Fearfully And Wonderfully Made

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You have heard these words I would guess many times.

Do you believe them? Do you understand them? Do you realise what they truly mean?

We showed a video at our service yesterday morning entitled “Fearfully & Wonderfully Made”. If you haven’t seen it then here is a link to the You Tube site it is found on: The Video

It just has images and text on it. Here is the text that is on the video:

Fearfully And Wonderfully Made Text

By the time we are born the infant’s brain has more neurons than there are stars in the galaxy

The developing brain of a baby in it’s mothers womb grows on average 250,000 neurons per minute – that is on average 4,000 neurons per second of the 9 month pregnancy

Human bone is as strong as granite in supporting weight. A block of bone the size of a matchbox can support 9 tonnes – that is four times as much as concrete can support

The focusing muscles of the eyes move around 100,000 times a day. To give your leg muscles the same workout, you would need to walk 50 miles every day

In 30 minuets, the average body gives off enough heat (combined) to bring a half gallon of water to boil

The ears can discriminate 1,600 different frequencies

Blood journeys endlessly through 60,000 miles of blood vessels out from the heart and back in less than a minute

Stretched out end to end blood vessels and capillaries could wrap around the entire planet more than twice

The heart usually beats 70 times a minute and pumps 2,000 gallons of blood a day

The body contains 206 bones, of which more than half are located in the hands and feet

The legs and feet withstand up to 5,000 pounds of pressure per square inch when running

The hand is the apex of the body’s engineering design; 25 joints allowing 58 distinctly different motions, which makes the hand the most versatile instrument on Earth

Sperm and ovum unite to form a zygote, believed to contain the blueprint for a creature of 60 trillion cells in a package no bigger than the point of a pin

Put together our small and large intestines are around 8 meters long

When children are little, their skeletons re-new themselves every 2 years

You have over 230 moveable and semi-moveable joints in your body

50,000 of the cells in your body will die and be replaced with new cells; all while you have been reading this sentence

In 1 square inch of skin there lies 4 yards of nerve fibres, 1,300 nerve cells, 100 sweat glands, 3 million cells, and 3 yards of blood vessels

In one hour your heart works hard enough to produce the equivalent energy to raise almost 1 ton of weight 1 yard off the ground

There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being

The average human’s heart will beat 3,000 million times and will pump 48 million gallons of blood in their lifetime

You are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

So why is it important to really know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made?

Well I shared a couple of scriptures before showing the video and would again share them here:

Psalm 139 vs. 13 – 16:

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my

mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvellous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Ephesians 2 vs. 10 (a):

“For we are God’s masterpiece”

Once we know we are valued in this way, that God took time over us even before we were born and the fact that He sees us as His masterpieces, then we can begin to understand our value to our Heavenly Father.

And if you ever question “why” you are here and “do I have a purpose” in this life, in my church, at my place of work, read this again, watch the video again. Look at the intricate details that have been woven into your creation, into the creation of you.

You are truly YOUnique!!

There is simply no one like you.

And God just wants to lavish His love upon you.

Don’t ever listen to the lie that says you are nothing, you are not worth it that God does not love you.

The Master thinks you are His masterpiece, loving you so much allowing His Son to die in yours and my place.

You are Fearfully & Wonderfully made

God Bless

WHO WILL YOU TALK TO TODAY?

Back in January I wrote a blog called “What Is Your Excuse” when I talked about making excuses for why we could or could not do something and in particular focused on that something being God’s call on our lives.

I wrote about God equipping the “called” and not calling the equipped. So no matter what excuse you and I make about not being capable of doing something God will always find a way of giving us the abilities to carry out what He has in store for us.

Well I would like to push this out a little further and look at who we interact with on a daily basis.

I think it is fairly significant if we first accept that we are imitators of Christ, our life’s pattern as Christians and we are called to be His ambassadors.

Allow me to expand on that in order for me in a short while to make us think a little.

What is an “ambassador”?

