Please come visit me over there, and let us continue this wonderful conversation over there.

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The last couple of weeks god has been working very directly in my life. I sent messages and people on my path to help me get out of the mud. Did I listen immediately? Nope. It took me another 2-3 weeks to realise what is going on and to actually listen. Party because I was ashamed of what I have been doing for the last couple of months, and not feeling worthy of being in the presence of God, thinking that I am not worthy of the Glory of God.

Last night I heard something, which I knew, but chose to ignore.

You cannot seperate yourself from the Glory of God. It might feel to you that you have been seperated from God, but in truth it is simply you that let go, but God has never let go of you.

This makes me think of that Footsteps poem, where if you look back you will see sections in life where there is only one set of footprints, and other sections that there are two sets of footprints. Thinking that the single sets are you walking alone, God will someday let you know that those are the time He was carrying you, as you were unable to really cope on your own.

Satan has only one goal here on earth, and that is to get us to loose focus of God, and HIs glory. He wants us to think that we have been abandoned by God, but through the blood that Jesus shed on the Cross for us, we are unable to step out from the Glory of God. Nothing we can humanly do, can remove us from the Glory of God, permitted that we have accepted Christ as our Savior.

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Such a difficult thing this judging others. It seems like it is in out nature to judge, yet the Bible is pretty outspoken about this topic.

Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you.

- Matthew 7:1 (GNT)

According to the Bible there is only one true judge, and that is God himself. Why is it then that we simply cannot help ourselves judge others?

Just yesterday I read a Facebook update of a friend, which came over a seriously judgmental, even without the possibility of forgiveness. What is my personal reaction? I immediately judge the person that made the comment in the first place.  Is it just me that when at first you think you are correct in the way you react to something like this, end up thinking whether I am myself now simply being judgmental?

How do we deal with judging? Do we always simply cast a blind eye to what is happening around us, or do we comment where we feel it is called for, with the widely used, I am not judging, but…?

This is a short post on judging, but is something that I had 12 hours in the car yesterday to think about, and it is still bugging me a bit.

Share your thought on this, but please remember to not be judgmental…

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• You probably grew up in a home where you got regular meals to eat, even though they might not have been fancy.
• You probably had a place to lay down your head every night to have a rest, shielded from the elements.
• You probably went to school, and got some sort of education.

My heart in life is that there are people out there that would literally give their front teeth to have simply a little bit of the opportunities you had in your life, that placed you in a place where you were able to get an education and thus find a job that would enable you to spend time on the internet reading this post.

There are kids out there that are sleeping on the streets, on a cardboard box they fished out of a dumpster somewhere. They scavenge dustbins to find little scraps of food, often rotten, simply to get something in their bodies so they can continue to do this tomorrow.

We have found a ministry, POPUP, that gives adults that had never had opportunities to learn a skill or even hear about Christ, to get some education. They teach them skills and teach them about what Christ came to do for them here on earth.

During the last couple of months me and my wife, Nettie, felt we needed to start a ministry through one of our passions in life, Mountain Biking. Last night was the beginning of this new ministry, called Life Cycle. Our first project we are running is to raise money for POPUP, but more specifically for their Life Skills program, that before a student is allowed to do skills training must go through. This program teaches them basic life skills, as well as introduce them to Christ, and the impact this program makes in their lives, is immense.

We are aiming to raise R100 000 for this program through Life Cycle. We are selling ad space on our cycling kit, as well as advertising space on our website, which should be done in the next couple of days.

Unfortunately, we need some personal help as well, since Mountain Biking is not the cheapest of sports, and taking part in events, so that we can give exposure to our sponsors is expensive. We need help, and lots of it.

Please go and visit our Facebook Page, like it, and check out some of the ways in which you can get involved. We should be posting information soon about how you can support POPUP themselves, should you rather want to do that.

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The same can be said for anything in life.

Leadership

If you find yourself in a leadership position, if you do not have an absolute beacon on which you can focus your goal to which you are leading your people, you will eventually wander around aimlessly, trying to figure out what it is that you and your team is supposed to be doing.

Should you be developing something you will probably find yourself changing the specification numerous times during the development process, since you do not know exactly what it is that you are looking for. This will translate to that dreaded thing called scope-creep.

Parenthood

As a parent, you need to give your children some absolute beacons on which to focus on in life. Children have to know what the boundaries are within which they may operate. Yes they will try and move those boundaries from time to time, but at the end of the day you need to stick to your established boundaries.

They will thank you for it later in life, even if now, the boundaries might lead to them saying things like ‘I hate you’ and such.

Spirituality

In Christianity we have a couple of absolute beacons from which we cannot wander. Should we wander from these we are saying that the Word of God is not the truth, and then we start to wander into very dangerous territory, which might cause us to miss our intended target of spending eternity with our Father in heaven.

