Apologies for not writing the blog earlier...realise its been over a week!Sorry.
Over the past couple of weeks there have been many things that have flown around my head to write but all went away again.But now theres one thing that really struck me tonight...and its to do with the title of the piece.
As I was driving back from choir tonight I was thinking about life-what God has got me doing etc and reflecting on a sermon from yesterday about 'destiny detours' and I thought and in my own thoughts I thought about my singleness...25 years of it...and a little bit of my heart started to pang on my ipod comes the song 'I am a friend of God'. The lyrics go like this:I am a friend of God,
I am a friend of God,
I am a friend of God,
I am a friend of God He calls me friend
Simple but effective...As far as I know its based on Jesus's own words.
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.John 15:15
Then it struck me-I am a FRIEND of God...Yes intimate relationships, boyfriends, girlfriends and marriage I'm sure are wonderful, but at the moment I am SO very very blessed by my friends who God has placed in my life and yet with all of them-I have God who has chosen to be MY friend. He wants to know me, spend time with me, laugh with me...A friend sees you in your very worst and very best moments and still loves you...and God CHOSES to be that with us.As the verse says-We are no longer servants, we are friends-we can know his heart, what he thinks about situations, about us. We can spend as much time with him as we want...He loves us and its up to us to be his Friend...its a 2 way thing for a true friendship. There can be friendships where only one person sees it-but thats not friendship-thats infatuation...God desires friendship with us.
So how can I say I am lonely and am missing intimacy. I can be as intimate as I chose to be with the Saviour of the universe. I AM a friend of God...are you??
To be honest I have had sooooooo many ideas about what to write in the blog this week(thank you Lord) but yeah its going be a brief one again...Just to ask the question-do you ever feel like you're going back in time?or to put it another way, do you ever feel like you seem to be dealing with something-an issue-or something that you already have seem to dealt with?
Recently I have found myself working at the Cornish bakery again...this is the same place I worked at-that God provided for me to work at when I first graduated 3 years ago. I have to be honest a little thing in the back of my mind said, 'have we not moved on from here?' But I remembered a sermon from a podcast-Stuart Bell spoken on 'When God takes you back' and listening to it again I realised-and thinking about my own experience there are points in our lives when God takes us back-either to triumphal moments to remember His goodness, His mercy, His grace.
But there are also times when God takes us back, I believe, to teach us again. When I first worked at the bakery 3 years ago-I will be honest there was a lot of things I had to deal with, pride, a superiority complex etc and praise God in those 6 months he taught me so much...and now I'm back there again-is it maybe that I need to relearn some lessons from the first time that I have forgotten or maybe to teach me knew things I don't know but I know that its not a bad thing...at all. As Christians (and this again something I've had to learn) as we grow in our faith, as we learn more it is easy for us to forget the old lessons, the foundations that we learnt but a number times in the Word-particularly tells the early church 'Do not move again from it'. One major quote on this is Paul in the first letter to the corthians says:1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures," 1 Cor 15:1-4
That's quite clear really isn't it...and its important to think that if a building has foundations that move then it will collapses and its the same for our Christian lives. However-we need to remain teachable and where have got things wrong, to change...that's why we need to keep going back. To keep the foundations strong and secure and sometimes to change things that need to be...
Yes, I'm sorry I know its abit early and I'm normally one for saying Christmas stuff should be kept to decemeber...But last night at gospel choir we were practicing our Christmas songs and theres one called 'Peace on Earth' and the chorus goes:Glory to God in the highest,Peace on Earth, Good will to All men, Glory to God in the Highest, Jesus Christ has come to save Us from our Sin
And it just hit me like a lightening blot-How AWESOME is our God...This is what the angels proclaimed on the mountain side to the shepards to announce the birth of Christ. As far as we can tell from Scripture there have been 430 years of silence from God-no more prophets that we know of, his people were in exile and then suddenly(at just the right time) Jesus comes into the world...