The Oxford English Dictionary definition is: “An accredited diplomat sent by a state as its permanent representative in a foreign country”.

Now in light of firstly reading that definition of the word “ambassador” let us think once again on the scripture from 2 Corinthians 5 and verses 18 – 21 but in particular I emphasise verse 20:

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ”

So if you need to just read it again……………..

We are God’s accredited diplomats – we are His voice here on Earth – through US God makes His appeal to those that do not know Him!!

Are you slightly taken aback with that realisation?

Think about how we are being His ambassadors. Do we just take our roles as Christians on Earth for granted. When we are told to take a stand against oppression whether faith based or otherwise do we sit and believe someone else will do that it’s what they are “into”. When we as Christians are asked to do some very simple stuff like write to your MP to take a stand on the erosion of Christian values? I think too often we do.

So we need to turn that around. An ambassador is meant to speak on behalf of whom he or she represents. So let us just think about something really simple that will enable us to make a start. The title of this blog:

“Who will you talk to today”??

I said earlier Jesus was our life’s pattern as Christians. So what pattern did He show us?

Certainly He sat down with fellow Christians and discussed all sorts of things, in His conversations with the disciples He provided teaching and guidance. But if His pattern was to talk “amongst” His own, then all we would need to do is stay inside the walls of whatever building we use to gather together in or just amongst the circle of our “church” friends. If that is all we do then I think we are seriously missing something in what He taught and showed us.

An ambassador was sent out to be a representative in a “foreign land”!

That means OUTSIDE of our church building or church family.

Let’s look at some of the people who Jesus spoke to during His time on Earth

(From the New Living Translation Study Bible):

Person:                                                                            Reference:

A despised tax collector                                                     Matthew 9

An insane hermit                                                                Mark 5

The Roman governor                                                        Mark 15

A young boy                                                                     Mark 9

An important religious leader                                              John 3

A homemaker                                                                    Luke 10

A legal expert                                                                    Matthew 22

A criminal                                                                           Luke 23

A church leader                                                                 Mark 5

A fisherman                                                                       Matthew 4

A King                                                                                Luke 23

A poor widow                                                                     Luke 7

A military officer                                                                 Luke 7

A group of children                                                            Mark 10

A prophet                                                                          Matthew 3

A woman who had committed adultery                              John 8

The Jewish high council                                                      Luke 22

A sick lady                                                                         Mark 5

A rich man                                                                         Mark 10

A blind beggar                                                                   Mark 10

Political leaders                                                                   Mark 12

A group of women                                                             Luke 8

A high priest                                                                      Matthew 26

An outcast who had leprosy                                               Luke 17

A government minister                                                      John 4

A traitor                                                                            John 13

A paralysed man                                                               Mark 2

An angry mob                                                                  John 18

A foreign lady                                                                    Mark 7

A doubter                                                                         John 20

An enemy who hated Him                                                 Acts 9

So look through that list and apply some modern day people to that list. I suggest:

The sick

The rich

The poor

Politicians

Religious leaders

Women

Men

Young

Old

Criminals

Those with psychological problems

Do you know I think that pretty much covers anyone and everyone in our society

So look down the list of those people you are likely to be interacting with. Ignore all of your friends within your “church” – they are not in a spiritual foreign land. Now who are you left with??

If you don’t have some of the above mix, then how on earth are you and I going to be God’s ambassadors???

My purpose and intention is to always try and be an encourager.

Sometimes I am lead to challenge myself and my fellow Christians.

So I will ask you one final time:

WHO WILL YOU TALK TO TODAY?

God Bless

TIME TO DE-CLUTTER

So how much junk and rubbish do you accumulate over a period of time? That can be a very short period too sometimes.

I so often say I will hang on to something “just in case” or “I may need it again one day”.

Well the last two weeks have made me realise that I need to drop that habit and only hang on to things that are of value (and I do not necessarily mean financially) and that will be of real use to me or my family now and in the future.

