Saturday 25th April – day 33 of first lock down

Acts 2:42 is a great verse and one that I talk about a lot. It says this:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer”

Key words being, ‘they devoted themselves’ it was all on the believers to devote themselves to what was on offer. In other words, it takes effort to grow a life in God. If you are a professional athlete, the work that has to go into winning medals is staggering. I had a look at a typical training schedule for someone training for the 100 metres (around 10 seconds of a race)

An easy training day: – 8am – 6 mile run;

3pm – 2 hour spin class;

9am – 5 mile run

A hard training day: – 5.30am -80 minute swim

10am – 1 hour swim

3pm – Bike intervals – 90 mins

Wow! That makes me sweat just reading it! Athletes know about devotion to a task.

Another great scripture is in 1 Timothy 4:6-10

“If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.”

Train yourself for godliness – train yourself – but not just for this life, but for the one to come! When I first read that, it got my attention. Won’t we all be the same once we get to heaven? This suggests not, this suggests that I need to train myself on earth as it will hold promise for the life to come. You see, it’s me that’s going to heaven – I won’t turn into someone else when I get there. There are rewards in heaven for the lives we live on earth.

Devote yourself, train yourself. It goes back to building your life on the rock doesn’t it. When you build on rock, you’re giving yourself THE best chance of winning when a storm hits!

So, during this lock down, we all have a great chance to become wiser. We train our bodies so that we don’t get wider! Haha! Plus we can devote ourselves to prayer, teaching, breaking of bread – I know we can’t do the fellowship part right now!

Think about your kitchen. Some times, I have a mad clean out. I get to the back of the cupboards and inevitably find a jar of pickles that went out of date last century! Everything gets pulled out, shelves get cleaned, the in date stuff gets put back. When it’s done, it feels great! Let me suggest doing that with your life. Search and see if there is anything lurking in the ‘back of a cupboard’ that you need to ditch. Set time aside every day to sit with God. Devote yourself, train yourself and you’ll be ready for any storm!

After thought – 28th November 2020

Here we are coming to the end of yet another lock down, although if you’re in tier 3, it doesn’t really feel like we’re coming out! At least we can begin to do our Christmas shopping, if you haven’t already! Could we ever have imagined on the 25th April when we talked about the above, that we would still be here 7 months later! The above message hasn’t changed. And I trust you are still training and devoting yourself. I hope you are reading your Bible, I hope you are going to church, I hope you’re getting wiser and not wider.

Since the 25th April, John and I have been busy working on a website. You will find all kinds of things there but I wanted to bring your attention to last weeks podcast because we spoke about storing up treasures in heaven which fits nicely into what is written in this blog. The link is below and the link for our website is below that.

Don’t let anything get on top of you, get on top of it!

See you next time, D x

Podcast link

 https://anchor.fm/deb-bullock/episodes/Store-up-your-treasure-in-heaven-emsj6q)

Website link

https://www.this-is-us.org/

Last week we talked about building on rock and that the consequences of not doing that are great. ‘The fall of that house (the one built on sand) was great!’

This week we’re looking at the life of David. Another fantastic story of winning in the face of great defeat.

Did you know that an ant can carry 20 times its body weight? That’s incredible isn’t it? Whenever I read a fact like that, it makes me think about what I am capable of now that I have the creator of the universe living inside of me! Let me pose this question that was asked of us once, many years ago, by God, through John: “What would you attempt for God if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Pause, think, dream, then do it!

David was a shepherd boy, he looked after sheep. This gave him hours of time to prepare with his sling shot for what was to happen one day in his future. Hours! He had also killed bears and lions – note plural because it was more than one (1Samuel 17:36) I’d be very impressed if he’d killed just one of each, but here it’s plural! Go David! I’d like to suggest that David was building his life on a firm foundation so that when the biggest battle of his life came along, he was more than ready!

Goliath

Goliath was 9ft. His coat weighed 8 and a half stone (55 kilos), his spearhead was 1 stone (6.6 kilos) he was carrying a lot of weight and weaponry. Goliath had been taunting the Israelites for 6 weeks, (1 Samuel 17: 16) no-one would take him on, Saul and all of Israel were dismayed and greatly afraid. (11) David arrives with his brothers’ packed lunches and says, ‘I’ll do it!’ (31) You’ll know that Saul gave David his armour which was far too heavy and big for him, David took his sling, picked up 5 stones and took his place to bring down Goliath. Verse 48 tells us that he ran to the battle line! Great picture of confidence.

What giant, if any, are you facing today? We are all living with the Covid giant. How are you reacting to that? Are you retreating? Are you dismayed and greatly afraid? Or have you girded up your loins, prepared your sling shot and ready to run at it? I hope it’s the last option. We can’t declare Psalm 91 and then retreat can we? Truth is, if we’ve killed lions and bears, we should be ready for anything!

