Happy Easter!

Why do we celebrate Easter? What's so exciting about it since it's basically a lot to do with a gruesome execution of an innocent man?

We looked at the first part today, the Good Friday part and next week we'll be looking at what happened next... So today, we [only] read 127 verses from Luke's Gospel (chapters 22-23) - thanks again Andrew, for the very eloquent reading. We know who to ask, next time we stumble across 127 verses that need reading aloud... :)

We took a look at the different eye-witnesses around the "occurences" (good one Si) on Good Friday - the day Jesus was crucified. We looked at the stories those people could tell, and turned them into two news reports.. There were some inspired things in there, some great questions our budding reporters asked their witnesses, and some illuminating answers given. Well done group 1 for getting just that bit ahead, partly because group 2 slipped in a few random, irrelevant and not-quite-accurate details :P

So.. What did the eye-witnesses see? And how would you tell the events of Good Friday if someone asked you? How well do you know what happened, and what it all meant? What does Easter mean to you? Would you be a good witness, if someone asked you questions about what happened and how you know about Jesus? Would what you have to say make people want to keep listening, or would you make them want to switch off? Have another read of Luke 22-23 and get to grips with the story... BUT pray first, ask that God makes his words come alive to you, and open your heart to hear him speak to you!

And... next week, we look at what happened next... have a read through Luke 24 (let's say it doesn't quite have 127 verses, so you should be more than fine reading it...)

Have a good break too.. God bless you all.

Amazing Grace!

Last week, we took a short break from the Book of Acts to look at a more "modern" witness - someone who finished the Christian race in the 19th Century! His name was John Newton - he was the guy that wrote the famous hymn "Amazing Grace". For those of you who have seen the film Amazing Grace, about the abolition of slavery in Britain, John Newton was also a mentor of William Wilberforce.

John Newton had a varied life, mostly centred around the sea for the first half of it - he eventually became a slave ship captain. One day, in his desperation during a very dangerous storm, this atheist cried out "Lord have mercy!" and he and his ship were delivered from the storm. John Newton was surprised at himself for having called out to God, but eventually he came to put his faith in God. It took him a while to realise that slavery was a bad thing though. He was to say later, that he didn't consider himself to be a true Christian until later, when he realised the true error of his ways.

John Newton eventually became a popular preacher of his time, urging people to turn away from just religion of traditions and really live out their faith in their lives. Letting God transform him, he eventually wrote about his old days of slave trading and supported the parliamentarian, Wilberforce, in his fight against slavery.

We were reminded from John Newton's life, that God sending Jesus to die for us was purely 'grace' - something we did not deserve and could never earn. We can never understand why God would have such mercy on us, but this grace should change the way we live altogether! Just like John Newton though, the work that God has to do in our hearts to make us more like Christ, will take a lifetime... let us all keep opening our hearts more and more to him, letting God change us.

Sometimes we think we know it all, and then we don't learn. Sometimes we soak in everything we are told and think it's all we need to know, but God wants our hearts! Believing in Jesus isn't about what we know, or how many songs we can sing, or how flowery our prayers are... it's about admitting that we are NOT good enough, haven't got a clue, and can do nothing to make us acceptable before God - we are totally at his mercy, and thankful that he is merciful...and we accept Jesus as the only person who can die for us, so that our sins can be forgiven and we can be accepted before God as his children...

Being a Christian isn't about getting the highest 'levels' in Bible knowledge, or about being able to remember how to pronounce "Stephen" properly in English.. :P It's all about grace. And this is the verse John Newton based the idea of Amazing Grace on:

Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said: "Who am
I, O LORD God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this
far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, O God, you have spoken
about the future of the house of your servant. You have looked on me as though I
were the most exalted of men, O LORD God." [1 Chronicles
17:16-17]

Let us remember this as we approach Easter... Let's pray that God will renew our minds and our attitudes to make them us more and more like Jesus... and let's be thankful and celebrate the fact that, through Jesus, we have a way to be close to God :)

Food...or not?

Today... we looked at Acts 6 this week in two sections.