Two weeks ago my eldest son moved out of our home to set up a home of his own. This came with a whole range of mixed feelings for both Julie and I ranging from sadness at his departure and sharing joy and excitement that he is moving on and taking hold of his own life.

As a consequence of this we undertook a fairly radical change around within our house. We have six children in all, with Matt moving out that still left a household of seven. We live in a three bedroom semi detached house that has two reception rooms one of which has been converted into a bedroom, so that gives us four bedrooms. We have four girls (well ladies ranging from 14 – 22) and two boys (Matt having left now and Tom who is 18 – so grown man not so much a boy). The boys were sharing the room downstairs and the girls were also sharing two per room.

The decision was that EVERY room used as a bedroom would be swopped around, fully re-decorated and we would all move into a new bedroom, ending up with Tom in the smaller room on his own. And at the same time the seven of us would have to continue living eating sleeping and working. So a simple task!!!!

We have completed that process, every room has been re-decorated and everyone is now sleeping in a new bedroom as a result.

However, in mine and Julies old bedroom (which was the biggest one in the house) I had my office where I worked from whenever I was home based, which was on average two weeks out of four, the other two weeks was/is travelling around Europe. I had a large desk, two bookcases and two, two drawer filing cabinets. Within all of this I had retained all the vital and key paperwork over the past five years of being home based that I knew would be absolutely vital in the future and was absolutely key to me continuing my business role.

Isn’t it interesting when you know that you will no longer have space to keep things what you previously viewed as vital and important you realise is just an accumulation of “stuff” and in fact is just in the way. I spent two or three days working through all of the paperwork that I had, all of the old files I had kept, all the notes that I had written down. As I looked through each one I realised I did not “need” any of it. Slowly but surely it all disappeared and was destroyed and what was a huge expanse of bits and pieces was reduced to three folders now kept in one of the filing cabinets, which also now houses all of our household documents too. Books I have boxed and moved up into the loft out of the way, but they are on my list next to be worked through and passed onto charity for others to enjoy/use.

Everything I thought was important to me achieving and accomplishing my business role was actually the opposite, it was in the way, unnecessary and simply accumulated rubbish.

And it took me to thinking about our own lives spiritually.

We accumulate rubbish as we live out our day to day existence. And the more we gather in and the more we hang on to the less room we give to what really matters, to what God really has in store for us.

John 15 vs. 1 – 4 says this:

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. 3 You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me”.

I am no gardener – ask friends they will tell you – it’s just not my “thing”. But I do know that in order to produce a crop/fruit you have to clear away the rubbish surrounding the plant to let it grow, you sometimes need to prune in order to allow renewed growth to take place.

That is no different for our spiritual life.

Just thing about the “things” you have hung on to in your spiritual life that may well hinder you going forward………….I’m just going to list a few for you and me to consider:

·        Incorrect Friendships – if you are influenced by someone who is not a Christian, if you take and receive counsel from them maybe there needs to be a pruning. How are you going to be encouraged in your walk with Daddy God if people you take advice from do not event know who He is. This is not about having or not having non-Christian friendships, this is about deciding who you will allow to have influence over what you do

·        Retention of past hurts – hanging onto the feeling the pain of something or someone who has hurt you in some way, either recently or in the past. If you hang onto that pain and hurt then you will suppress the richness and joy that Daddy has for you. You need to find a way that you can let those feelings go, not that you can necessarily make your mind forget things that have happened but you CAN give them over to Daddy God so that even if you bring an incident to mind you have removed the anger and the pain that may go along with it. I have quoted this before (paraphrased a bit I know) “Hurt people hurt people, loved people love people” – we MUST be in the position where we can be people who love people

·        Accepting Lies – how many lies do you accept, and allow to settle on you? “God heals but He won’t heal me” “I’m not good enough” “I’m not wanted/needed” – what RUBBISH – we are all fearfully and wonderfully made so that means we are all wanted, we are HIS masterpieces – that’s pretty amazing (see my previous blog on “True Identity”). None of us are “good enough” to enter Heaven that’s a fact, and we can never be “good enough” – but we can through grace be saved and sanctified and as such through the death of Jesus we can enter Heaven. If you allow the enemy to say you are worthless then that is what you will believe and that is RUBBISH. If you and I were worthless why did God allow His only Son to die in our place? He did so because He loves and cares for us and because He believes we are worth it!! And whilst I cannot pretend to be God and cannot tell you why some people receive healing and others do not I can tell you God does heal and He can and will heal you and we need to know that and be convinced of that fact

These are just a few to prompt thinking.