When you build on rock, you have much more confidence in the face of battles, you have much more confidence in prayer when the storms of life hit.

Afterthought – November 14th 2020

Listen to this quote from Myles Munro

“The kingdom of darkness gets its power from that which we do not know. The truth we are ignorant of cannot protect us against satan’s deception”

What an incredible sentence. In other words, if we don’t know the word of God, if we don’t spend time building on the rock, if we don’t know what God says about who we are in him, satan can and does throw us around like rag dolls! “My people are destroyed through lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)

It’s not enough to know Jesus (it is for eternity, that’s all you need for that, praise Him) but, if you want a victorious life on earth before you live in paradise forever, you must get to know about Him and His word.

You’re not protected because you’re born again. You’re protected because you’ve practised with your sling shot and killed a few lions and bears! You’ve put the ground work in. You’ve built on the rock.

Go sling a few stones!

See you next week! D x

CHAPTER FOUR

Saturday 11th April

One of my favourite parables is found in Matthew 7:24-27. It’s the story of the wise and foolish builders.

I’m sure most of you reading this, will know it, but just in case, here’s the story!

2 men, 2 houses, 1 storm (commentators say that the houses were next to each other which makes this even more poignant in my thinking)

1 man built his house on rock, he dug down deep for his foundations. The other man built his on sand. He didn’t dig down deep for his foundations.

A storm came and the house that was built on rock stood firm, and the other? You guessed it, it collapsed and was ‘utterly destroyed’ some versions say this.

The message behind the story, if you want to survive a storm, you have to build a solid foundation. Jesus explained it this way: if you hear the word of God and apply it to your life, you are like the wise man. If you hear the word of God and don’t apply it to your life, you are like the foolish man and your ‘house’ will not stand firm.

How many times have you seen Christians shipwreck their lives? More often than not, if you were to ask how their building progress has been going, it’s likely that it hasn’t or if it has, it’s been mainly on sand.

Jesus never promised a life without storms, storms and challenges are  what test us and helps us grow, but he also never said we would be on our own to deal with the storms. We have access to the master builder who helps us build wisely, if you listen to Him.

I have to say at this point, that there are some, many storms that we absolutely bring on ourselves because of the silly choices we make at times. We have to submit to God and to ‘acknowledge Him in all our ways’, only by acknowledging Him, talking to Him, asking Him for His thoughts do we receive the promise that comes in the second half of that verse which is, ‘and He will make your paths straight’ (Proverbs 3:6) So often, we don’t acknowledge Him, we don’t take His advice, we do our own thing and wonder why our paths aren’t straight….

Another great potion of scripture showing us the responsibility that we have to grow in Jesus…. 1 Timothy 1:18-19

“This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith.”

 By rejecting building a solid foundation – some have made a shipwreck of their faith. Strong words, yet words that we rarely hear from pulpits today.

Look at what is a available to those of us who believe..

John 15:5

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”.

Wow! Jesus has made known to us, ALL that he has heard from the Father! Our job is to study it and to build on a firm foundation. And if we do that, when storms come, our houses will stand!

After thought – 7th November 2020

This week, the story broke of the New York Hillsong’s pastor, Carl Lentz. He was fired from his role due to a moral failure, an affair. A cool, trendy, relevant pastor (he baptised Justin Bieber) taken out because, as far as I am concerned, was building his house on sand. He wasn’t doing what was right (Genesis 4: 7) and he wasn’t adding to his faith – 2 Peter 1:10.

“Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”

The consequences of a shipwreck and a house collapse are massive. What now for Carl, his family and the church? Huge repercussions. No doubt, that with God’s mercy and grace, they will all recover, but there will be a huge price to pay.

This Kingdom that we are a part of isn’t a game, it’s serious. Carl wasn’t the only one who fell this week. We were speaking to good friends of ours just this week and they told us of a highly respected Tanzanian pastor who has been doing the same thing, to the point of getting a girl pregnant.

I wonder how many other pastors/church leaders are having sex with people they shouldn’t be? I wonder if this is a major reason why we are not seeing what we should be seeing?

“The kingdom of heaven is advancing and forceful men take hold of it!” Matthew 11:12

If you’ve lost your grip, if you’re on a slippery slope, if you’re building on sand, if you’re sleeping with someone you shouldn’t be – stop it. If you’re texting someone you shouldn’t be – stop it, or it will spiral out of control. You think texting is innocent? How do you think Carl started on this path? I think I am safe in saying, he didn’t wake up one day and commit adultery. He began by making small, wrong choices and ended up in bed with someone who is not his wife. If you continue on a path of wrong choices, the enemy is waiting to pounce, if we give him a sniff of a chance, he will take anyone down.

Don’t down tools, build on the rock.

See you next week! D x