The following are some of these:

• I believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
• I believe that Jesus is God incarnate, who came to die for my sins on the cross
• I believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead on the third day, thus defeating death.
• I believe that Jesus ascended into heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father, from where He will come again to deliver us.

How do you feel about absolute boundaries?

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I do not really know why this is, but I can be surrounded by people, people who I love, and feel like nobody cares about me, and they are simply tolerating my, and does not really care about me.

Last night was again one of those nights. I was lying in bed, listening to my wife’s slow and steady breathing of a deep sleep, and all I could think about what a useless twat I am, and how she does not need me in her life.

These are obviously lies. Lies told to me by satan himself. Why? Because I am starting to reach some sort of high in my life, actually, and I feel really good about the direction my life is taking at this moment. I love every moment that I spend speaking to people about God and helping them cope with their problems. I love every moment I spend being creative, designing websites for clients. Thinking about how the pictures must look for the website, that I am going to take later today.

Why then do I allow satan the foothold to tell me such lies?

Simple, I do not spend enough time delving into the Word. Yes I do read my Bible, but sometimes simply because it is a habit, and not because I really want to. Reading the Bible in such a way takes away quite a bit of meaning from the exercise though. I could just as well read something else in that time, since I am not spending that time connecting with God, and reading His Word. At that time I am simply reading a sequence of words, and usually they then don’t impact my life at all.

Simply reading the Bible, obviously, can’t do ay harm, but for me, I need to connect with what I am reading. I need to create some sort of environment in which I can focus on the Word of God, and really listen to what He is trying to tell me in that time. Be this journalling or something else.

Maybe you guys can help me with this, in giving me some ideas on what you do to put more meaning into your times that you study the Word of God.

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What is it that makes a leader worth following? Is it the success he/she achieved through ruthless, focussed processes, or is it something else?

What is it the new generation is hungry for? What is it that they value in their leaders?

Gone are the days when leaders were seen as perfect people, people who is beyond normal sins. The days where a pastor was seen as a person that lives a perfect life, and can do no wrong is gone, and they need to accept that fact, and open up about their “issues”. Everyone knows that you are only human. We don’t really care about the fact that you make mistakes, unless it affects us personally, but that is an issue for another day. The fact that you are willing to open up about your failures and addictions, the fact that your marriage isn’t perfect, or that your kids are doing things you are ashamed of, gives you credibility.

The Bible is littered with stories of broken people, murderers, adulterers, etc. but yet they were used by God as key players in the story told.

Paul, a murderer, was used by God to reach the Gentiles. He was single-handedly responsible for most of what we know as the n testament. David, a man after God’s own heart, slept with a married woman, got her pregnant, had her husband murdered, and then didn’t think twice about his actions, until God sent a prophet to confront him about his actions.

As leaders we MUST understand that God’ grace underscores everything about the story we are telling to the world. We MUST get this thing, that we will fall, we will make mistakes, but we must also own up to them. The only perfect human being that has ever graced this earth we live on was Jesus. To try to pretend that we are perfect is not going to get us anywhere. All it will achieve is breaking down trust that people might have in us, and if somebody confronts you with something that you might have done wrong, listen to them, and do something about it!

A leader worth following is HOT (in the words of Tim Ross)

• honest
• open
• transparent

Go out there, be HOT, and let us change this world!

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8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father; that is all we need.”
9 Jesus answered, “For a long time I have been with you all; yet you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Why, then, do you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

John 14:8-9 (GNT)

Why do we usually take a stance, like Gideon, towards God? We want to make sure it is God through signs or confirmations on prophesies, like Gideon did with the piece of sheep skin. Just like Phillip in this section from John, asking Jesus to show them the Father, not realising that he is in the presence of God Himself.

Sometimes we confuse new believers in how you get salvation. We tell them that they must be holy beyond measure, speaking in tongues at every opportunity, prophesying to every person they meet, and the likes. In doing this, we so easily make these people feel inadequate, and in the end getting the to question the fact whether they have been saved.

I always shudder in my insides when I hear people say things like: “But I am not as holy as that person.”

We must always remember that if someone has been cleansed by the blood of Christ, they are just as holy as the next believer. They might not have discovered the gifts of the Holy Spirit yet, or they might simply have different gifts than you. But that does not make them less holy.

I actually believe that there aren’t different levels of holiness. You are either holy or not, full stop.

We need to stop making being a follower of Christ complicated. It is not complicated. Read your Bible, live in fellowship with others, and live Jesus to those you encounter in life. You do not become more like Jesus by studying Him more and more, but you become more like Jesus by doing what He did. By this I am not saying that we need not study the Word, but in today’s life we are placing way too much emphasis on this, and not enough emphasis on being the hands and feet of Jesus here on earth.