We need to learn to do a little pruning in our lives. We need to cut off and remove dead wood/branches – those areas in our lives that are not bearing fruit, bitterness, unbelief, untruths and misaligned influences

Be sure to surround yourself with people of God who will help nurture and guide you and who will not be afraid to provide you with spiritual correction (and I do not mean simply moan at you at tell you that you are wrong – correction is not “telling off”).

For me I watch how people live their lives and how they walk their spiritual path not just what they say publicly – you have to walk out what it is you speak out otherwise you are a clanging gong making lots of noise and empty. As such when I am seeking counsel I have a list of people I will ask to engage with me on that and help me see what needs to be changed, what needs to be removed from my life, or introduced into it.

If we continue to clutter up our lives with the dirt from this world, with all the historical rubbish, we will not leave any room for God to work in and through us, we will just end up projecting ourselves to the world because we haven’t allowed any room for God to be in control of what we do.

So I have had a house de-clutter, and I have been working through a spiritual de-clutter for the past years or so.

I think we need to learn to have a regular and periodic de-clutter, an overhaul of our spiritual lives, on a regular basis, always ensuring that we get rid of the dross we can pick up from time to time and ensure we are always allowing God the room to work in our loves.

God Bless

JUDGING and PRE-JUDGING

How quickly do we make a judgement? I think the answer is often too quickly

We see something on face value and we decide we know what it’s all about, or what will happen and make a decision about a situation or a person – a judgement.

How many people watched “Britain’s Got Talent” last week? I did (well not live but the recording of it). Towards the end this couple came out, a young girl and someone who I at first thought was a girl but turned out to be a young lad. There is no doubt that one of the first definitions of him was that he was really big, and he was. That was an observation not a judgement (see me in person and you would know why I am not the one to talk about size).

However listening to their story (he had been bullied because of his size and this girl had supported him) they were both at singing classes and the singing tutor thought they would be good to sing together as they sounded good. I’d heard this before and thought “this will be a disaster they always are when a “singing teacher” thinks their pupils are good”. Simon Cowell (one of the judges) was sub titled as saying “just when you thought it couldn’t get worse” as they walked onto stage, so he had pre judged this pair too.

When the girl sang she was good, when the young man sang it was truly angelic. He was amazing. It was the same sensation as when Susan Boyle first sang on stage a couple of years ago and most people wrote her off before she sang.

As these two sang I can honestly say I was so moved I cried. Truly amazing

If you have not seen it then follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3Utn4mjeg Charlotte and Jonathan “Let This Be Our Prayer”

So what about when we sit in our chairs and pews. Do we judge those around us? Have we passed condemnation on those that we do not know before we have even met them?

Actually I think the “church” at large does. I think as Christians we become very quick to state as fact that we have it right and as such all others are wrong and that they should do or should not do this that or the other.

Now please do not confuse this with the fact that I will stand up for my Saviour at every opportunity that I can and I will not back away from what the scriptures have taught me and those wonderfully blessed ministers and teachers that I do and have sat under over many years of following the Christian faith.

My point is that whilst I do believe many actions and activities are against the teachings of God’s word that is because He has convicted me of that through my faith in Him and through the teaching I have received. Where people have not been exposed to any of that how can they even understand why what they may be doing could be against what God teaches us?

So the actions people carry out may well be wrong but too often we go beyond recognising that an activity or an action is wrong and we jump straight into the role of judge and jury and have condemned that person outright.

