A Challenging Thought.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the way I live my life for God. I love serving and helping others get to know him, Jesus commands us to ‘Go make disciples of all the nations’ (Matt 28: 19). I often think about one of the Alpha promotion videos ‘Is there more to life than this?’

It’s a great video that encourages people to question the meaning of life through portraying a human just ‘going through the motions’ and not really serving any other purpose than that that is on earth- we’re encouraged to look at the eternal perspective and invited to come and explore who Jesus is, what he’s done for us and how He invites us into loving relationship with Him- sharing in His life, death and resurrection!!! 

However, I think even as Christians we’re in danger of just ‘going through the motions’ not just in a worldly sense but in our Christian walk too. I realise this might sound strange and I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this but I’ll give it a go…

The start of my thought train:

The point here is that although the way we serve God is important this shouldn’t be the starting point as this will only tire us out and result in dead works anyways- it can even lead you into the mentality that its works that gets you saved or I can manage on my own.

However, Jesus teaches us that the number one thing is our relationship with God (matt 22:37) and that it is our relationship with God that bears fruit; John 15 is a beautiful passage that talks about the intimate two-way relationship we can have with God, ‘abide in me and I will…’ seems to be a constant in this passage!

This should be our starting point and our fuel for serving Jesus- our spiritual tanks need always to be full (Ephesians 5: 18).

‘Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’ John 6: 35

When speaking about the Holy Spirit Jesus proclaimed “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7: 37-38

So how is it then we enjoy relationship with God and know him better? The obvious answer here would be to talk to God (Pray) and get stuck into the word where we can learn about God grace, love and character.  

This may seem a bit difficult at first, it always is when you hardly know someone but like any relationship you have to really spend time getting to know them. Great news is God want wait for you to spend time with him after all we are his children!

Our relationship with God really is personal this means that for each of us the way we go about spending time with God will be different…. I’d encourage you to really spend some time thinking about how this might be with you and trying things out- not every Christian gets up at the crack of dawn for ‘quiet time’

Sorry about the waffle and I hope you find this encouraging! Xx

Reviving the blog... Defining moments

Found this blog I wrote over a year ago just as I turned 20, on my laptop, unposted. So I thought I'd revive the blog, it also makes a good reintroduction!

Reflections on the last decade…

(Disclaimer sometimes it can be boring to read solely about someone else so I’m sorry but if this is your thing enjoy)

Flip it’s been a long decade and being my teens arguably one of the most important as obviously so much stuff goes on; you move from child to teen to adult all in one. And I could go on and pick out maybe the best and worst moments but that would be ridiculous so I’m just going to go with the most defining…..

Becoming a Christian its self comes with some of its own most defining moments- and when you become a Christian God is constantly changing and growing you. Romans 12 says that God is “renewing our minds”, which is great because he helps us to love him more and live by his grace more! But if I could pick out 2 things here it would be getting a massive slap bang in the face revelation when I was fifteen that ultimately changed the direction of my life and then getting baptised when I was 17 after delaying it for like 5years!

Revelation

I guess this is the heart of my testimony really, I became a Christian when I was about 12 but didn’t really live for God, I was a person who had a lot of anger and determination to do what I wanted, I also felt embarrassed to say and more importantly live like a Christian for fear of what people might think. When I was 15 however God stepped in, I don’t even remember when or how but one day I just clearly knew that God was and still is SO MUCH bigger than anything or anyone that came in my way. He took away my fear of showing who I really was and what I really wanted to live for. However with revelation sometimes comes action to help you. At that time it meant changing friendship groups. This wasn’t because I no longer wanted those friends in my life; but because I wanted space to breathe so that I could really focus on God and allow him to change me, also sometimes you have to walk away from your old self so that you don’t slip back, kind of like an addict has to completely leave his addiction. Anyways to cut a long story short God defiantly worked in my life at that time and he also took away my anger!

Baptism

I got baptised when I was 17. I wanted to five years earlier when I became a Christian but for some strange reason I thought baptism was about holiness that it was for people who always read their bibles and prayed. This thinking was wrong. Baptism has nothing to do with holiness but all to do with obedience. In fact the bible says that Christians are made right and holy before God… and that’s without even doing anything because it’s by GRACE that we are saved… but hey I’m not going to go too deeply into that because there’d be a lot to write about there, about God’s holiness, being in Christ etc.! Anyway it took me a long time to realise the point of baptism but at 17 I got it and I did it! And God has continued to completely turn my life upside down and I love it!

So there you go a summary of my most defining moment, sorry it's short, a detailed account would have been too long, I guess because to pick a defining moment involves choosing something that’s changed you or changed your direction; it has to have made impact on your life! (that makes for a long story) And I guess that I am who I am in Christ therefore my walk with God has been most defining as it has produced other defining moments, adventures, joys, struggles, journeys…