What job do you do?

Christians seem to spend a lot of time thinking about what job they should do. What's God's plan for my life ? Where does He want me to be ?

To try to answer these questions, we pray (fine) we talk to other, trusted people (also fine) we read our bible (yes, still fine) and then we make our best guess.

Yet we seem slow to grasp that we are already commissioned; we already have a job to do.

Matt 28:19-20

¹⁹ 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, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

So, what we do to earn money, even the vocational stuff, is really just a second job. We must be able to do the first while doing the second.

Guess which job God will bless the most?*

What ever work you do, however hard you work, the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.

*To be fair I don't know, but I am sure that God will honour us living out the Great Commission.

Meditating on the Bible...

...with the help of google.

This is more to aid my memory than a fully formed post.

Some time ago, I heard some teaching on Christian meditation; how meditation is in fact biblical, but not the same as the meditation that is stereotyped from Eastern religions, IE clear your mind of everything!

Since then, I have added it to my list of ways to study my bible. I really like the idea of taking just one story or scene from the bible and really dwelling on it. Asking yourself questions about the people, the motives or the setting. One of the reasons I seek out John Ortberg's teaching is that his understanding of language, and cultural norms really help me to look deeper at what was going-on in and around any given story.

I'm currently reading through Acts. I have just read Acts 3 11-26. Not exactly a famous passage. (I've never seen it quoted on a bumper sticker!)

Just before this section, there has been a miraculous healing at the 'Beautiful' gate of the temple. People, unsurprisingly, are amazed and focus on Peter, John and the 'beggar'. There's a sort of address by Peter in this passage to the onlookers. Peter asks why they're looking at him and John like it was their power that had healed the man. He then goes on to talk about Jesus and the death and resurrection (what an opportunist!)

So, I read the passage a couple of times and started to picture the scene and I noticed that all of this was happening in 'Solomon's Colonnade'. So I thought I'd google it. I was a little surprised to see it come up as an auto-answer on google.

So I checked it out. For your information, Solomon's colonnade was a roofless walkway, 45' long with 38' high columns (according to google.) It was part of the temple complex but not of the temple itself. Gentiles could be in that area.

What struck me more as I searched was what else had happened in that area. In John 10, at pretty much the end of His ministry, Jesus is in discussion with the pharisees. He claims to be the Messiah and to be One with God. Pretty much the beginning of the end for Him really...

So, on the same spot (ish) where Jesus said that, just a short time later, Peter stands there declaring that what Jesus had said was true and that the miracle they had witnessed was in fact proof of it all!

Kinda takes an average miracle (how Western does that sound!) and makes it a part of something much bigger. God showing that through the life and faith of one man, His glory can be shown.

Absurd Jesus

Do you ever read what Jesus said and sort of nod-along going "yep, I get it, I get it, I get it.....lost me/not a clue!"

I was reading Mark 2:18~22 and the absurdity of what Jesus says struck me. So, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees and John the Baptist's disciples (who obviously didn't get what John had been on about, otherwise they'd be Jesus' disciples!) why His disciples aren't fasting. He says that it's a time of celebration right now so they shouldn't be fasting, which is about loss and associated to mourning. He then says that a time of mourning is coming and that they can fast then.

That seems to answer the question. Yet Jesus takes the opportunity to stretch the understanding of the people who asked Him a question. Hmmm.

I really like that idea, but how absurd to talk to them about wine skins when He's already answered the question?

You see, the Pharisees (et al) were trying to squeeze Jesus into their understanding, but Jesus knew that if they were to stand a chance of seeing Him for who He was, He'd have change how they thought. So, he started to point to the idea of old and new and that the old could not contain the new; they we incompatible.

Oh, if we could learn that in churches today. Not that you can discount something just because it's been there for a while. The question is: Is it compatible with Jesus' teaching? rather than a legalistic attempt to be god.

Father, I pray you'll continue to change the way I think,until I think like You.

Awesome God.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like...

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was given a balloon. God told him he could make the balloon bigger by breathing in to it, but to only breath in to it seven times. He breathed in to the balloon and then he breathed in to it again. Eventually, after much breath had been expelled, the man breathed in to it for the eigth time and the balloon burst. Then all that was left were tattered remains. Then God gave the man another balloon. It was a very expensive balloon. It cost God a lot. The man blew in to it once more. The story is not yet finished...but we all have the choice whether to follow God's instructions or to go it alone.