this is today

Jude 1:19-21

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Have you felt like you were out of your depth? Have you felt overwhelmed by what is before you? Don’t stress, it is actually a part of faith and growing in God. I believe we come to seasons in our life where it IS too hard for us, but it is never too hard for Him. And that is the point. We are compelled to draw near to Him to build our faith.

So, how do you build yourself up in the faith?

1. Pray in the Spirit – God has given us the baptism of the Holy Spirit to enable us to pray the powerful and timely prayers of the Spirit. Praying in tongues builds your faith and inner man enabling you to walk in the Spirit and not fulfil the lusts of the flesh (Gal 5:16-17).

2. Keep yourselves in the love of God – God is love (1 John 4) and if we are in relationship with Him we too can and should walk in love. Check yourself, your attitudes, motivations and thoughts – are they grounded in the love of God? If not repent and return to Him and His love for you.

3. Wait on the mercies of God – make time to unplug from the rush of life to be still in the presence of Almighty God (Ps 46:10). Allow His grace to flood your heart and mind before getting back into it.

I love that the camera is all over Derek Fisher and no where near the victorious Brewer, because Fish that was nasty!

Ezekiel 39:28 says

Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore.

God’s plan for extending His kingdom involves two distinct phases; scatter and gather.

First, he scatters His people. The Israelites were exiled into a foreign land. The early church in Jerusalem was persecuted and scattered. But in so doing, it began to fulfil God’s heart all along, “you will be my witnesses… to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Where you are today God has put you – your family, your workplace, your school, your circle of influence. He scattered us to those places for a reason, that we know and others do too, “…that I am the LORD their God”.

Secondly, God gathers. God brings people together. Being scattered into the world has a purpose, but too does being gathered together again. When we gather as the church we are “assembled” together to be His fully operational body in the earth.

Wherever God’s people are, we are called to gather together, for worship, for fellowship, for training, for encouragement. This is the rhythm by which churches are planted and God’s kingdom on earth is extended. God scatters us to our mission field and gathers us together by His Spirit, before we do it all over again.

Go and come. Sent and return. It’s His way. Today, let’s do it with purpose!

I came across this very good quote recently –

“The purpose of the gifts is to call attention to the Lord … The second object of the gifts is evangelistic … We must test anything that claims to be a movement of the Spirit in terms of it’s evangelistic power … God’s way has been to revive His people and then because they are revived, His power is manifested in their preaching, their witness, their testimony and in the whole of their lives”.

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones – “Joy Unspeakable” – Kingsway Books, Eastbourne (2000) – (p256).

I love that. It is the way of God to revive His people and for those revived lives to take Jesus to their homes, workplaces, shopping centres, sporting grounds, wherever they go! It really is such a simple plan.

The truth is though, we seem to do all we can to avoid going in search of One who revives. To reach people we’d rather try a new method or a different angle, re-engineer the church or apply a fresh teaching, or worse rationalise it all away with a new theology*.

The question has got to be, how’s that working for you?

I ask myself the same question and to be honest, it isn’t. And the reason for that is evident; it isn’t God’s way. A revived life is, but for that there is a cost and it is a cost most of us are extremely reluctant to pay.

But the time has come. There is no other way to reach this nation, in my opinion, than to count the cost and go in desperate search of the One who revives. It is He and He alone, by His Spirit, who possesses the “evangelistic power” we lack and need.

* Also known as unbelief and Jesus had some heavy things to say about it.

Love this. It’s a Lego re-creation of the bullet dodge scene from The Matrix and it took 440 hours of work to complete.

It’s ten years since The Matrix was released. It for me was one of those (rare) movies that rocked my world. God spoke through it big time. I still love so many of the Matrix quotes:

Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. Do you know what I’m talking about?

I do. Do you?

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

-Soren Kierkegaard