The definition of insanity.

One definition of insanity is ‘Repeating the same activity over and over again, expecting different results each time.’

I found that up until recently that my walk with God was uncannily close to that definition. I would be coasting along, feeling that I was right with God, and he was right with me, and then I would slip up. The hurdles might be different; Anger or lust or greed or selfishness, or complacency, but the result was yet another re-dedication to God. Whether at a Christian conference, or at an ‘alter call’ at church, or in a moment alone with God. I just had to say ‘God, I re-dedicate my life to you, I am so sorry, I will never do that again, I promise’ or something similar. I would go along feeling right again, until the next time, when the re-dedication would have to take place. I thought that Grace was the ability for me to re-dedicate myself, when all I was doing was living in the old testament, continually bringing sacrifices for sin, when there was no need.

Then I started to discover true Grace. I began to realise, and am continually learning how, through Jesus, that messing up is OK, and it is a part of the sanctification process. I am discovering the miracle that true Grace is so amazing, that it’s very presence performs the inner healing from the stuff that causes the slip-ups in the first place, and that gradually, the hurdles get smaller.

Free(er) from sin.

I know that until recently, my 20 years as a Christian has been a course in ‘sin management’. It has been a course that I have failed badly, because no one taught me (properly) the ‘Grace module’ that gives you a foolproof chance of passing.

When I started to really get how much God loved me, when everything I have ever learned thus far just began to melt away, I really feel that I can get what it means in Romans 5:20;

All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.

Romans 5:20 The Message

Grace, and the wonderful abandon that comes from knowing that you are adored and cherished by a loving heavenly Father means that sin just isn’t so attractive anymore. It is just so much better to be in relationship with Jesus and those around you.

If you feel no-one has ever taught you properly about Grace, get straight on to God about it now – He can be trusted to give you a proper lesson!

But I don't deserve this...

I have had just the most fantastic day today. I just think that I really don't deserve it, but it's one of those days that you have to mark as really really good. Everything seems to have gone so right.

I actually don't deserve it, but I am getting used to this grace thing - and it is getting a bit easier to just 'take' stuff that is offered & say 'thanks'

It's so simple

Okay, this is the latest bubbling up of what I believe;

God Loves us, all of us, unconditionally, even Likes us, hard as it is for us to believe and would love us to find out how much, by personal tuition. But it's our choice.

I feel particularly loved today.

A hamster guarding a lion.

This made me laugh...

Quote taken from Darin Hufford; http://freebelievers.com/blog-entry/unlikely-messengers

My question is this:

Does our behavior really add to or take away from the message of truth? Does our behavior make receiving the message of truth more or less difficult for people? Is the truth of the message compromised if we don’t adequately represent it? Do we “win people to Jesus” by our abstinence from sin? Is our “witness” really a changed life or modified and moral behavior? Is that what compels people to swallow this message?

If you really consider the mentality that most of us have been raised in, it is amazingly arrogant. To even think that our behavior adds to or subtracts from the message is downright silly. At the very least it shows a personal lack of understanding and revelation of the message itself. It reminds me of the Christians who feel it is their job to guard the truth and stand up for the Bible. If they knew the truth and had experienced it on any level, they would see how absurd such a thought is. It’s like asking a hamster to guard a lion.

They’ll listen when they’re ready.

There seems to be a real unnecessary pressure to tell, tell, tell people about the good news, at every opportunity, even when the time is actually quite inopportune. We seem to think that we know better than God about when is the best time to evangelise and draw people in to the kingdom, and this is born out of the evangelical ‘tradition’ that time is running out and we have to be quick to get people into the kingdom before it is too late.

It is a shame that, in my experience that we have put so many people off the wonderful, attractive, truth of who Jesus Christ really is, because we wrap him up, and insist that if you choose him, you have to have all the ‘add-ons’ that come with modern ‘Christianity’ – the church – going, the conformity to a set of traditions that the church has accumulated over the years, the belonging to a club that sees itself as distinct and not part of, the very world that God himself inhabits and holds together.

What is wrong with just loving people, and being ready to help them find Jesus Christ, when, and only when, the Father starts calling them. Call them he will, because he loves them. Just watch closely, you will see him at work in so many lives, doing a work that no man could ever do.

Where did the (praise and) worship go?

It's a really odd phenomenon, but I just don't feel the desire to listen to praise & worship like I used to - or even sing the same songs. I have noticed this over the course of the last few months. I just want to log it as a "thing that I have discovered", although I don't understand it fully at the moment. Maybe it is me pulling away from the way I used to worship God - maybe I don't look at Him in the same way that I used to - like I wouldn't "worship" a close friend - but that close friend is Almighty God..

I am not the only one to experience this. See;

http://thegodjourney.com/forums/index.php?topic=326.0

Maybe more of this as it becomes clearer? Anyone want to buy some woship CD's?

What is going on & why

We have been unhappy, not with the churches we have attended, but with ‘Institutional Christianity’ as I would now call it, for some time.

