Winning the prize that matters
When we talk about winning the prize it’s usually in a sporting or competitive context, in all sports there is an ultimate prize. In football maybe the Premier league or World cup, American football the - Superbowl, Cricket - the Ashes, Tennis - Wimbledon or one of the other grandslams etc. To the most competitive of these professional sportsman already wealthy from their success it’s not about the material rewards of winning, but they pursue, they chase it, they live for their prize. As the people of God we should know that life is the game worth winning, what does it really mean to really win? because when you walk with God winning might be very different. So for those who follow Jesus, who want to live for him and obey him; what is the prize? Eternity, obviously. How many of us wouldn’t mind a well done O good and faithful servant on Judgement day? Sure that’s the ultimate prize but what about now, lets back up a minute is there a prize now here on this Earth? What would that prize look like, what would that be? If you had to list a couple of things what would you say? think about it.
Lets look at a familiar story that I think can teach us some things about winning the prize. Breaking with good Christian tradition 6 points not 3. Read the rest of this entry »
We All Need God
Posted by Simon in Uncategorized on April 13th, 2009
So the final instalment on anger (I promise something lighter in my next few blogs)So as the title says we all need God and there isn’t anything we can do to change that, we were made to have a relationship with him you can accept that or run from it but life and for that matter death doesn’t work without God. We can now know God, Jesus died on the cross not just as an act of love, it was an act of love but also to take care of the barrier which separates us from God. We need God, we can know God but we need to make that choice. I am not talking about religion here, don’t get religion it’s boring we’re talking about Jesus he’s risen he’s alive and he wants to step into our lives. For this we were born and now there’s an opportunity to respond, with our eyes open to the challenge saying yes I’m a Christian who got stuck I want to move on.
The mystery is supposed to be a mystery!
Posted by Simon in Uncategorized on April 13th, 2009
And so the third and penultimate instalment on anger as I was saying in the last post anger can especially in Christians be caused by a lack of understanding or a dislike of something, the example I gave being the death of Uzzah.Mystery is not where we know nothing about something but is when we can see we don’t know everything about something. God doesn’t download all the secrets of the universe to someone the minute they become a Christian. One of the big challenges of being a Christian is those awkward questions from newer Christians or unsaved friends, one of the most liberating and helpful things we can say when faced with such a question and we don’t know the answer is I don’t know. The universe will not explode if we concede that we do not understand everything, all of us have some mystery in our relationship with God. If I were to ask you to explain why you’re trusting God and what you have figured out and what you haven’t it might be that you have few words to articulate a response, but your trusting him anyway even though there might be some anger that sits in your lives. Again anger is not wrong, lets ask God to help us to deal with it and avoid moving into bitterness. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ll show you angry
In my last blog I started a series on anger and the sense of being dispirited or depressed that can be caused by unresolved anger, as a example I looked at 2 Sam 6-8 and how David had got angry with God and reacted to that anger rather than responded.
Not all anger is wrong the Bible say, “Be angry but do not sin” Eph 4:26. There are something’s we should be angry about; when we hear there are 10,000 child prostitutes in the world we should be angry, to greet such news with a sense of bland passivity is inappropriate, why are we angry at that? Because we care, because we love. God gets angry he’s never flying of the handle and never out of control but his wrath is a sign of his love. Why does God get stirred with us sometimes? Its because he cares about us so much. Read the rest of this entry »
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