Luke 6 vs. 37 says “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven”

So quite possibly you are fine as you gather on a Sunday morning for your corporate worship, because everyone is a familiar face, you know everyone and it is all quite cosy. And actually living in Norfolk where I do that can often be the case. But picture the scenario where a guy with a coat that hasn’t been washed for many days comes in, he smells a bit, he sits next to you. He looks at you and mumbles “hello”.

So you can do a few things, turn your nose up at the smell and be a good “Christian” and just grin and bear it saying nothing and avoiding too much contact, but maybe returning a quick “hi” to be polite. You could just find the smell too much and get up and walk away and sit somewhere else. Maybe you show real love, engage in a conversation, find he is homeless take him for a meal or invite to your home for dinner.

THINK CAREFULLY – what would you REALLY do? I am not convinced many would ACTUALLY take him to dinner although we would all say “I hope I would fulfil some of his needs” (i.e. take him or give him a meal).

What do you do now for the person who doesn’t quite fit the norm, do you avoid them, just be polite or really engage and find out something about them so you can see where you can provide help.

You see I don’t think being judgemental has to be as cut and dried as we think it is. I think it can enter into our church lifestyles quite quickly and easily.

So what about something that is more controversial? What are you going to do when a gay couple walk into your church? It may not be outwardly obvious, but let us assume for arguments sake that it is. Again similar questions, are you going to engage with them in conversation, are you just going to pretend or are you going to walk away because they are “so bad”?

Now I personally believe that same sex relationships are wrong, as taught in scripture. But I also think drinking too much alcohol is wrong.

Does that mean I judge any of people in those situations, say someone who either occasionally gets drunk, or has a full blown issue with alcohol? No it does not. I still engage with them. I still talk to them. I still share part of my life with them. Not stepping outside of the faith that I have through the grace of Jesus, but being “part of the world” engaging with all people that enter in and out of my life at different times.

The point I am making is that if we judge people outright then they have no chance of encountering the truth that has been revealed to us through Jesus Christ.

And that is all we can do, reveal that truth by the way we live, the way we act, more towards fellow man than fellow Christian (it’s really easy to love and engage with people of a like mind). What people observe on the way we behave to those around us is the measure they will have of the Christian faith. We can share what we have but only the Holy Spirit can convict a heart and so we are not responsible for them making or not making a decision to follow Christ.

That also means we have to do so much more than just say “we are against the change to the marriage laws as proposed by the UK government”. I use that as a current and recent example. We have to explain why we are opposed to something.

Let me expand using a situation from a recent church (no name given or shared).

At a service during the past two months in the UK in a church, a notice was given concerning the recent petitions that have been doing the rounds opposing the move to allow gay marriage in church. The notice was fairly simple it was along the lines of we are submitting the petition soon and if anyone else wants to sign it then please do so after the service. Maybe 30 seconds of the service time. It was followed by a comment to the effect of “it’s important we sign or write about this and oppose the government in the action they are taking”.

That’s was fine no problem, and as I have mentioned above as an individual I am in agreement with the petition and opposed to the change proposed in the marriage laws. So if I had heard that I would think nothing much of it other than “yep already done that”.

The service went on and had some worship with a range of songs talking about lifting God high, Him being awesome, Jesus coming to save etc. The message was a strong message, delivered with authority and power and full of the Holy Spirits blessing, and at the end of it many people were prayed for the Spirit continued to move and many were slain in the Spirit and really blessed

Fantastic, great service, powerful presence of God, “tick in the box”

Some people had visited that service, and were not church people but were visiting a family friend and had agreed to come along. What was it they took away from the service?

“Why do you (meaning the church) hate Gays’ so much?”

You see what had happened was that what to the usual congregation was an innocent notice was seen by someone external to the normal meeting as being judgemental. A service that shared love and provided blessing to so many was seen as hypocritical in light of the notice given

I am not saying that as Christians (or preachers or teachers) that we should step away from something God has convicted in our hearts, but I think we do have to look at how we deliver that. “If we condemn we are condemned”.

