TomTom

Last week I went to a part of New Zealand I had never been before with my job. I flew into Nelson and  hired a car and because I did not know my way around I had bought a TomTom GPS system from home. When I was going anywhere I fed in the address and it would tell me how to get there . It is a wonderful piece of equipment and allowed me operate well  beyond what I could  do with my own knowledge. I was so attentive to that machine following its instructions exactly, but if I made a mistake the machine would recalibrate and show me how to fix it and still get where I want to go.....................amazing!

Interestingly I went to the Far North this week around Kerikeri and Kaitaia. This is an area I know and I am quite familiar with. I did take the TomTom with me to help me along, but I didn't use it in the same way. I was not as intense or attentive as I used it. It was just to give me a back up system to my own knowledge little more. If I thought I knew better I would ignore it and go my own way.

I started to think how my relationship with God can be like that. In the beginning when I first became Christian everything was so intense I looked to hear from God to make sure I was going the right way everything seemed unfamiliar, a bit like the Nelson trip. After twenty something years everything seems much more familiar in my Christian walk, I feel more comfortable. Unfortunately  there are times when I just use God as a back up system, to what I know, to what I think and just like in the Far North I will override him if I think I know best.

Experience has shown me I don't know best, God does, but that does not stop me thinking I do. It is in fact my sinful nature. So it is time for me and probably you, if you have been a Christian for a while to "return to our first love" as the Bible says. Know that every day no matter how familiar it seems is in fact a new thing you have never quite been there before. We need to be as attentive and intense with God as I was in Nelson with the TomTom when I wasn't sure about where I was and what to do next. Because in the end our destiny and our future depends on it!

I will be away for ten days so I will write when I get back!!

I really meant to!

As I continue to look at new changes in the way "I do life", some things are becoming a little clearer. After I wrote the last blog a friend of mine face booked me and said it is as much about the decisions we make as the size of our steps. A point I began to ponder, what is it about our decisions that is so significant?

There are lots of times I make decision and nothing seems to happen because I don't follow it through. Or maybe its just that I  think because I make the decision it will happen automatically. Unfortunately that is not the case, I need to prioritise that decision and then act upon it. That seems fairly basic however consistency in real life practise is another thing.

So I am intending to prioritise blogging to get better at it. Now there is the decision,  I just have to stick to it. Amongst everything I have to do I want to write a least once per week. One of the things I have to get over is that I don't have to write a novel, documentary or a sermon each time. Just a few thoughts or recollections will do to start with.

We will see how it goes!

Relevance versus Biblical

I know I don't have a full grasp of this, I am just thinking out feelings and thoughts. There would seem to be a growing gulf between the Christianity that is being presented in our churches and the Christianity that is presented by Jesus and Paul in the Bible.

My first thoughts are around salvation. We seem to be so concerned about relevance to the culture around us that we have lost sight of the power of the gospel to bring about salvation and change. We seem to be focussed on techniques and strategies to the detriment of allowing the Holy Spirit and the gospel to bring the necessary conviction to bring change. The Bible tells me that the gospel is not going to appeal to anybody in the world without the Holy Spirit engaging with them.

Maybe it would be better to encourage the presence of The Holy Spirit rather than being so 'user friendly" in our churches. I know I came to Lord alone in a house with the Jesus Project video ( yes in fact a video .....  that long ago) which is a literally acted out version of the Gospel of Luke. So that  left the encounter to me, God and gospel and it seemed to work. I am still walking with God today.

In my experience it works. We should try it more often!!