Sitting and talking about how we are going to change the world helps nothing of you do not get of your backside and actually go and do what you are talking about.

These are simply a couple of examples of us making our faith complicated, but I am sure there are more stories out there that will build this topic. Join me in the conversation.

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We are part of the Body of Christ, better known as the Church.

We share the calling of building the Kingdom of God and to proclaim His Word.

Or do we?

Very often I catch myself simply going through the motions. I go to church on Sundays, do my duty that I signed up for, and then I go home. During the week I might encounter people along the way that I can connect with on a level that might open the door for me to share God’s Word with them, but sometimes it is just easier to rather ignore that open door, and not do what I know I must do.

Does this happen only to me?

I don’t think so, but if it does, then I have some heavy work to do.

During the last couple of days I have come to a place where I am thinking of ways in which I can position myself better to take advantage of open doors like these. To make my main mission in life that of the Great Commission. To maybe put of some other less important things in my day, and to focus on this person. Our business as Christians are souls, isn’t it?

Why then would we rather not be late for our coffee appointment with a friend than to maybe send a message to this friend asking for prayer during the time that you will be late, since you are now focussing on saving a life. You don’t know it, but you might be that persons last chance to be saved.

We so dearly want to be part of the Kingdom of God, but we need to get a new focus on life. It is not about me, but about them. Being the Church means being willing to be persecuted in order to save some souls. It means that by playing church on a Sunday, feeding yourself with some information, does not really work. You need to be willing to go out and be the Church. Be God’s hands and feet here on earth.

Have you ever thought about the honor we have to be Gods hands and feet here on earth? He really does not need us to do anything for Him, yet He chooses to work through us. He places the biggest responsibility there is on earth in our hands, and then He even gives us free will. You can choose if you want to do this work or not. That is a bit of a scary thought to me.

How do you find yourself playing church sometimes, and how can we practically work our way out of this habit?

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Jesus’ strategy of disciple-making did not revolve around a class where He just told His followers how to live, instead His life and the Word was the curriculum. In the context of spiritual community, He sought daily to demonstrate to His groups how to live in obedience to the Father as they did life together. Jesus, the Living Word, showed them how to live, and then encouraged them and equipped them with His Spirit to demonstrate to their small group how to live a life that pleases the Father.

Quote from  The Church at Brook Hills

Taking the theme from my previous post, Feed Me!, further, I came about this quote from The Church at Brook Hills’ website. After having thought back on the book, Radical by David Platt, the lead pastor at The Church at Brook Hills, it further placed something in my heart on how do we change the consumerist culture within churches.

I am now convinced that the only way that we as faith community leaders will be able to do anything about the consumerist mindset of most attendants of our communities/churches is by setting that example. We all talk about servant leadership, as it is very much a bit of a buzz word lately, when it comes to leadership, but do we actually live this buzz word? It is all good and well that we teach people on this concept, and tell them about the examples in the Bible, like when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, but do we actually SHOW our followers what it means?

Do we serve the people in our church, rather than serving the church?

Do we get our hands dirty on outreach, or do we simply organise the outreach, and appoint an eager person in the congregation to take leadership in this matter, simply to not even attend the outreach itself?

Head First

I believe we must dive into the trenches of servanthood, head first. We must be the example of what we are teaching. People will never simply do what you say, they will do what you do.

That saying of ‘Don’t do what I do, but do what I say’ must be erased from our vocabulary and our lives.

I have used this saying more than I care to think of, and thinking about this right now, makes me cringe.

Am I going to tell my children to do what I say, and not what I do, while I am drinking myself into a stupor? They will simply say, but if daddy can do it, so can I.

Hypocrite

I feel like a hypocrite. I tell people what the Word says, but I don’t live it. In some ways I probably do live it, but it is much easier to tell people about what the Word says, than to actually show it.

• ‘Care for the widows and the orphans.’

Do I physically care for them, or is it easier to send some money to some or other ‘ministry’ or organisation?

• ‘You visited Me while I was in prison’

Did I? Did I visit people in prison, simply to encourage them, and help them in some way?

I want to believe that I do all these things, but if I have to be really honest with myself, I don’t. Sometimes I will go on one little outreach, but afterwards I might feel uncomfortable, and then rather not go again.

Yes, God blesses us with possessions and money to help the poor and the needy, and yes, giving to a charity is not wrong, but that can’t be all we do. We MUST get our hands dirty.

Join me in this conversation, and let us find practical ways in which we can show the Word in out local communities, as leaders. Let us show the Word to our followers, so that they themselves will begin to live this way.

Just remember, do it with a joyful heart!

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