Not That ‘Thing’, EVERYTHING!

The summer is back and I have been enjoying it thoroughly, I love what the Sun does to everyone I feel is generally in a better mood. Summer for the win! Today I want to talk a little about unanswered prayers, I have found a good foundation for prayer is everything and would love to share it with you. I love sweets, my favorites are skittles they just seem to always hit the spot without fail, and it goes without saying that these are non shareable sweets. I find even though when I do share sweets I am very selective in what I share, I give all the bad flavours away and keep all the good ones, Mwuhahaha!

I noticed recently that this way we approach God when we pray to him for something that has burdened hearts for so long, why is it that we are scared to give God  ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’? There is a story in the Bible where Jesus heals a boy of an impure spirit. (Mark 9:14-29) The interesting thing about the story is that you see this was brought to the Disciples originally and Jesus was coming down from the mountain and he happened to hear all the commotion concerning the boy. First point, sometimes we are really bringing our prayers to ‘Jesus Christ’ or ‘Jesus the Mechanic’ because I guarantee one thing he is no mechanic, he does not fix you when you are broken he transforms you from the inside out so you are now a new person.

Also, when the father does talk to Jesus about his Son this is what he says about the impure spirit, “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” (Mark 9:22) The funny part is when he says ‘If you can do anything’ and Jesus responds ‘If you can?’. When we bring our prayers to God who do we think we are bringing them to? The amount of power that is in his name has caused transformations, not just in individuals but in the universe. There is ‘no other name’. Let us not lose hope when we come to God.

You see, when the father brought his sick son, Jesus needed him to realise that his unbelief was a greater problem than his son’s sickness. Christ has now died for us, so we can have freedom to live and not be in fear this is where our foundation lies. When we pray to God, we bring everything because the power of our belief in what he did on the cross is what will bring answers & guidance so we can build a healthy relationship with Christ. This is good news, he is taking the hassle out of living all you have to do is let go and trust in God. Don’t bring that one thing, bring everything!

 

 

 

 

We are ‘kinda’ Creating Heaven.

Let me stress the word ‘kinda’ here, let me explain. Who loves cake? Everyone loves a good cake, the bigger the better too! Well, my mum used to make a lot of cakes and one key ingredient I noticed in her cake recipes were the baking powders. She never forgot it, for her it was so important without the baking powders you would get no cake! (Sounds like a foodie’s nightmare, Ha-ha!) She would even sometimes even say that it would essentially be a pancake.

You are wondering what this has to do with Heaven? You see I have had a particular scripture on my mind for a long while now it says: ‘Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.’ Matthew 6:33 (Kingdom of God = Heaven, same difference) The part of the scripture that bugs me is the ‘Seek the Kingdom of God’ part. The reason God had to remind us to seek the Kingdom first is because we were seeking material things like for example money. (Don’t worry cake talk will make a return!)

It is interesting because I have recently been looking for a job and I noticed there was no way I could find a job without ‘creating’ a CV & covering letter. To me seeking the kingdom of God sounds like, looking really hard! When I am looking for a job is a different situation, I am actually creating things to help aid my search for a job. You know the moment when you get a light bulb moment, and your face looks weird and elated all at the same time? Yes! Well, that happened to me too!

It’s crazy to think if we are to seek Heaven, we are just going to open our eyes a little bit more, we have to take actions that will help us find Heaven. We have to be the baking powder! You see the main difference between pancake and cake is that the cake has risen. But they both still taste absolutely amazing! We have to represent what Christ represents (He is Heaven, personified) Love & Truth, you have to love EVERYONE like you would yourself. Be selfless and drop the ulterior  motives of getting heads in your church. Just Love! You see at the moment the image of Heaven is pretty flat no one can really see it, and everyone is pretty much walking over it, it is still awesome but flat. If we were to be baking powder for Heaven, Heaven could be the cake that everyone can see, love and long for. I truly believe this is the heart of the gospel, you will see things will fall into place.

If you are in London you should definitely drop by ‘My Old Dutch’ for awesome pancakes & ‘The Hummingbird Bakery’ for some awesome cakes!

The Gospel isn’t That Deep.

Could you imagine if Thor kept on obsessing about how amazing his hammer was but never ever used it, yeah probably there will be no avengers well sometimes that’s the way I feel people treat the gospel. When I started out with Jesus there was something I loved straight away and it was that getting to know him was not too complicated, very straight forward actually just follow his example and all will be well, right? Well things started to change and it started to seem overwhelming so many things to do and to learn, and if you tripped up that was just not cool, so I was told. I wish someone had just told me this whole gospel was not that deep in the first place.

Now hear me out, you see I have read the story of Jesus’ life and there is something I noticed. Before he came along things were pretty hard to be honest, there were so many laws to follow, the fear of death, hard to worship God flexibly and the Holy Spirit was not always around. You see the way Superman would come in and save the day, well the expert at saving the day, Jesus; did just that by dying on a cross. Removing all the hardships now you could have a personal relationship with God. Holy Spirit was now constantly working within us and around us, there was no more death and most importantly all we had to do was follow him.

So why is everyone running around scratching their heads, putting so much pressure on themselves? When I first started really going to church I noticed the number 1 advice that was being given was that you need to read your Bible. “Make sure you read as much as you can and everyday too, make sure you are deeply studying the word”, “The bible is your sword and you must use it to slay your enemy” and other statements along these lines. Now do not get me wrong reading the Bible is so important and it has a huge amount of power in a believer’s life but why do we do it to go deeper? then a little deeper? then a little bit more? then what happens next? The problem is you read your Bible so deeply that no one understands because everything you say is Bible Talk. Sounds harsh but it is the truth.

You can swim so deep in your faith no one will be able to follow you, running around like you can do it all on your own, trying to make sure you don’t trip and importantly not sharing it . Where is the relationship with the awesome Jesus you that you have always wanted? Doesn’t it all just get lost in the idea that you are getting lost in all the things you feel you have to do. I know it sounds crazy but the best piece of advice I can give is to read and live out what you have read. You don’t want to really be reading, reading, reading and reading for it go nowhere but in your brain; kinda sounds like your hogging all the awesome news. When Jesus died on the cross all he did basically was make christianity accessible and not this crazy puzzle that is completely impossible to figure out. Read, Live, Read, Live, Read, Live! You would be so surprised how living out what you read can really spread the gospel, and make things less deep and complicated and more understandable and easier to follow. How do you think Jesus did it? He just lived out what he knew! The gospel isn’t that deep!

“I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.” John 8:12 (Message Translation)