The God of your father!

Wow, so I just read Gen 26:24 which is God speaking to Isaac and saying 'I am the God of Abraham your father; don't fear a thing because I am with you.'

What kind of life must I live for God to be able to say that to my kids?

In every healthy family you will find kids wanting to be like their parents. Julia and I do have the most amazing children - 2 of them. We love spending time with them and I think its obvious that they love spending time with us.

My daughter has just finished building her first website and I'm so proud of her. I was doing some proof reading for her before uploading it and noticed she had said "my dad likes to go surfing".

Now she is 100% right! I do like to go surfing and have enjoyed it this last 25yrs. It must rub off on my family because they all surf.

We are often at the beach together as a family but I have been stirred this morning to make sure that my kids clearly see my friendship with Jesus.

What areas can I make more obvious?
How can I involve them more?

I know there will be a day where they have to trust God and rely on for themselves and on that day I want God to be able to say to them:
'Don't be afraid, I am the God of your father'

A Stirring Selection

There is a crazy passage of Scripture in John 5 that seems to have far more going on than it appears.

It starts with Jesus turning up to Jerusalem for the Feast and culminates in chapter 6 with Him putting on a feast for others and eventually revealing Himself to be the Bread of Life!

I am sure Jesus had His eye on the end of all of this from the start of the feast and asked Himself a very simple question: Who could I select to stir up the City that would result in a crowd responding to what I have to give them?

Jesus turns up to a pool that has all kinds of needy people that are waiting for the miracle stirring of the water.
- this is where we often fail to realize that Jesus wants to stir something up inside us!

Jesus selects a person who will defy the cultural norms of the day, which is to pick up your mat and walk on the sabbath.
- this is where we must overcome the pressure that says perfection is required before performance!

Having a need makes us eligible for God to move in and through us but willingness is required.

The willingness of this one man to break man-made customs caused the City to become aware of something that was actually always available but seemingly hidden at the time.

At the stirring of the pool, Jesus found one individual that He could use to stir up the City and create intense hunger.

Chapter 6 sees a great crowd follow Jesus to a mountainside because of the miracles in the City, and then He miraculously feeds them all.

The climax is in v35, 'I am the bread of life...'

It is way too easy to sit by our pool-side familiarity waiting for some routine of life to satisfy us!
The Challenge: allow Jesus to call you to stand in the midst of your need and walk for Him.

Jesus wants to select you and stir up your neighbourhood so their hunger is ultimately met by turning to Him!

A Stirring Selection!

Does God like what He sees?

I am still so humbled by God's amazing grace and can't even fathom what it must have been like for Him when He looked upon the Earth and was sorry that He made the human race. 

How sad that God would create us in His own image and we would trash that precious gift of life.  

 

Gen 6

Noah and His Sons 5 God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil—evil, evil, evil from morning to night. 6 God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. 7 God said, "I'll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds—the works. I'm sorry I made them." 8 But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah.

God is intimately involved with His creation, and how we respond to Him actually does influence our relationship with Him. 

John Bevere once said 'You are as close to God as you want to be!'

- this comment threw me at first because I always thought my relationship with God depended solely on God.

Is God waiting for me?

Is there deeper intimacy waiting for me on the other side of my proactivity?

This all came from thy verse in James 4 - 'Draw near to God and He will draw near to you'

I know I am no more special than anyone else but find it devastating that God would look upon the whole human race, all those He loves, and be so sorry that He made them.

But then I take great encouragement from the fact that Noah was different and God liked what He saw in Noah!

Religious Lace

I have sent a few emails and instant messages lately with sentences like, 'I pray that...' Or 'praying for you...' And to be honest, I often question myself just as I'm about to hit the send button...am I REALLY praying for them or will I actually remember to follow through??

Like most, my prayer life could sure increase but I'm more talking now about the need to sound spiritual. Whenever I used the words 'hoping things work better etc', I wondered if 'hope' was a good enough thing to say.
Maybe what I'm really suggesting is that I didn't feel spiritual enough.
Would people think I was committed to them?
Would people see 'hope' as token?
Would my concerns for people have more weight if I used the word 'pray' instead?

But if I do use a different word, like pray, how weighty is it really if I don't pray??
And why do I feel the need to look bette than I really am anyway?

Julia, my wife, just read this verse to me in the message:
Matt 5:34-35
And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I will pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.

This dilemma is more common than we realise and speaks to a deeper issue within humanity, which is the need to be accepted!

Our words need not to be used to impress one another but to help one another.

I am learning all the time that my words have greater impact when they flow from a heart that believes in people instead of the need to be accepted and using Religious Lace.