Are you ready to jump?

Imagine that you are on a diving board. really high up above a swimming pool.
God says, 'Jump.'
You look down and to your horror you realise that there is no water in the pool.
You say to God, 'Fill the pool with water first and then I'll jump.'
God replies, 'Jump first and then I'll fill the pool with water.'


What do you do? Do you have faith that God will provide and keep His word?
or do you feel full of fear and terror?


Do not let the ultimate terrorist get in the way of jumping for God. For the devil is the one who strikes fear into our hearts.

Should you be jumping?

Faith vs Fear- Becoming water walkers

What do you think is the most common instruction in the Bible?

It isn't to be more loving, caring and kind. Although this is God's greatest desire for us. This isn't the most common instruction.

Neither is it warnings of pride, to become more humble, to guard sexual purity or to walk with integrity. Although these are really important qualities, they are not the most common.

The most common instruction in the Bible, actually is:

'Fear not'

'Do not fear', 'Do not be afraid', 'Be strong and courageous', 'you can trust me'- is all instructing us to 'Fear not'.

Why 'Fear not'?

Why is it that God is constantly reminding us that we don't need to fear? Its not as if fear is the biggest of vices, its not in the seven deadly sins (although all sin is the same to God). Fear doesn't seem to be the worst thing in the world. So why 'Fear not'?

Fear tempts us most from not doing God's will. It tempts us most from not jumping when God says 'Jump'. Or as John Ortberg puts it, 'Fear disrupts faith and becomes the biggest obstacle to trusting and obeying God.'

In other words, Fear gets in the way of us and God. Fear becomes the biggest obstacle in our relationship with God. It causes a void between us and God, it stop us trusting in Him- the creator of both Heaven and Earth, who made you from the dust, this mighty powerful God. When we fear we stop God from being all powerful.

FEAR- It gets in the way!

So God is constantly letting us know that we don't need to fear- we don't need to fear Him, we respect God, but we do not need to fear that He will hurt us or throw lighting bolts at us; we don't need to fear that God won't provide, we don't need to fear the situations that we are in.

We don't need to fear- we need to trust, have faith and obey!

There are 366 'Fear not' verses in the Bible. That is one for everyday of the year, including an extra one for leap years. To me that isn't a coincidence. Time is a human creation, yet God still places enough 'Fear not' verses in the Bible for everyday and one left over for a leap year- only God could do that! How great is God's commitment to us, that He doesn't want us to fear, not one day does He want us to live and struggle with fear, so each day He tells us to 'Fear not'. What a promise!

One of my biggest fears, is quite a silly fear and you might all laugh at it, but it is a fear i have to battle with sometimes. I am afraid of stairs. I fine going up stairs, but coming down stairs is more of a problem. I have fallen down stairs quite a few times and I've been up the hospital a couple of times with suspected broken neck and my Dad has finally put up a banister so I don't fall down our stairs so much. The fear of falling down stairs is my bodies natural reaction to the a situation which might possibly be dangerous and might cause me harm. But if I let this stop me, if I let this fear get in the way- I would be quite stuck, i wouldn't be able to get anywhere as there are a lot of stairs about.

There is a place for fear. Fear at its most basic, is our bodies naturally reaction to a possible dangerous situation. Its our body telling us that we need to run away, or hide.

But we mustn't let fear over ride faith and trust.

The 'No' of fear must never triumph the 'yes' of faith.

In Matthew 14:22, Jesus walked on water towards the disciples and He didn't say anything. Jesus was waiting for the disciples to recognise who He was. But they were terrified and they cried out in fear, believing Jesus to be a ghost.

Now I don't know a bout you, but if I was in a boat at 3am in the middle of a storm, and someone came walking towards me on the water, I might be a little scared too.

It says that Jesus spoke to the disciples 'at once'. Jesus didn't want His disciples to be afraid, He did not want them to fear Him.

Peter responded- not in a testing way, but in response to faith and when Jesus told Him to 'come', he went. I don't know if Peter hesitated or if he went without thinking, because I wasn't there and it doesn't tell us. But I do know if I was in Peter's situation I might feel just a little afraid. It does tell us that Peter that went over the side of the boat and began to walk towards Jesus on the water. For those few minutes before Peter saw the wind and the waves, Peter walked on water! wow! Peter is probably the only person except for Jesus who has every walked on water.

Peter was the only one who had the faith to even get out of the boat. Yes he lost his focus and began to sink and needed Jesus to save him - but at least he got out of the boat. Yes, Peter failed, but he didn't fail us much as the other disciples in the boat.

Peter learnt a lot from failing- he learnt that Jesus would save him, even when he was failing, he learnt that Jesus would save him first and then he would help him to learn the lesson of faith. Although Jesus told Peter he had 'little faith' and asked why he doubted Jesus. Jesus did this is love and away from the other disciples, he was showing that there is no fear in Jesus- for 'perfect fear casts out all fear.'

With faith we must make sure that we keep our focus and our focus must be Jesus.

What is it that you should be doing to get out of your boat? What is it that God is asking for you to step out in faith?

What are you afraid of?

Lets get out of our boats and start water walking!

Lies destroy, But the Truth renews!