It seems that God speaks to us through books, and at the start of 2009 we read ‘The Shack’ which challenged & altered our perceptions of God and then 2 books that were advertised in ‘The Shack’ – ‘So You Don’t Want to go to Church Anymore’ and ‘He Loves Me’.

The books introduced us to a Grace based approach to God – ‘Living Loved’ put simply – Trusting that God loves you and is working in you to make you more like Jesus. The loving others that God shows you and meeting with other believers just comes naturally.

We have been on this ‘God Journey’ for just over 6 months. Our relationship with God just seems to be so much easier, we talk about Him together and much more as a family. There is less pressure as you relax into trusting He is working in our lives. Reading the Bible is easier, (not easier to understand just easier to read!). Don’t ask me why!

We still go to our church homegroup as we love them and just like meeting up.

We are starting to be aware of how God is leading us to love our neighbours and friends, we have never felt so happy to open up our house to others.

It’s not all sweetness & light, it’s a journey, but He is with us on it.

If you want to find out more visit http://wwwthegodjourney.com/

Was Christianity Ever Meant to Be a Religion?

Extract from Body Life Magazine; http://www.lifestream.org/bodylife.php?blid=57

By Wayne Jacobsen

I guess all of this begs the question, did Jesus intend to start a religion called Christianity, or did we do this to ourselves? I suspect the latter. I am wholeheartedly convinced that he came to end all religions, not by lashing out against them, but by filling up in the human spirit what religion promises to fill but never can. Religion seeks to manipulate human effort to earn God's approval, when such approval can never be earned.

Abraham, a Jewish man, lead the tour portion of a trip to Israel I was on fifteen years ago. Some of those on the tour had been rude to his faith as they tried to "help" him embrace Jesus as the Messiah. On the last morning, I found him alone by the bus and had the chance to ask him if he'd been offended by some of the remarks.

He smiled. He told me he'd been guiding tours for 30 years and someone is always trying to convert him to their faith--Christians, Reformed Jews, Muslims and Mormons. Then he asked me, "Do you know why it makes no difference to me?"

I shook my head. He led me out to the street and pointed at a building, "Do you see that synagogue with the star of David? That's our building. The one over there with the cross on it is yours. Further down, do you see the dome? That's theirs. On the surface they may look different, but underneath they are all basically the same. You would think that if one of us was serving the Living God, it would look differently."

I still remember how much his words impacted me. Religion is the same all over the world. It is a prescribed set of doctrine, rules, rituals, and ethics. It celebrates sacred space, exalts holy-men as gurus and tries to muscle its way into the culture. For 2000 years many have practiced Christianity as a religion, essentially no different than the others, except in who it claims to follow. But if one of us was serving a Living God, wouldn't it look very different?

When we cram the life of God into a box, we rob it of its life and power and only distinguish it from other religions by claiming a more truthful doctrine. Could that be why Jesus didn't teach his disciples how to gain a following or build institutions. He didn't teach them how to meet on Sunday mornings at 10:00 with a worship band and a leader to lecture the others. He didn't give them a prescribed set of behaviors that people were suppose to follow as the means to serve God.

No, he invited them into his Father's house, and a reality of relationship with his Father that would transform them and opened the way for them to share that love with others. That you can't put into a religion and trying to only chokes out any hope of relationship. Putting creed and doctrine above a growing friendship with him supplants the reality he offered us, no matter how correct our doctrine or moral our ethics.

Don't get me wrong. Truth is vital, as is righteousness, but without love they are also empty. Learning to live as a beloved child is far more transforming than the greatest principle you can follow. The life of Christian community isn't found by sharing religion together, but by embracing a journey of growing relationship with him that transforms us by his grace and power.

Let me know if this gives you food for thought?

The kingdom of God

Philip Yancey in “The Jesus I never knew” writes;

“Sheep among wolves, a tiny seed in a garden, yeast in bread dough, salt in meat: Jesus’ own metaphors of the kingdom describe a kind of a “secret force” that works from within. He said nothing of a triumphant church, sharing power with the authorities. The kingdom of God appears to work best as a minority movement, in opposition to the kingdom of the world. When it grows beyond that, the kingdom subtly changes in nature.”

He carries on to say;

On another occasion, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come. He replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

Clearly, the kingdom of God operates by a different set of rules from any earthly kingdom’s. God’s kingdom has no geographical borders, no capital city, no parliament building, no royal trappings that you can see. It’s followers live right among their enemies, not separated from them by a border fence or wall. It lives, and grows, on the inside of human beings.”

Just this last week, I experienced the kingdom of God in my own life. It was a very subtle thing, but enough to notice, enough to make me realise that something had changed. I was not trapped by the same old selfishness that had reigned in the past. I was free of the old behaviour, and I felt free. How did this ‘experience of the kingdom’ come about? Did I read my Bible more than usual? Did I pray more than usual? No. I simply trusted that God is changing me like he said he would. It was a small victory in the war against sin in my life, and God won it. Not me.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step...

It's about time I started sharing some of the stuff God is doing in my life. Will compose something very soon...