we often get God wrong, and went on to challenge common understandings of atonement, sacrifice and free forgiveness. It made me think more deeply on some truths that most Christians just accept, sometimes without understanding the implications... Psalm 51 expresses a deep heart cry for forgiveness and restoration. King David confronts the normal practice of forgiveness enacted through sacrifice and declares it inadequate by writing, "For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering." Later on in Israel's history, during a time of sinful rebellion, the Lord declares through the prophet Jeremiah, "When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not burnt offerings and…
Yesterday's Gathering went a little bit differently to how I had imagined. I had my message prepared and was all ready to go with it, but I really felt God told me to put it aside ... to get rid of my agenda, as He had something else that He wanted to share with us. Part of our journey is learning to hear His voice and be willing to do "other" than what we want or think. Let me unpack it a little bit more for you about what I felt He was saying: God is wanting to increase the fire in us (the power, the heat, the brightness) to be contagious to those around us with the full Gospel of Jesus Christ. He wants a people that burn with a passion for Him and for His name, and burn brightly to make an impact for Him in the world we are in. Luke 3:16 says this, "John answered them…
Good News for "comfortable" people The area in which we live is like most of middle-class Australia – most people have the appearance of being relatively comfortable and happy, at least on the surface. Perhaps our "Good News" needs an upgrade? If I focus on this surface appearance of things it seriously dulls my sense of urgency about how much people need to hear God really loves them. It’s so easy to forget most people don’t know Jesus – they haven’t heard the Best News they could ever hear! This prevalent surface comfort often hides the fears, hurts, struggles, disappointments and doubts that pretty much everyone goes through. It's like paracetamol that dulls a headache but doesn't treat the source of the pain. We all know that “creature comforts” can’t fix those deeper issues, but somehow it’s oh-so-easy to forget and carry on as if everything is alright. Even when things might be "good" there are many who are missing…
God's promises are, and continue to be, amazing // He is amazing // The Bible is full of God's promises for every single person - there are no exceptions.