No, far from it I think we have to be stronger in standing up for Christian values. We enjoy the privilege of freedom of choice and free speech and that must be preserved without it rising to hatred or inciting hatred in any way to another person. We need to be aware of the thin line we tread between standing up for our values, and being a judging person.

And make sure we bring that back into our every day life. Think twice before you judge the guy in front of you, that person who doesn’t appear as “normal” as you, who smells a little more unsavoury than your delicate nose was designed to handle. Sunday morning look again and look around you and just think “is there anyone I go out of my way to avoid in here” and if so seriously ask why. I’m going to guess somewhere you are holding onto a judgement of some sort.

For one second just imagine what it would be like if no one judged another person, outside of the rules of the law of the land and the courts, and actually if we could all live without that whether in church or not, how much richer and more peacful life would be.

Someone has to make a start. As the church of God in this world will you join me?

God Bless

FOOTSTEPS

So I know this is very quickly behind that last post, but something that has been going on for me over several months/the past year, came into focus this afternoon during one of our (almost) regular walks.

Have you ever heard it said “He will follow in his father’s footsteps”? (Substitute the he for a she and father for mother where it applies). Have you ever said it, has it ever been said over or about you? Quite possibly you could say yes to all three of those.

Have you ever thought about what it means to follow in another’s footsteps?

It doesn’t always apply to a parent but can be a mentor or a friend etc.

Of course it can have both positive and negative meanings depending on the path led by the person you are following. However, this is focused on the positive and is pre-supposing that the person or example that I am looking to follow is a positive one.

Now I would be deeply honoured to hear I am following in my father’s or my brother’s footsteps, people who apart from being my family are God centred individuals who I deeply admire.

Above all Earthly footsteps, family or otherwise, I want to strive to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, my pattern and my role model as a Christian.

But have you ever tried to literally walk in someone’s footsteps?

Today we took a walk on the beach, along with Forrest my daughter’s dog. As we walked along the sand I was left slightly behind my wife and daughter (I do not walk very quickly) and I was looking at the footprints my wife had left and I tried to step exactly where she had done so I was literally walking in her footsteps. It was not as easy as I had first thought it may be.

Julie’s stride pattern was shorter than mine, and so I had to adjust the steps I was taking, this felt awkward and I found it far more tiring than walking to my own pattern. And then it got worse for me as her direction had changed and she was walking through softer sand that I always find harder to walk in, but was made even more difficult by trying to match her step for step and stride for stride.

When we are asked to follow in the footsteps of Jesus we are not told that every step we take will be easy, simple or in the direction we are currently heading. We have to make changes, we have to learn to change and we have to be committed to staying with that change no matter how difficult so that we can stay following those footsteps laid down in front of us.

For some time now God has been teaching me a lesson or twenty. I am a person who likes to think I have everything pretty much sorted out and know what I am doing and where I am going. I like to think that I know what God would have me do.

But for me that means I often fall into my usual pattern. I will make difficult adjustments I will change the stride of my walk to fit His footsteps, but too soon the path He is taking me on gets difficult and I find I am walking through that softer sand, where it is heavier going, and all to quickly I will move over to an easier path, finding once again that familiar place known as my “comfort zone”.

So more recently He has been adjusting my thoughts, He has been teaching me to listen and assuring me that His destiny for me is something that cannot be achieved by doing the same as I have always done, by walking in the way I have always walked. I am learning to just take hold of the direction He is leading me, to grasp the opportunities He places in front of me to honour Him and He is teaching me to seek out His footsteps and place my feet where He has led me.

I am still learning and I pray that I will continue to listen to Him that I will continue to adjust my walk to be fully aligned to His.

How much are you willing to change the steps you are taking, to adjust your stride patterns so that the steps you take mirror the steps He has already taken?

