Active Love

Have you ever been in a relationship where you felt that there was just no real connection?

You know the kind where no matter what you said or did or when you said or did it, it just seemed to be wrong at the time.
Some of us may identify a relationship with our mother-in-law, our boss, a love interest or school friends.
The sad part about this kind of lack of connection is that it does happen and seems to be part of our understanding of the world we live in.

Yet deep down, if you are like me, you might want so badly to be friends with everyone you meet. We want to understand and be understood by them. We want to be inspired by their stories of tragedy overcome, intense joy lived and above all the way they experience the gift called life.

I wasn’t always so keen to know people. I chose to go farming because I feared people. But one day God touched my life in a very powerful way and slowly He changed my heart. And He taught me about active love.

We all have stories (life experiences) to share (telling and listening).

Telling our stories, when we’d rather be private, is not blowing our horn, but rather helping others to be inspired, encouraged and challenged.

For me that is active love.

Sharing our stories helps break our selfish nature and in the process discover our humanness and that really, we all want to love and be loved. By sharing we place ourselves in a ministry opportunity.

May God open your heart to share with others.

Why does God use us?

Have you ever wondered why God chooses to use us?

For the past three weeks we have run our annual stewardship series, which is really around what God says about money.
During this journey (as with every time we embark on this teaching) I have been amazed that God chooses people to fulfil His purposes. He uses us to spread the Gospel. He uses us to disciple one another. He uses us to care for the sick and lost. He uses us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the prisoner.
The truly amazing part is that we are often naked, lost, hungry, sick and so on ourselves, yet He uses us!

As we grow in our faith, we learn that God wants to reach us and others by using our spiritual gifts, personal style, passions and the faithful giving of our resources and money.

However, one of the great inhibitors of our being able to be used by God is feelings of guilt. Feeling guilty for not doing enough or having the wrong motivations or – whatever.

If you are feeling guilty, my prayer is that you would open yourself to God’s call for you to make this world a different place, however small or limited you think your contribution might be.

God wants to use you in a powerful way!

If you have a story in which God used you, please share it with us.

Where we are!

One of the greatest difficulties (and the most powerful) in our relationship with God, I believe, is acceptance.

Acceptance of who we are and who God is!

In Scripture, there are various Greek words for acceptance (important because our modern English translations are based on the original Greek New Testament), like: dechomai – meaning a ready reception of what is offered; apodechomai – a stronger readiness to receive heartily and lambanō – meaning to receive without necessarily signifying a favourable reception.

The point being that we are encouraged to apodechomai, to receive God’s love through His Son Jesus Christ. (You will hear us talk often in this way – the real meaning being that our acceptance by a Holy and Righteous God is made possible by the sin offering of Jesus. I’m not sure why God has chosen to do it this way but Scripture teaches us that God, by His own choice, revealed His plan for salvation in Jesus.)

Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour places us in a position to know exactly who God is and who we are. Amazing.

So essentially, after accepting Jesus, we can have a real sense of our place in the vastness of the universe, that God has a plan for our lives and that we are not just here by chance.

Imagine that! God has a plan for our lives.

Perhaps you have a story to tell how God has accepted you and how your life has changed since accepting Jesus. Click on comments and share it with us.

And perhaps you want to accept Jesus right now then go here.

My Choice!

Last week, my daughter Roxy-Leigh, passed her drivers licence.
Leigh-Ann and I had been praying that all would go well and by God’s grace she passed first time.
At first I was elated that she had achieved this milestone, but the more I began to think about the significance of it, the more my joy turned to quiet concern. Now she would be out on the roads on her own and pictures of breakdowns and accidents rolled across my mind.

Then one morning in my quiet time, it suddenly dawned on me what God must go through with us human beings. He created us with the ability to make choices. More importantly, it’s the only thing we really own – our free will. And although we own it by God’s grace, it does put us in a position of tremendous power mainly because we can choose to love God or not.

Scary!

Then I began to realise that if I wanted to ban Roxy from driving because of my fears, how very soon she would start to despise me. Because I would have taken away her God-given ability to make her own decisions!
So after some time I read Daniel 2:20-21 and realised that I needed to trust God, not only with Roxy, but with every part of my life. So I prayed, not for the first time, and gave my will over to God. Suddenly I felt free, as though a great weight had lifted from my shoulders.

Awesome!

Are you struggling with choices, perhaps a work or family issue - whatever?
My prayer is that you will first choose God’s love and as Scripture says - seek first His Kingdom and all these things will be given to you as well, (Luke 12:29-31).

Have you got a story about a choice you made that will encourage someone? Or any other comment? Click on comments. Type in your comment. If you don’t have a Blogger Id just click on ‘anonymous’. Go on do it!

Some things just make no sense

Mention the word tragedy and just about everyone has a story to tell.

Some will talk about death, others may tell about divorce or a rough childhood or losing a job. Whatever the story, tragedy occurs when things go against the natural assumption that life will be smooth and fair.
Those who have encountered tragic events soon realise that life isn’t always fair and things don’t always pan out according to plan.
Done!

So here we are then, faced with a choice.
To allow tragedy to become our focus or to allow it to focus us!
Some of the most inspiring people are those who have overcome and are still able to focus. Big names like Mandela, Mother Theresa and Paul the Apostle.

Then there are those who don’t make the headlines, like you and me.
Yet we connect with the world everyday, at work and in our relationships.

Can we possibly know how others watch us make our choices?
Not for morbid fascination, but for inspiration.

The Cross turned from tragedy to focus when the disciples discovered that Jesus defeated death but a deeper sense of focus came later when they began to understand His Gethsemanic choice to trust God.

We are not called to die for the world, Jesus has already done that.
But we are called to inspire others through our trust in God. That is the most precious gift we can give when things don’t make sense.

If you are reading this, perhaps you want to share your story of trust. Click on ‘comments’ to type in your story!