'And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free'

John 8:32 (NLT)

When you know Jesus, you know the truth. When you know God, you know the truth of who you really are, why you were created and what you should be.

When you knows theses things, when you know the truth, you are free! How amazing!

'he always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he lies it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies'

John 8:44 (NLT)

When you know the truth, you also know the lies. The closer you get to the truth the more lies he will spin. The more you are freed by the truth that your Holy Father speaks over you, the harder he tries to make you fall with lies.

I know the pitfalls of this. I know that sometimes it seems easier to listen to the lies, but when you do, he begins to bind you and chain you. You become no longer free.

We must shut our ears to his lies and open them to the truth! For the truth will sent you free.

I have been set free! I know the pain that lies cause! So I warn you- do not listen to the father of lies;

INSTEAD LISTEN TO THE FATHER OF TRUTH!

HE HAS SET YOU FREE!

God's bus stop

Waiting! It can be so frustrating, it can be the most annoying thing in the world. Yet we all have to do it. Sometimes we spend too long doing it. Sometimes we waste are time waiting.
While we're waiting we can become envious of others who are first in line. Like waiting at the doctors you can become annoyed that there is such a long queue in front of you. but one of the most annoying things is waiting in a queue of traffic and you look around at all the people in the other cars and you see how frustrated they get, how angry and annoyed they are because they are having to wait.

However waiting on the Lord is sometimes the same. We pray for people, we pray for answers, we pray to know His will, His plan, we wait for blessings, we wait for Him to lift us up out of the pit or a situation.
We can wait in two different ways when we are waiting on the Lord. We can choose to wait like when we stuck in traffic or waiting for a late bus. We can choose to be come frustrated at God, even angry at Him because God is making us wait. We can choose to lose our focus, even to doubt and lose faith, because what we think we want or need isn't given to us quick enough.
Or we can choose to wait patiently, with hope in God to provide, to have faith and focus on the One who knows what is best, who knows the right time for everything, who's plans are to prosper not to harm.
When we wait like this we might not what we are waiting for, for a very long time, but we must remember whom we are waiting on- the Might One who created both Heaven and Earth. That nothing that we can do will change when we get what we are waiting for. It is completely out of our control and we should allow God to have complete control and trust that He will give what we need.
We also need to be STILL when we wait. Not necessarily physically, sometimes we do need to stop and physically be still, but also emotionally and spiritually still.
Like waiting at a bus stop if we wonder here, there and everywhere, won't we stand a chance of missing the bus. So it is with God' bus stop, we must be still and wait at His bus stop, so we don't miss his bus.
You know the saying, 'you wait all day for a bus and three come along at once.' Well I guess that this is sometimes true for God as well. Sometimes we wait for years and then lots of what we are waiting for all comes along at once, when we least expect it.
But, oh , how good it is when we see that what we have waited for has been given- it has been worth it and how great God is when He blesses us for are patient waiting on Him.

31 But they who wait upon the Lord will get new strength. They will rise up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weak.
New Life Version (NLV)

The postive effect week 1

Well my positive effect week went well. there were times when I forgot and thought 'Oh I should have done this... or I should of done that!'
During this week my great aunt Grace died and again it brought home to me the effect we have on people. She was a wonderful lady, who was always so nice to me and I always thought her name was very apt as she always seemed very Graceful! May she enjoy dancing with the angels.
Apart from that my week was very positive. I don't really have any interesting stories because most of what I did was things like letting a car go first, smiling at people, and just generally being nice.

However my friend and I are going to do another week, because now we will remember to be a positive effect on people we meet better than last week! I hope I have some better stories for you!

The positve effect

There is a play called 'An Inspector calls' In this play the playwright shows how we, human beings can have a negative effect on people, whether we know them or not. In this play, a young girl dies and the inspector shows how it is a whole families fault, because of things like, not being nice to her in a shop etc... and it all led to her suicide.

However we, as Christians are called ton be a positive effect on everyone we meet. This at times seems to be a really hard thing to do. The fact that sometimes just by smiling to the people we pass in the street can have a really positive effect on someone, or we could just walk past and not care how we effect the person we are walking past.

This all reminds me of a great story, told by perhaps the greatest story-teller of all time, Jesus.

The good Samaritan... a man is laying half dead on the street after being mugged and attacked. All manner of people walked past this man, one being a priest, yet the only person who help this man was a Samaritan who wasn't even liked by the person he was helping because he was a Samaritan. Yet this man helped him and looked after him and paid for all his care.

It strikes me as weird that nobody of the man's race or religion helped him, they just crossed over the road and left the poor man for dead. How is it that someone who is born an enemy of the dieing man is the only one willing to help him?

Are we like that? Do we have a negative effect on people? Do we cross the road when another human being is in need?

OR

Do we be JESUS in that situation? Do we have a POSITIVE effect on people?

I have set myself a challenge, that for this week I'm going to try really hard to have a positive effect upon everyone I meet, everyone I pass on the street or in a shop and everyone I come into contact with in some way or another. I' not doing this alone, I have God beside me prompting and guiding me and I have a friend who has decided to do this with me and on Sunday we are going to tell each other how everything went with the challenge!

When you are kind to others, you help yourself;

when you're cruel to others, you hurt yourself.

Proverbs 11:17 (The Message)