Thursday, March 20, 2008

As I type this I am sooo strung out!
Before I went to an appointment at 12:30 I had 2 cups of plunger coffee.
Then on arrival at the café where we arranged to meet at, I had 2 double shot flat whites one after the other.All on an empty stomach and without a gap in between…

Now I am flipping out.
I am talking too fast.
People thing I have lost it … hehehehe

While pondering how silly I have been, a thought came to me…funny that!
It really does make a difference what goes into our bodies or our lives in general. How what we allow in, has an effect on us. Sometimes good, and sometime like now….bad.
To be honest I having trouble typing this due to the shaking!

You probably all know that different food and drinks effect your body.
It can give you energy or it can make you unwell, especially if you eat too much. Some things out there can alter your mind or worse.
But you are more than a body. You have a soul and a spirit as well.
What you let into your life will effect them as well.

The Bible even uses a term to help explain how this works for things we look at.
It calls our eyes gates. (Luke 11:34-35)
Gates let things in or stop things from entering.
What we choose to let into our lives can do us good or do us harm.
Just as the things you eat will effect you body, the things you see will effect your soul and/or your spirit.

Now I don’t have anything profound to say to wrap this up…
I think you are probably understanding where I am coming from.
As you go through Easter and the rest of 08, don’t forget to think about what you put into yourself. It will have an effect...you can’t change that.
But you do have a the power to choose.

Something to think about...

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

I have a favourite café I go to in Botany about twice a week for a caffeine fix! In fact I have spots all over Auckland where I know where to go.
Many times I plan my travel across my city based on the coffee.
...yes I am a bit addicted!

The other day I went to the above café for a ‘fix’.
I found the young lady behind the counter struggling away with what could only be described as a poor excuse for a pen. All it was, was the inside refill part of the pen. I guess the rest of the pen gave up sometime during the day.

I stood there for a moment thinking how crazy this was.
Why use such a stupid writing device?
Couldn’t another pen be found to record my precise order of a triple shot latte, large cup, no sugar...take away?

Then a simple thought crossed my mind...
Why not offer them the pen that I had in my bag?

Even though she seemed a little embarrassed that her customer was providing something they needed, they thanked me and I left with my coffee feeling a quite good about myself. It was a nice feeling doing something, even though it seemed small, for someone with no real agenda.

That was a few days a go and then today I had the opportunity to call past again for another ‘fix’.
That same lady was behind the counter.
She greeted me with a large smile and pointed me out to the other staff as the guy who gave them his pen. It seemed to have had an impact on them beyond what I thought it ever would.
I mean, it was just a pen...or was it?

The writer in Galatians said “as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people”.
Luke said this about Jesus in his book called Acts “he went around doing good”.

‘Doing good’ is not just about big things.
It is something we can practice in small ways at any time.

I think ‘doing good’ impacts peoples lives even more now as they just don’t expect it.
It is strange to them when someone does something unmerited.

‘Doing good’ no matter how small it is, bridges gaps between out lives that we can not naturally cross.It definitely opens a way for us to connect.
And it feels really good!

Why don’t you give it a try?

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

When I read my Bible I regularly come across phrases or statements that challenge my thinking.
...and the even more amazing part for me is that these challenges seem to relate to exactly what I thinking about at the time.

Recently I have been on an adventure with God in regards to healing.
I love the idea of it.
The fact that the creator of the universe can fix a body in a short space of time because we ask him too! Amazing stuff really!
But I realized a few weeks a go that I wasn’t seeing it happen that much.
Maybe because I wasn’t even trying to see it happen…
Then doors opened to be able to pray with people and we have seen many healed in the last week or so. It is so cool!

Seeing God doing stuff like this got me thinking.
Maybe the reason we haven’t seen many healed or we are not sure God can heal...is because we haven’t been asking…
It seems strange to me that we can so easily think the negative about this.That we easily think God won’t do it, not that he would do it.

In the book of Romans it has this little phrase after talking about foods...

“...everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23 niv)

It sounds like to me that part of what is sin, is when we aren’t stretching our faith in some way. When we get to a point we aren’t growing or trying something new in God, when we aren’t standing on what he has promised…
Where we are happy to stay stagnant or wanting things to stay as they are.

Elsewhere it says:

“...the righteous will live by faith” (Galatians 3:11 niv)

We are righteous because of what Jesus did giving us right standing with God, and part of the outworking of that should be by living by faith somehow.I think it is believing for the impossible.
It is looking at what God says, and even though we can not see something in the natural, we go for it anyway.
It is ok to not have all the answers...because faith is not about having all the answers...it is about trusting in God who is so much bigger than the answers.

Faith for me is action.
I want to live out my faith, not just rest on the history of it.
Faith for me needs to grow.
So that I grow and will not become old and crusty.

Faith can grow and encourage those around you.
It shows all of us that God is working still.
Faith helps show God to our world!

My prayer for you is that you will have opportunities to grow in your faith this week.
That even though a faith opportunity may look scary...you will do it anyway and let God grow you and use you.

Go for it guys!