In the first half of the chapter, we read about a dilemma facing the apostles and discovered that...
1. ...sometimes, Satan will try to distract us from what God has called us to do, with something that isn't necessarily bad. The apostles were called to pray and preach the gospel, but the distraction was that some of the needy widows weren't getting enough food. If we read the OT, we will see that God is very passionate about our duty to look after needy people, so this was a real good thing to sort out! Thankfully, they were alert, and realised that they needed to give the job to Christians who were also filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom, to look after the needs of the widows. Otherwise they risked getting distracted from doing what they were called to do. As a result, in Acts 6:7, we see that the word of God spread and more people became Christians!
2. ...as Christians, if we serve God together, there isn't one task that is greater than another: serving the widows was as important to the spread of the gospel, as preaching the word of God and praying. It all had to be done, but different Christians were called to do different things. So, pressing buttons on the computer obviously helps our church services run more smoothly, but it isn't more important than looking after newcomers, setting up the chairs or helping to clean up or put things away...and in all of our different roles, we will have the opportunity to show people the way to salvation. Also, just because you think people can't see what you are doing, it doesn't mean that you should do it randomly, because you are serving God in everything you do (not just in church!) Look at it another way: just because you are not top of the science class, it doesn't mean that you should just copy someone's homework and not bother making your own effort!

In the first half of the chapter we were also introduced to Stephen. He was one of the 7 men chosen to help look after the widows. In the second half of the chapter, we saw that using God's gifts and his witnessing about Jesus was getting him into trouble with people who didn't want the gospel to be spread.
At first they tried to argue with him, but his wisdom was too irresistable and they didn't get very far. So...they started lies about him, which gave them a good (fake) reason to seize him and get him into big trouble...
The people accused Stephen of blaspheming against God, talking about destroying the temple (which represented the presence of God) and disrespecting God's law (which represented the will and heart of God).

Prepare chapter 7 for next week with this in mind, and we will look at it in more detail about what happens next. And for those of you who already know the story of Stephen, make sure you READ the passage very carefully, because next week's session will not just go like this: "Hi, today we are going to finish the story of Stephen, the guy that got stoned and became the first Christian martyr. Bye!"

Ta-da! Update finished for this week :)

Update on Acts!

Hi guys...
Sorry it's been a while since the last post. Hope that you are still reading...
Do allow me to update you on what we have looked at so far in 2008:

We started off the New Year, looking at the command that Jesus left the disciples with at the end of Matthew 28:
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
We looked at how we can obey this command confidently, because Jesus has said that he has ALL the authority.

We continued on this theme, looking at the passage in Hebrews 12:1-3. This was an introduction to the rest of the term: there are lots of witnesses who have gone before us, who have proven God to be faithful and stayed faithful to God. We have looked at some of these OT characters in the past year or two and so we have been moving on into the NT to look at the witnesses in the early church.

We began our journey through the book of Acts by focusing on Jesus’ command in Acts 1:8.
“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
We looked at how the power of the Holy Spirit enables us as Christians to live lives that people often will not see as powerful, but will powerfully show people the truth of the gospel.

We then looked at our first witness of the term over three sessions: Peter.
We looked at how Peter was changed and came to rely on God and how the Holy Spirit enabled him to use his talents in a way that would give glory to God and not himself. Here’s a summary on what we discovered about Peter.

- Before denying Jesus: Peter was proud, fiery, passionate. (His pride/fire was based on himself and what he thought he was capable of)

- After denying Jesus: Peter was discouraged, ashamed, upset. (He meant well, but failed to be what he thought he was able to be)

- After receiving the Holy Spirit: Peter was bold, passionate, wiser. (Jesus showed Peter gentle forgiveness and gave him a job to do. Peter realised he couldn’t do it. The Holy Spirit taught Peter to understand why Jesus had to live and die on earth, opened his mind to the fact that God wanted EVERYONE to know this and gave Peter the power/strength to witness to what he discovered!)

Last week, we had a look at Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37, to see what we could learn from the early Christians. We will continue to learn from them in the next few weeks!

Well… that’s powerful stuff! If you haven’t read it for yourself, we’ve just got through the first 12 chapters of Acts. We’re going to back track a little bit to look at a couple of other characters before moving on…so you won’t be lost, if you catch up with your reading!

Let my people go, so that they may worship me!

- God wanted the Israelites to leave Egypt so that they could worship him. So that the relationship between God and his people could be re-established. So.. God gave instructions for a temple called the Tabernacle to be built. (You can find out all about that in the rest of Exodus!) Here, God would focus his presence among his people. In this way, God would live among them.
- However, they could not just go and see him any time they wanted... otherwise they would DIE!!! This was because even God's people were full of sin, and they couldn't keep his commands right from the start. But God wanted to make a way for them to draw close to him. So he made up a plan where instead of them dying for their sin, animals could take the punishment in their place.

