Going to the mall turns out to be an educational experience!

At the mall today, I was intrigued to see these pushmobiles [for lack of a better word] that parents could hire to push their kids around in.

Children would sit inside car-shaped vehicles, which even had steering wheels that many a kid tried turning in an effort to direct themselves. However, the reality was clear: the parents were the ones who were making the cars move AND the ones in control over where they were directed! No matter how much the kids were pretending that they were in control, they weren't!

And I thought, what a cool illustration for life as we know it!

Firstly, God is the only reason we're 'moving' at all. As it says in Colossians 1:17 "In him, all things hold together." If God were to say to the world to stop at this moment, it would! God's power is mindblowing! e.g. Psalm 33:6-7
"By the word of the LORD were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;
he puts the deep into storehouses."

Secondly, God is sovereign! Even when everything's going hunky dory and we think we're in control and that we're steering our own lives, it's only cause we might be 'steering' in the same direction as God is for that moment. And how comforting that even when our car seems to be going in the wrong direction, there's still Someone who's in control! And Someone who's got a much better view of what'll be best for us than we could ever imagine for ourselves! Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose".

As Paul joyfully concludes in Romans 8:31-32 "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

Repentance versus feeling sorry

We were talking about the difference between repentance and just feeling sorry, when a friend came up with a cool game that illustrated repentance quite well: "Have all the children run away from you, and when you shout 'Repent', they have to stop and run back towards you."

Then some bright spark added: "Yeah, and if you shout 'Feel sorry', they can carry on in the same direction."

- Yeah, yeah, I was the bright spark, but I thought it would help illustrate the difference! -

A necessary reminder

The body of sin has been done away with

: We have died to sin.

: We are freed from sin.

: Sin shall NOT be our master!

And death?

Death no longer has mastery over us.

For we have been born to life through Christ Jesus!

(Romans 6:1- 14)

To Infinity and Beyond!!!

In the epic movieGladiator, just before he enters the battle with his courageous soldiers, the powerful and heroic Roman general Maximus ends his inspiring speech by reminding them of one thing: "Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity!"

What a great reminder to us Christians as well!! So let's don the "armour of light" (Romans 13:12) and CHAAAAAAAARGGGGGEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE!!

You arrive at school, and for some reason everyone’s looking at you. Not in the adoring “wow, the coolest kid at school has just arrived” kinda way, but more in a shocked disbelief which rapidly turns into bursts of giggles. Sniggers in some cases. You look around you to see if there’s someone else who’s quite possibly the figure of all this attention, but the people behind you are looking at you too. It’s definitely YOU they’re laughing at. But why!??! You suddenly realize that you can feel the wind all over your body, and when you look down, you realize it’s your worst nightmare come true!!! You’ve forgotten to put on your clothes!!

Ever had that dream? Those who have have assured me that it's the biggest relief to wake up and realize it's just been a dream! To be fair, this isn’t everyone’s worst nightmare#, but it links pretty high up there on many people's "I hope this NEVER happens to me" lists!! If that’s the case, why do so many of us to clothe ourselves?

As Christians we’re told to clothe ourselves with our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14) and compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience (Colossians 3:12) amongst others, but so often we neglect to! How awkward to think how often we're being laughed at in the spiritual realm!*

# In fact, my worst nightmare was having Godzilla come tear up my town because we were keeping her babies in a lab.. But hopefully this’ll never be one that comes true either!

*I doubt that we really are… But for the purposes of my analogy, pretend it is! :)

How are you treating your Bible?!?!

I popped in at a Christian conference during the holidays, and man I was rebuked!

After a few weeks of not reading my bible, the last thing I wanted to hear was : “The way you treat the Bible is a reflection of the way you treat God”. But of course, that was the very thing I needed to hear!

Add to that a reminder from Romans 12 that we are called to "no longer conform to the pattern of the world, but instead to be transformed through the renewing of your mind.." And how do you renew your mind? By immersing it in God’s Word and reflecting and thinking about it! And I know for myself that if I haven’t read the Bible for a time I certainly have no inclination to really fight sin and live life God’s way..

God’s Word is powerful and life-transforming, so why aren’t we treating it as the most precious thing we own?!?!?

So I'm back... again!

Once again after yet another long silence, Grace is back :) I'm sorta like F-R-I-E-N-D-S reruns, I suppose!

Anyway, in the long absence, I've had a holiday, started reading my Bible again after yet another bout of not reading it, stopped reading my Bible again, and then finally.. But let me explain.

So I think I’ve mentioned a few times that I went through a bit of a rough patch, and I thought I’d processed and worked through everything with Jesus, but it turned out that I hadn’t really put God in His proper place as Number 1 in my life. So I started reading my Bible again, I realized that I was still angry/frustrated, so I stopped, which was actually a bit silly. Till a few weeks later when I had coffee with Miss Liza, a wonderfully encouraging and mature older Christian. While we were chatting I realized two things:

1) That I’d sorta let this issue take number 1 spot in my life and put God in the secondary role of psychotherapist whose job it was to deal with issues, instead of thinking of God’s glory first.

2) That I’d let everything overwhelm me to the point that I’d forgotten that I had a choice in the way I was acting!

As I was talking to Miss Liza, I asked her “Will the rest of my Christian life be like this? A long stretch of sorta backsliding and not really trusting or obeying God and then maybe one good month of really loving, trusting and obeying, and then another long stretch of non-growth?” to which she replied: “It’s up to you! It’s your choice!” Well, knock me over with a feather! I’d somehow COMPLETELY forgotten that I had a choice in the matter! How silly!!! And since then, I’ve been taking it one day at a time, choosing to love and obey Jesus Today. Not that it’s easy (it’s never really easy), but I’ve definitely been more at peace now that I’ve put Jesus in His rightful place again, and everything’s just fallen into perspective! YAY!