Oh to have said “He is walking in His Heavenly Father’s footsteps”

God Bless You All

RESPONSIBILITY

I am deeply privileged to be responsible for nurturing the lives of 6 wonderful young people, my children. Four daughters and two sons.

As parents we have our children with us for quite a short time of their entire lives. During that time we hope to provide them some guidance to help and enable them to live out the rest of their lives, to make informed decisions and ultimately as Christians we hope that they find a pathway to the saving grace that comes from knowing Jesus.

I have heard many quotations concerning children during my lifetime:

“Children should be seen and not heard”

“Spare the rod and spoil the child”

“Like mother, like daughter and similarly like father like son”

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them”

And there are those from scripture:

Proverbs 22 vs. 6

“Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it”

I Timothy 4 v 12

“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity” (as I posted in last month’s blog).

And there are many more.

A short while ago I was reading Proverbs chapter one and came across these verses on which I have pondered for a while:

Proverbs 1 vs. 8 & 9:

“My child, listen when your father corrects you, don’t neglect your mother’s instruction. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honour around your neck”

So the emphasis shifts from focusing in the “child” and turns the focus on us as parents and guardians of the young. The instruction may be to “the child” but the responsibility is clearly placed at the feet of parents. The child is told “what they learn” is important and will be a focal point of their future, this “chain of honour”

As always this led me to thinking about what “chain” my children would see. And it led me further into fully appreciating that EVERYTHING I do has an impact on how they will live in the future. What they see “behind closed doors” is the “real” me, “warts and all”. They see me happy, sad, angry and glad. They have a first hand view of how I react and deal with everything that comes our way weather that, in our eyes, is something good or something bad. They also see how I behave towards other people and how I talk about and treat other people.

So as is often the case I reflected how this passage could apply to us all, parents or not. I realise it specifically mentions mother and father, but I also see the focus is for the child to be guided, and obviously the role of the parent is absolutely key in developing this.

However as a body of God’s people we all have a role to play in developing and nurturing the young. And right now I am not simply talking about age, but about spiritual maturity too. How each and every one of us reacts to each other, with those within the “family” of God and those who are outside of the “family” is absolutely crucial in the development of the “young”. New Christians are like children regardless of age in that they will look around and observe how those of us who are slightly more mature in our faith behave, and will reflect that behaviour.

So please just allow me a little “poetic” licence and adjust that verse in Proverbs slightly (retaining the emphasis of the passage):

“Young Christian, listen when those in leadership correct you, don’t neglect your fellow Christians example. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honour around your neck”

Children, young people and new Christians need solid role models, they need good examples and they can only come from the people they surround themselves with, be that birth parents or be that fellow Christians.

Jesus was our role model, our example, and we are told to reflect His image.

If I thought I had responsibilities before, now this passage in Proverbs has made me realise more than ever that we all have a responsibility as we live out our lives each and every day.

I pray that Daddy God gives me the strength to reflect Jesus in a positive way so that I do not cause my child, or a brother or sister to slip up because of what they have seen me do.

Amen and God Bless

ENCOURAGE ENCOURAGE

Up until receiving a communication the other day I was torn between three half written blogs, not sure how to finish any one of them or which one to focus on first. And then I received this message and I knew what I wanted to say.

The saying goes “Children should be seen and not heard”.

Well that’s how the saying went (sort of) when it first came about in the 15^th Century. In fact it was aimed at young women but has become a phrase aimed at all young people regardless of gender.

Some people have claimed this phrase is from scripture when clearly it is not.

I have heard it said over me many a time (can’t think why) and I am sure that most people have.

However I think we have lessons to learn from some of our children and for that reason I want to hear their voices speak out. “From the mouths of babes……” another saying/phrase which can be so true

I want to relate 3 stories that should help us (us = those no longer “young” in age) to encourage our young people and yes, even listen to what they have to say. One from scripture, one from my much younger life and one from this past week……………..the idea is to encourage!!

