Last Thursday at one of the house groups we spent some time looking at Promises of God. But specifically on how we look at ourselves differently to the way God sees us. I don’t know about you but some days I find it so much easier to see the bad stuff in my life than the good. I remember doing an exercise a few years back where I was asked to write all the negative things I thought about myself followed by all of the positive things. It was so much easier to think of the negative rather than the positive. Having now revisited this list again I can see that it is a really good check list to remind me of the things God says to my negativity.

I hope it will encourage you:

You say: ‘It’s impossible’
God says: All things are possible
(Luke 18:27)

You say: ‘I’m too tired’
God says: I will give you rest
(Matthew 11:28-30)

You say: ‘Nobody really loves me’
God says: I love you
(John 3:16 & John 3:34 )

You say: ‘I can’t go on’
God says: My grace is sufficient
(II Corinthians 12:9 & Psalm 91:15)

You say: ‘I can’t figure things out’
God says: I will direct your steps
(Proverbs 3:5- 6)

You say: ‘I can’t do it’
God says: You can do all things
(Philippians 4:13)

You say: ‘I’m not able’
God says: I am able
(II Corinthians 9:8)

You say: ‘It’s not worth it’
God says: It will be worth it
(Romans 8:28 )

You say: ‘I can’t forgive myself’
God says: I Forgive you
(I John 1:9 & Romans 8:1)

You say: ‘I can’t manage’
God says: I will supply all your needs
(Philippians 4:19)

You say: ‘I’m afraid’
God says: I have not given you a spirit of fear
(II Timothy 1:7)

You say: ‘I’m always worried and frustrated’
God says: Cast all your cares on ME
(I Peter 5:7)

You say: ‘I’m not smart enough’
God says: I give you wisdom
(I Corinthians 1:30)

You say: ‘I feel all alone’
God says: I will never leave you or forsake you
(Hebrews 13:5)

Thanks Liz and Geoff for the tip off on this one. Really helpful.

A week or so ago Dave showed this video. Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have told Steve Chalke and Faithworks about their plans for seeing faith groups take a more active role in the public arena in a series of exclusive interviews. If you wanted to watch I thought I would post it up for you.

The country needs solutions
The general election has opened the door for churches
We are called for such a time as this…
Are we ready?

A very good friend of mine, Jon Birch, is a cartoonist and runs a blog. This was his post today. The phrase Weak is strong really hit me today.

It is said that Jesus entered into everything we experience as human beings. Around the world the sinfulness of human beings is expressed in violence, torture and suffering. In many places there are people who are imprisoned and tortured simply because of their religious beliefs.

On this Friday about two thousand years ago, God shared their pain. The disciples deserted him, the crowd surrendered him, and the most disciplined and violent fighting force the world has known took him. He was utterly helpless at their hands.

The Son chose the path of helplessness. All the power and authority that he had exercised in the previous three years, to raise the dead, cast out demons, heal the sick, calm storms and feed the crowds, all this was put aside.

These soldiers who had become hardened by war and by being executioners, stripped him naked, thrashed him, made a crown of long thorns and pressed it on his head and then beat him about the head many times until blood would have poured down his face in torrents.

His head and his back were shredded. His head, having been beaten, was bruised and gashed and his mind numbed. The first thing torturers do is humiliate and weaken.

The Son has been separated from his followers and rendered physically incapable and mentally incapable of any resistance. He is utterly helpless and weak. They can do to him what they want.

So they take him and nail him with long nails to a large wooden Cross and drop it harshly into a hole in the ground so he will hang there and die – slowly! This is the epitome of helplessness.

When you have been a star, it must be so much worse when you are cast out by your adoring public. The Son had received the amazement of his disciples and the thankfulness of so many whose lives had been utterly transformed – the blind, the deaf, the mutes, the lame, the lepers, and those who had just been ill. There had also been those whose loved ones had been returned to them from the jaws of death. Around the country were thousands who owed this man their grateful allegiance. But these are mostly little people, and on this morning they hold back, cower in corners, or hide away as the might of the religious establishment comes to the fore and with proud disdain quells every possible resistance.

This is the time of powerful men, but the most powerful of all puts his power aside and appears the most vulnerable and weakest of all. The court is convened, the conviction confirmed – in their minds at least – and the crucifixion carried out.

Now he hangs there, alone, rejected, with his life ebbing away. Now the saviour is scorned. Passers by, the doubters of this world, drawn by morbid curiosity, see only a broken body. Their guilt for not having responded to him is assuaged, and they mock him, as if to say, “See, I was right not to follow you! Hey you, come on down if you can!”

The religious elite come to gaze on their work and sneer, “So, where are all his fine words now? Where is his bravado, making himself out to be the Holy One? Didn’t we say he was a fraud?”

And the object of their scorn, the King of Glory, hangs there in awfu, broken agony and is silent before his mockers.

To the observers at the foot of the Cross, there is just a dying man, but in the spiritual realm there is a battle going on, the outcome of which will determine the fate of the world.

A darkness comes over the land for three hours, the natural portraying what was happening in the spiritual reality.

Jesus is carrying the sins of the world as he hangs there on the Cross.   Imagine every individual sin as a little bit of blackness, and then imagine every sin that has ever committed in the entire history of the world coming on Jesus in that three hours.    In that time, he was enveloped in the most horrible blackness imaginable. The perfect, spotless lamb is covered with, is saturated with, becomes one with, every wrong thing ever done on the earth.

