Life is busy isn’t it….

This may sound strange to hear, considering my job is to tell young people about Jesus, and how much he loves us, and how much a relationship with him is an amazing life changing one, but I’ve felt a million miles from God.

Nothing major has happened, no negative experience, I’ve just not felt close to him. The relationship feels like ive neglected things a bit, taken it for granted almost. As a Christian I know God is alway there, I guess I just let everything crowd my head.

But even though I’ve felt far from God, he’s still been speaking to me. Psalm 46 v 10 has been coming into my head so much recently

‘be still and know that I am God’

Simple yes?

It should be, and once I became still it was, for me it was getting to that point of stillness.

Those who know me well will understand what kind of mental stage of life I’m at, and those who know me really well will know Im not good at stopping.

But when I stopped, and just prayed, God revealed so much to me again. The grace given to me for all the times I mess up, and the realization of the mission that I am on for him, it was such a special time.

As a schools worker I always leave on a challenge for the young people, so here it is….

Stop….

Take some time….

Pray to your father….

Rekindle the relationship (maybe for the first, or 50 millionth time)

Know that he is God and loves you so much.

The Power of Worship

“Worship changes things…”

I’ve been thinking about this recently, i’m running the worship central course with some young people, and in the first week we did an activity where we said what worship is.  There was lots of answers, ‘giving God our lives’, ‘singing to God’, ‘showing God how much he means to us’.  All great answers.  

First of all, I want to start by saying that Worship should never be about us, it should always be about giving God what is due to him.  That realisation of the Christian message prompts us to react in an emotional way, by singing, praying, or telling as many people about this amazing God who loves us so much, all positive things!

But is that all it is……

Today i’ve been feeling a bit down, nothing major, just the pressures of life!  I knew that it was happening, but couldn’t seem to shift it.

Then tonight as I was driving home, I put on some worship in the car.  I started to sing along, but also desperately trying to listen to the words, what the song was saying.  I started to worship along in the car (safely I can add)  and everything became about God, I started to focus on how good he was, and less about me.

James 4:8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you…

That verse is so true isn’t it.  What I experienced tonight was me drawing near to God, and him drawing near to me.  In that 15 minutes in the car, worshipping as if no one was watching, I gave it all to God once again.  

Worship is powerful.  When we worship, he gets magnified, and it puts us into perspective. I’m sat at my computer now with a completely different mindset to the one I had an hour ago!  Does this mean that all my problems are solved?  No.  Does it mean that I have a different perspective? Completely!

So an encouragement.  If things are hard, throw on a worship song, read your bible, spend time drawing near to him, and in that time of worship, of seeking God, I believe things/mindsets/perspectives can be changes

I speak about faith all the time, in fact, it’s my job to talk about faith! I love that about my job, I get to talk to young people young and old about my faith, and how it’s changed my life….

But does that show?

Chatting to a friend of mine on Sunday, we spoke about the ‘27 million’ campaign by LZ7 and Matt Redman, and we started talking about James 2, ‘faith without deeds’ passage. This is what it says…

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions?

Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. (James 2:14-17 NLT)

This made me ask some questions….

We preach this message in church, I can think of loads of sermons I’ve heard about it, but it seems to sink in a bit, but then I leave church, and it seems to filter out a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I love loving people, and helping them. But I’m sat here thinking I could do so much more!

Ever feel that way?

Also, do we preach this message right, it says further on, that we will be judged in our actions! Reading this passage has highlighted to me once again how much our faith in God should fill us with a passion that we can’t not go into our broken world and want to help fix it, and all the people in it!!

I’ve never been a big fan of lent. If something’s not great for me, I want to give it up completely, not just for 40 days! (I know it means more to some people so please don’t be offended)

Even though I’m not a fan, I’m using this time to start a behavior change that I hope will go on past Easter! There is a whole load of different things out there, such as ‘i am second’ and the ‘40 acts’ lent challenge, all of which I’m looking into, but to be honest, I want to use this time to fall more in love with Jesus, because after all, we love because he loved us first! My friends are great at showing me love, and I know how it feels to be loved, but there are people outside (and inside) the church who have never experienced that type of love!

So I want to make a stand, I want to start making this world a better place on act at a time, knowing because of my faith in God that it can happen if we trust him with it all!

Will you join me?

Yay, tumblr and twitter integrated, now to think of something to blog….

Please send this post to twitter….

This would help a lot if I could post off my phone (Bex says I’m never off it!!)

So Im not a massive fan of blogs, but sometimes when using twitter, 140 characters is not enough to suffice!  

So i’m trying this out, hopefully it will bless people, build them up, and even make them laugh from time to time!

That said, i’ve got to figure out how to use the site, and link to twitter etc!  I feel like my Dad trying to work twitter for the first time!