Even so, only one man could go near God... and only once a year at that! On the Day of Atonement. (The Hebrew name for this day is Yom Kippur יוֹם כִּפּוּר ) Briefly, this is what happened on that day:

• the high priest had to wear special clean clothes after making sure he'd washed himself specially.
• he had to make 3 different burnt offerings for the sins of himself and God's people's.
• the sins of the people were confessed over the head of goat number 2, and it was sent away from the people in a solitary place in the desert. This symbolised them getting rid of the sin and this goat is called the "scapegoat".
• there was a lot of blood and burning involved. Plus, the high priest also had to burn so much incense so that when he stood in God's presence he wouldn't actually be able to see God's glory.

If you haven't read it yet, have a look! So, that's where we left the Israelites for now. However, we did jump ahead and take a peek at the New Testament, where the writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 10:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Phew! We don't have to do all the sacrifice stuff anymore, because Jesus is the perfect sacrifice. He was without sin, and paid for everything so we don't have to do the daily sacrifices, the yearly sacrifices and so on, just to get to see a shadow of God. We get to come right before God and pray directly to him, so let's not waste that opportunity!
Let's encourage each other to draw close to God this week.. I hope more of you will have done the prep by last week.. don't forget your Bibles! :)

THE STORY SO FAR…

...some highlights from the last few weeks…

Genesis 1 It only took 6 days!
Genesis 3 Oops. BIG mistake.
Genesis 4 Caught red-handed
Genesis 6 Noah’s new hobby mocked
Genesis 11 Je ne comprends pas! Was hast du gesagt? Que pasa?!
Genesis 12 God talks to Big Daddy
Genesis 15 God’s Big Deal
Genesis 24 Love at first sight
Genesis 27 Jacob the trickster
Genesis 29 Head over heels - the tables turn…
Genesis 31 F u g i t i v e…
Genesis 34 Crime and PuNiShMeNt
Genesis 37 Colourcoated slave becomes prime minister

Exodus 1 God’s people enslaved
Exodus 2 Basket baby adopted by Pharoah’s daughter
Exodus 7 The 10 Horrors
Exodus 12 The P a s s o v e r
Exodus 14 Pharaoh’s army drowned in defeat
Exodus 19 Boom! G O D 'S ON THE MOUNTAIN!!
Exodus 20 The 10 CoMmAndMeNts

In the 19th chapter of Exodus, God promises to bless the people if they obey him fully. He reinforces his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the first 3 generations of God's people) that he will be with them wherever they go. In chapter 20, God gives them some of the most famous rules in the Bible, to show them how to live in the way that pleases him. The rest of Exodus goes into more detail about further rules that God gives his people.

If you want more rules, just read the next book... at first, it may seem like a lot, but have a look at the details.. some of them are pretty interesting or ...you might think, weird! We're going need to read chapter 16 of Leviticus before next week's sesh... see you then!

Basically yeah....

This week we read TWO Bible passages... Genesis 17:1-8 and Galatians 3:6-14.

The whole theme for this week was PROMISE or COVENANT. God made an agreement, called a covenant with Abram. He promised that he would lead him to a new land, make his descendents into a great numerous nation and that all nations would be blessed through him. God chose Abram and said that he would be his God and Abram and his descendents would be God's people....

God was pleased with Abram's faith - if we use the words in Genesis 1, it was as if God saw Abram's faith and it was good. We looked at the book of Galatians where Paul was writing to the church there and telling them, look at Abraham (God gave Abram a new name remember?) God was please with him because he trusted God's promise. He trusted in God. He obeyed God because of his faith...

Some people in the church of Galatia were being told that they needed to follow the Jewish laws in order to be saved. Some people were preaching that believing in Jesus wasn't enough. Paul was telling them, hang on a minute... it's because we couldn't obey the law, because of our sin, that God sent Jesus to die for us in the first place. Trying to please God by our own actions isn't enough - it won't please God because we can never be perfect, we already messed up!! Paul was putting them straight - look at Abraham, God was pleased with him because he didn't try to do anything from his own strength, but he trusted God would keep his word, so he left his home country and followed God's leading...

So,... how about you? Do you believe that God can be trusted? Is God's word true? Will he change his mind and decide that actually sending Jesus was just a joke? When we die will he actually laugh in our face and say, haha, I tricked you? OR.... is God for real... maybe what he says is true and we can trust him... and if we don't... we can't do anything to save ourselves...?

You decide... God promised, and he kept his promise to Abraham... do you believe that he will keep his promise to you?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

John 3:16