Changing the world?

Can one person change the world?
No.
But can one person make a difference for one other person?
Yes.

I'm not stupid - I know that there's no way that I can change the world on my own. But I've recently been hugely convicted about the massive levels of poverty and suffering in the world we live in.

I've been reading a book by James Orbinski, the former president of Medecins Sans Frontieres called an imperfect offering (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1846041015/ref=s9_subs_c5_s2_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0N7128HJR8DE9XR6GNBG&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463374953&pf_rd_i=468294)

And it's a gripping, challenging and highly moving read. As well as that, God's really been moving in my heart about the poverty and inequality in the world.

We're all called to do something about it. It's no good sitting at home, waiting for someone else to come and solve the world for us. Jesus commands us to love each other as we love ourselves, and this is not something we can ignore.

I'm not sure how yet, but there is something that I am supposed to do to help solve the world.

Big or small, it will make the difference for those few who I can reach.

And if we all felt like this, think of the possibilities...

Lift Every Voice And Sing

The third verse of this old slavery song was read at the end of Barak Obama's inauguration yesterday - the full version is a great hymn to God:

Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

It's Been a While...

Ok, so it's been a while since I last blogged. In fact, quite a long while. But I feel I've got good reason. I got married (!) in August, that's one good reason. I'm a student with little time, that's another reason (although not such a strong one, as I in fact have loads of time). And here's the killer reason...I just forgot.



I know.



It's so easy to forget things, and once you've got out of the habit, it's really hard to get back in.



So I'm going to get back in, metaphorically.



Enjoy!

Loving those you don't want to

I'm reading Philip Yancey's book 'What's So Amazing About Grace' at the moment - and what a book it is. It's a stunning reminder of the wonder that is the grace of God, and how amazing and crazy this grace is. At the end of one of the chapters, Yancey gives a quote that stopped me in my tracks. It's not often anything really affects me that much, but these 16 words really jumped out the page at me. I think they're extremely challenging -

"I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."

Think about that. Isn't that so challenging? I know for me, it was a real wake up call. It's so easy to proclaim how much we love God and want to be like Him, but then I read this and I realise how far from being like God I am.

We all have people in our lives that we really don't want to love, and quite often we just blot them out. Jesus didn't do that. He befriended those who society rejected, and made them his closest followers. Jesus didn't turn a blind eye at the poor, the needy, those craving attention in a mixed up world. He loved them, loved them with a love that breaks all barriers and transcends all worldy concepts and rules.

And that is the love that we are called to. As followers of Jesus, we are called to be more like Him, and this unconditional love, this grace, is one of the most striking and vital parts of Jesus' love and ministry. It's something that I struggle with, and something that I long to get better at, with the help of God.

May the grace of God shine through me, and may I become more like Him.

Passion

Last night I was at the London stop of the Passion World Tour. It was an incredible night of worship and teaching, and spending time in the presence of the Almighty.

There are so many things that I will take away from last night - the amazing worship, the immensely powerful teaching, and the real sense of God wanting to rise up and move in the UK. But for me, it is all summed up in the verse that the Passion movement is rooted in, Isaiah 26:8. It's an incredible verse, and it seems hugely appropriate to where I am right now, and also where the Body of Christ should find itself:

"Yes Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for You. Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts." (Is.26:8)

Amen.

Organic Churches

I'm reading a great book at the moment called Organic Church by a guy called Neil Cole. It's about how our churches are not doing what they were commended to do by Jesus.

It talks of how our churches expect people to come through the door, and that's where we'll talk to them about Jesus. Of how we expect people to come to us, and then we'll do our bit. We very rarely make the first move.

And this is not how Jesus wanted His church to be. He commanded us to "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt.20:19), and this is not a passive command. It's a command for us to get out there and tell people about Jesus, not to wait for them to come to us.

Jesus didn't sit in a hut somewhere and wait for people to come to Him. He went to them. That's the attitude that we need. Our churches shouldn't be closed in, elitist establishments that wait for people to come to them to tell them about Jesus. We need to be out there telling people about Jesus where life happens, where the problems really are.

Challenging.

Reign In Me

I was listening to a track on the new Starfield album today (which is fantastic by the way, check it out) called Reign In Us. The message of the song is the invitation for God to come and live in us, to dwell in our hearts and our minds and our bodies. And it got me thinking - what would our lives look like if we totally let God into our lives?

We would no longer lead hypocritical lives that so many of us lead, saying we love Jesus with our lips and then ignoring Him with our actions and our words. Our hearts would break for the poor and the broken, as God's heart does. We would see people on the street not as nuisances, but as children of God. Everyone we see would be shining with the love of God.

We would constantly be praising our God - not thinking about Him in between coffees and meetings. Like the creatures in Revelation, we would sing with ceaseless praise of the greatness of God. Our lives would be transformed by His presence in our lives. There's a fantastic couple of lines in the song, which sum up the desire that we all have for this:

We cry out for your love to revive us cry out
For your love to define us, cry out

Wouldn't that be amazing, if God's love in us defined us. That we were defined not by what we wear, or what we listen to, but that God's love is in us. That's how Jesus was defined. The thing that stuck out most about Jesus was his incredible love for others.

This is what God wants us to do. He wants us, desperately, to invite Him into our hearts and our lives, so that He can truly reign in us. We are nothing without Him, so lets give our all to invite Him in.