Psalm 22 pictures the demon hoards who gathered to mock and vilify him.

In the law of Moses, is the picture of a lamb without spot or blemish being sacrificed to take away sin. Jesus has to remain perfect throughout this ordeal. If he had been anything like us, it’s fairly certain that at this point of his human experience, he would be raining down curses on mankind, curses on every being in sight, who ultimately brought him to this place. If he were like Job he would curse the day of his birth, and perhaps even his mother for bringing him into this world. Yet he has to remain true to the love of the Father for mankind.

‘Satan’ means ‘accuser’ and the prophetic picture is of him plus his demonic powers of darkness surrounding Jesus like a black mass, accusing him, reviling him, cursing him for every sin of the world that he now carries. Perhaps the truth has never been characterised better than in C.S.Lewis’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” as the Lion, Aslan, portraying Jesus, is tied up on the stone table to be murdered by the Witch:

“Everyone was at him now. Those who had been afraid to come near him even after he was bound began to find their courage, and for a few minutes the two girls could not even see him – so thickly was he surrounded by the whole crowd of creatures kicking him, hitting him, spitting on him, jeering at him.”

Here is the battle of the universe. The all-glorious Son of God hangs in human agony, in the darkness of sin and, in the midst of the demonic blackness, where every one and everything screams at him to cast it all off, to take his rightful place as God and curse these stupid, puny and sinful human beings. Curse them, destroy them, end this stupidity now! Let them die in hell! Give them what they deserve! End them! Start the world again with a new form of being that will automatically worship you!

It is coming to an end. He has carried the sin of the world, he has resisted the hoards of hell and remained the sinless Son of God. The Lamb that is about to die, who is carrying our sin, is still spotless in himself. Yet the cost is almost beyond comprehension.

Throughout time the perfect, all-glorious, Son of God had lived in total and perfect harmony with the Father. Then the Son had left the courts of heaven and had lived for thirty or so earth years in a human body, linked to the Father only by the Spirit.

Now, for three earth hours that seemed to go on for eternity – and perhaps out of time they do – he is enveloped by the blackness of Sin, surrounded and screamed at by the darkness of demons.

In the hearts of both Father and Son must be the most awful anguish and sense of isolation.  Never has the Godhead experienced such a thing.

When someone or some thing is ‘crushed’ it is pressed out of all shape. It is as if Jesus, who had been so strong in spirit, was totally crushed, his spirit so distorted, with the result that even his awareness of his Father (which is what the spirit in us does) was devastated. All Jesus was aware of was the blackness and the evil. At that point his awareness of the Father’s presence (which was still there) seemed denied to him, so that he cries out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

At that point in history, for that second, it seems like Father and Son are utterly separated.

They say that hell is the absence of God and so, for that moment, Jesus experienced hell on earth, hell in his human spirit. The work is complete and so the life is let go, and the Son dies.

And here is a mystery. The earliest of the Creeds states so blandly of Jesus, that he was “ crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell.” Did he, for a time that stretched into three earth days, exist in hell, taking our sin to the place of ultimate punishment? Herein we find yet a further separation of Father and Son, as they deal with our guilt and our shame, so that we might be freed.

And so, as the minutes and hours stretched by, it must have seemed for the devastated disciples, that the most glorious period of the world’s history had come to an end. All hope has been buried.

Taken from sister site read bible alive. Click here for more meditations and bible studies.

This Valentines day service is going to be a bit different from normal. We have an activity morning with something for everyone.

For starters
For those who would like time to find out about someone else – and share a little something about themselves – we are starting with a short encounter session. This will be guided at the start and do join in if you can. When we’ve done these in the past everyone who took part said how good they were.

Upstairs and downstairs
In the Pullman Suite, Doug will be guiding a group thinking about showing God’s Love.
Alternatively there will be 4 hands on activities in the Great Eastern Room, where you can do one or all at your own pace, either alone or with people.

Back Together
After this we’ll all come back together for a short time of worship.

Join in / chill out / share
We obviously hope you feel free to join in all that is happening. However, if you’d prefer to sit out and watch and drink coffee until you see what is happening and then join in, that’s fine. If you’d prefer to and either share with someone else or even get someone to pray with you, that’s fine too.

We’ve got a structure but it’s up to you how you want to use it. However it works out we hope you’ll enjoy the morning and go home blessed.

We live in a world where atheists are given public platforms and sound so confident. To the unwary their seeming confidence may almost appear overwhelming. We recently posted a simple comment on the Haiti crisis here. Since then Richard Dawkins has burst into print again denigrating the Christian faith. Because these things undermine the faith of the unwary, Tony has added an Appendix to his recent on-line book, God’s Love in the Old Testament, analysing this latest atheistic outpouring. If you would like to read this rebuttal, please click HERE

Today I have made available, on-line, last Sunday’s preach from Tony. We are in the process of looking at how we run the sound on Sunday mornings and one option open to us is to record the sermon’s digitally. This is a test for us to see if the technology works as well as the delivery of the audio and not forgetting how user friendly it will be.

Ultimately with the system i am trying to provide you will be able to search through bible verses, key words, who the preacher was, and when the preach took place. But before we commit to anything I would be very grateful if you could go to the sermons and have a listen. (or at least try!) Then either on this post or via email or a phone call give me any feed back you think will be helpful to get a good application for you. 

Click Here to listen