Tattoo blog comment

Here's something I wrote on a friends blog, he was asking about Christians take on tattoos, and here is what my answer was:

“Paul writes in Romans (I particular Romans 7, but in a lot of this book he is covering this topic) about how we are not bound to the Law anymore, however, that the Law still points out sin. I wish I had studied into this before I got my tattoos. Paul talks about how Jesus broke the power that sin has on our lives in that we now have life, not death as the punishment for breaking the Law (Praise Jesus!) but he also then says how the Law itself has not been abolished, just the penalty of breaking it has been.

Leviticus, is a book that points out one thing. God wants his people to be set apart from the rest of culture. He wants a group of people who are holy. (Leviticus 19:2) So, when he said not to cut hair, or get tattoos, or eat a pork Subway, he is asking the tribes to do one thing. Be set apart - be different and be holy.

In getting your tattoos, will you be setting yourself apart for holiness, or joining the ranks of sin. That's a good question to ask Josh before you go ahead and do it.

Hope that gets your Bible pages flicking and your brain turning...”

Obey

To listen click here

My conviction - I should obey God’s commandments not just because I am the youth leader, but because I love God.

1. Obedience is part of a cycle - Deuteronomy 5 and 6
The ten commandments are more than just a nice, moral teaching for Sunday School, or a good idea for a bookmark to buy at a Christian book store.

Breakdown: God who knows all lays down a Commandment for our benefit > We choose whether to obey it > We verb the obey (do or do not) > Consequence.

• God who knows all - Outside of time, outside of hindsight, above situations, always seeing the bigger picture


• We choose - Obedience is an act of submission - an act of saying “OK, you know better.”


• Verb it - Obedience mobilises the bigger strategy


• Consequence - Award or the disaster, the award ceremony or the shipwreck.

2. The Commandments can’t be made smaller, but they unpack larger - Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28

Jesus bought the “moral” commandments back to being “heart attitudes”

Out of anger comes violence, wars, murders...
Out of adultery comes unwanted children, comes broken homes, separated families...

Jesus is saying here, “You are so careful to not murder, to be seen breaking this law with your flesh, but I say what is your heart doing? What is the secret place up to? Cause this is where it all starts.”

3. Today’s offer on the table with grace for dessert - Romans 6, 7 and 8
In these chapters, Paul beautifully collides the Law of Moses with the Grace of God and shows us what’s on the table for today.

It’s important to realise that the 10 Commandments are not irrelevant today. Jesus stating he did not come to abolish the law - Matthew 5:17-20

Growth.

Yesterday during my daily Bible reading I do with Gab, I discovered (discover - to become aware of a fact or situation) a wonderful chapter on growth that Paul wrote about. However, it isn't really headed up as a chapter on growth, so it was a revelation of something I wasn't even looking for. I love it when the Holy Spirit does that :)

1 Corinthians 3 has an overlying theme of growth and I will show you why. 

1. Paul stresses to us that we are meant to grow. He refers to how the diet of the Corinthians was still one of milk, rather than the solid food that they should be on by now. Just like a diet for a child changes as they grow, our diet as Christians is meant to grow. He refers to them as being infants, and I kind of get the sense that he is saying, "Come one guys... I thought you would have been bigger than this by now!" Paul is stressing that growth is meant to happen. If it is not, there is something wrong. We are stinted somewhere.
2. That we have a choice to how strong we grow. In verses 10-12, Paul wonderfully explains how the foundation of our faith is Jesus Christ. Think about this for a second, it's not the Church, it's not another leader in the church... it's completely, rock-solidly, never changing, forever will be, Jesus Christ. He is the foundation. It's then up to us as to what we build on that. In verse 12, he says that we have the building materials of gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay or straw. I had one massive thought at this point... "How many times do we build with straw, when we should actually be building with gold? Do we build with the effort and care required to build a golden temple with our faith, or do we just throw some sticks together and some straw over the top and call that our temple of our faith." In verse 16 and 17, Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit lives in us. Well, what kind of temple have you built for the Holy Spirit to dwell in? Is it a straw hut? Or is it a golden palace... 
3. Paul clearly states that our growth is our responsibility. Not our pastor, not our favourite authors, not the podcasts we listen to, the blogs we read... it is not their responsibility for me to grow. It is mine. Throughout chapter 3, Paul is saying this to the people of Corinth, and I love how the chapter closes. "So don't take pride in following a particular leader. Everything belongs to you: Paul and Apollos and Peter; the whole world and life and death; the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God." It's like he is saying... "You have everything you need to change this world. Do it. Full charge ahead. Why? Because everyone is equal, we are all part of this incredible Creation of God, all on the same playing field. Jesus is our foundation, and God is our Father. No one is above or below in Christ, some of us just take the job at hand a bit more seriously than others..."