A young man named Samuel heard the voice of God and came to his mentor Eli believing that Eli had called out to him and asked Eli what he wanted. Eli basically told Samuel to go away as he (Eli) had not heard anything and he had not called Samuel. This happened a number of times until Eli realised that it must have been God that was calling out to Samuel and Eli told Samuel the next time you hear your name being called simply say “yes Lord, here I am I’m listening”. The whole story is told in 1 Samuel chapter 3. Verse one says: “The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli”

So firstly we know Samuel was young, he was called a “boy”. We also know he was being taught and mentored by an older and wiser man, Eli, who was able to pass on his understanding of what was happening and guide Samuel in the right direction.

As parents we have a similar role to play as Eli did, to guide and nurture our children and provide them good counsel and advice as they face various problems or challenges or where they need clarity and understanding on a subject. As older more experienced Christians the role is very much like that in that we should be seeking to guide and encourage the young people in our churches, and allow them to grow into a deeper experience of our Daddy God.

And I have said before in a previous blog that we can never truly know where the seed we sow might grow and bare forth fruit in spectacular ways, but we have to just keep sowing. And our young can do that as much as we can.

A young boy of 9 years old was playing with his brother who was then 6 and they often played their favourite game pretending to be in charge of a space ship and flying all over the universe saving people (the space ship was the bay window of their shared bedroom behind curtains which made the window area their cockpit. It was very simple, no electronic gadgets but they had heaps of fun. On this particular day the 6 year old turned to his 9 year old brother and said “How do I become a Christian?” The 9 year old simply said “You ask Jesus to be your saviour, your friend”. “And how do I do that?”. “You say a prayer” said the 9 year old and at that point they both kneeled down by the side of one of the beds and prayed a prayer together just asking Jesus to be the younger brothers friend.

That conversation had been overheard by the parents who were intrigued about what the boys were talking about.

The 6 year old’s name was Chris – my brother (I was the 9 year old) – and some 40 years later Chris is a full time missionary working with an organisation called Living Hope Ministries who not only equip and train church leaders but also have the opportunity to preach the gospel to many hundreds even thousands of people at rallies that he is invited to and through prayer have seen many healing miracles. The work he does for God has taken him to Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, India, Poland, Bosnia and will soon be going to South Africa and Mozambique with further plans for Burundi and Malawi in 2013. An amazing Godly man!!!

I share that not to “big” me up but to demonstrate that we can never truly know how those simple things we do can lead to something much bigger.

And our young people can be amazing avenues of revelation for us too. And that is what stimulated this blog this week.

The other day I received a Facebook “in box” (an email or message within the Facebook set up) from a young lady (now 17/18) whom I have observed growing up over a number of years. I have watched her stay faithful to God and observed how she has sought Him to be relevant and leading in her life.

So she sent me this message in which she said she had been considering for a few weeks and weighing up how she was going to share it with me. It was things she felt God had placed on her heart and it was for me personally.

Now I am not naming the girl here because in these blogs I tend only to name my own family members or people from whom I have asked specific permission, but I will say that for a very large number of people who read this you will know her and be aware of her family.

As I read through what she wrote it was evidently clear that this was of God. So much of what she called out in her note to me had been either prayed over me or it supported words and prophecies I had received from people she could not know or were things I was being challenged about or experiencing right now in my life. She has read my blogs, so knew some stuff about me but, she talked into things I had not shared on this blog at all.

Simply put it was a real encouragement and uplift to have received this and I simply wrote back to her and encouraged her to keep seeking after God and explained that it was evident to me that she was truly being used by God.

And that is why I chose to share this. To firstly help us of the slightly more mature age bracket to be willing to listen out for what our younger people have to say. And to be there to support them because they will still need guidance, will still need mentoring but above all else, if they are to continue in the Christian faith, they are to be encouraged by us.

The reason for these blogs to be written in the first place was as a platform to encourage God’s people and stimulate our responses to Him and I just hope that we can all take that role on board, to be encouragers.

And for our younger generation I share this: I Timothy 4 v 12 “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity”

God Bless