If you were speaking to a bunch of people who had turned their backs on you-who kept ignoring what you were telling people to tell them on your behalf...I know I would want some serious words with them...But God does not chose to do that, He choses to pronouce peace and a way back to him that is all done by HIM...He doesn't come with a big stick to tell them off-He tells them He has good news-Ultimately its about Glory to Him (as it should be) but...its GOOD WILL TO ALL MEN...Yes the rebellious lot that haven't been listening...
After 430 years, God has not abanndoned them to their own fate-He has not forgotten them, in His perfect timing-He has not told them off-Hes pronouced Good news...
How loving, merciful and gracious and mighty is our Saviour...Thank you God for Christmas time
This post is being written from my sick bed-which is why it is at this time when I want to be worshiping my beautiful Lord and Saviour with my brothers and sisters in Christ...but Praise God-when we chose to spend time with Him, whatever our state-He choses to meet with us...So my Mum a couple of weeks ago sent me this little book called, '101 Amazing Things God thinks about You' I've been reading it alongside my daily Bible study every day-when I can. I've missed a few and today I was on 13-'You can embrace others with your words'.This was good but I felt I wanted to read the next one too so I did, '14-His secrets are safe with you.'It was all about listening to God (appropriate for the blog eh?) but at the end there was this verse,Friendship with God is reserved for those who reverence Him. With them alone He shares the secrets of His promises. Psalm 25:14 (tlb)
Wow...I was just totally blown away-I have known for years that God wants to talk to me...but this morning this totally blew me away - The God of the Universe, King of Kings and Lord of Lords wants not only wants but chooses to share the secrets of His promises with me.Just take a moment to let the sink in, or if that has not immediately wowed you-think about it this way. Imagine this - for some reason you have managed to travel first class from the USA to England and and reasons unbeknown to you-Barak Obama has decided to travel on the same flight. You are sat next to him on the flight and you exchange a few words (mainly started through him because you are just to intimidated/awe-struck)-then just as you're landing, he hands you a suitcase and says, "Here-I want you to have this. Have a look and a good read and I will contact you about what we are going to do to bring it about". When you look in the case it is FULL of private and confidential files about war plans, plans for the health care, plans for finance-in your hands you are holding the Presidents ideas and plans for how to manage the govern the strongest country in the world and he has chosen to give it to you and to share it with you,to work on together...Jesus is King, Ruler, in charge of His Kingdom-a Kingdom we know from His word will never cease and He is choosing to share how He does with you and me and not only that, but that He wants us to be in it-because will inherit it, we are co-heirs with Christ(also in His word). The ruler of the universe is sharing His promises (NB His promises are not just ideas-they are certain...all His promises are yes and Amen!)But we need to remember there is a condition at the start of the verse, the TNIV puts it like this:The Lord confides in those who fear Him,he makes his covenant known to them.
He will share His secrets with those who fear. This, at first, might seem contradictory...but this is not a fear where we are scared-its a fear of respect, of awe.When we have God as truly God and King in our lives, not just the 'fix-it' guy-thats when He will share His secrets, draw near intimately to us.I am so challenged by this.God is wanting me to intimate with Him in order to share His secrets with me, He wants to talk to me, to be intimate with me and I spend so much of life listening to other things and not listening to Him...God forgive me. I know the privilege I feel when my friends chose to share their secrets with me, its a defining moment of intimacy in the relationship.I need to take the time to be with God to reach that level and how much more of a privileged will we feel when he speaks to us...(hope this has been helpful/encouraging/challenging-feel free to comment.) God bless you all huge time xx
Hello Everyone...I'm currently sitting at my computer-in bed,with Kung Fu Panda in the background...this is my first ever blog, in case you hadn't guessed :S
So why start now?well I've been thinking about this for a while-but over the weekend God woke me up at 3.30am in the morning, to tell me to "feed his sheep"(Hence the Blog page title). But what does that mean?? To be honest I'm not entirely sure - but I feel that this is one way to do this...to sharing what God is really to me in His word to feed others in this...
Obvilously presents me with a challenge in that I need to be spending time in Gods Word to know what to bring and this again is a reason for the page to be accountable...so Here goes nothing...I will post the first blog soon...
Love In Christ to you all
Hannah P xx