Those where my thoughts anyway :) Hope that blesses you in some way.

Oh! One last thought, the foundation which is Jesus is always there. You don't need to build it, because it already happened when He got on the cross and rose from the grave. That was his foundation for you, it's called grace. As Paul wrote in Romans, even before we deserved it, Christ died for us. 

All of our foundations need to be expanded however, and I don't mean that they need to grow, I mean through revelation of Christ, we need to uncover the overgrowth of sin and the Fall that is on that foundation, revealing to us more and more about Christ and thus increasing the area of useable foundation we can start to build on.

Man, what a write. I'm poofed. What do you guys think?

Listening.

There is something to be said about Jesus' attitude towards his day-to-day business. Always listening to the Father and what He is doing must have been tricky at times, but time and time again he responds after hearing the Father's prompting. 

Last night, we had one of those moments. 

We had an "On the Couch" testimony night, where people would come and sit on the couch and tell us what God has been up to. One girl got up, said a sentence, and it was along the line of  "I don't want to live anymore." After which, she put her head in her hands and sat there. The room went dead quiet, but it was one of those moments, where the Father whispered, "I want this pain to end. Let's do something about it."

So we prayed for her, people in the room giving her wonderful words from God and prayers of healing where poured over her, we spoke freedom over her in the name of Jesus and an end to the pain that was torturing her body. She left last night a different person to who came in and I am looking forward to seeing her progress onwards.

Listening to the Father's voice sometimes doesn't happen until everything goes quiet, but I am striving for an ear to hear even when noise is raging. 

Book overload

I am currently trying to work my way through so many books, here is my current list of on-the-goers:

1. 1 Corinthians - Paul the Apostle
2. Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
3. Jesus came to save Christians - Rob Bell
4. Leadership Gold - John C. Maxwell
5. Death by Love - Mark Driscoll
6. Purity - A new moral revolution - Kris Vallotton

Its a great mix of inspiring, challenging and equipping.

High.

I sit at my computer today, still on cloud nine as to what has happened over the last few days at out national conference, Influence.

The presence of God was so thick, that it was harder to not hear Him speaking to me about the worship than it was to hear him. Crazy awesome.

I have a couple of points I have been thinking about in regard to the worship that I led over the last few days and the workshop I took on it.

1. It is not a bad thing to prepare and aim for excellence. We put a lot of effort into the worship - spiritually, musically and graphically. It was all to minimise distraction and increase effectiveness with what we were trying to achieve. 
2. Looking back helps us look forward. We pulled out plenty of golden oldies for the conference, but we also balanced it with brand new songs. Conference is a time to almost "showcase" the new songs that are working in our churches, we pulled out a lot of celebration and outward-looking songs because when we looked back, we realised we don't do those well. By looking back, we saw our previous weaknesses. We looked back even further into Church history and pulled out hymns too to really get the place going. All I can say about the night we did Holy, Holy, Holy is "...                 ."
3. Cultural diversity brings a smorgasbord of creativity. We had an American middle-aged woman on keyboard, a middle-aged Pacific-Islander on bass and BVs, a young, white, jazz-student drummer, an even younger and whiter bass player for the mornings, a young adult, white male on electric guitar, a middle-aged mum on flute and BVs and myself on gat and lead vocal... and when we all put our bit in there, angels came. I'm not kidding. Froly Horn came up to me afterwards and told me she saw angels worshipping with us in one of the sessions. The sounds, the sensitivity, the rock'n'roll...it was all as broad as the ocean. All thanks to a cultural and age diversity of people bringing their creativity to the fore.

I am so excited about what happened, and what God is doing in me through the experiance. Wow!