Death Where Is Your Sting?

So I'm finding it hard to express in words how I feel right now, I have started and stopped so many times so bear with me...
I write this blog with a really heavy heart as I think about the recent loss of two of the dearest & closest people in my life. I want to just talk a little about the affect these two people have had on my life and talk about how their beliefs  were not just important to them but are of eternal importance to us all.  I write this not to sound like a pompous Christian promoting my own words but I write this because I believe in the infinite importance of Gods words. I really want to ask that you read this carefully and with an open heart.


Some people will know that under 2 weeks ago I lost my Papa. To put this in context, I spent alot of my childhood with my Gran and Papa and so we developed an extremely close relationship. My Papa was a bold man with a real strength of character. As my dad said at his funeral "Bert didn't like grey, he was black or white."
This boldness and strength was apparent in many ways but most importantly in my Papa's faith and love for God. My papa was not just a grandparent but was a constant mentor and spiritual role model to me, influencing many of the decisions I made in life. I watched and admired how he loved people, and wanted everyone he met to know the Love of God just as he did.
My Papa sang the praises of God right up to the night he was called home and I can say joyfully that as he shut his eyes, he woke up to see the face of the Lord!


My dear friend and sister Nikey was taken 11 days ago. As I walked by newspapers and adverts I could hardly believe they are talking about the same friend that I cherished so dearly.
Nikey started coming around our house as a teenager to babysit us, just as we do now for her two beautiful children, Caleb and Mackenzie. She was the big sister we never had and we often laughed about her being an extension of our family.
As I grew up and Nikey started to have her own family, she became my friend. Many of my happiest memories are with Nikey as we talked and laughed, whether it was on the holidays we went on or whether it was just sitting at home having a glass of rose wine. She was a constant in my life, she knew me inside out, and I relied on her and valued her more than she will ever know.
Nikey was a great encourager and my last conversation with her as she dropped me at the train station last Monday night was one of Hope and Encouragement.
She was explaining how she'd recently been alerted to the importance of REALLY living our lives for the Gospel.

"We need to giving 100 percent all of the time, none of this lukewarm nonsense! We need to stop mucking around in this life!"

I laugh when I think of her saying this loudly and so passionately, using her hands to articulate what she was saying, as I nervously urged her to get them back on the steering wheel!  Like my Papa, Nikey was also a very "black or white" person, there was no grey! Those of you who are reading this and knew Nikey will have a smile on your face right now, thinking about the times Nikey said what everyone else was thinking!




And so Iam writing this blog with urgency because I realise that "Our lives are like a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears." (James4v14)
 I want to continue on this passion Nikey had for being uncompromising for the Gospel and to know what it means to say "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Philippians 1v21)

When death arrives, we are humbled to realise just how finite and fragile our lives are. We are nothing compared to Almighty God yet ... in His mercy, he sent his son Jesus, fully man yet fully God, to identify with us in our suffering and ultimately to solve this problem of pain, stemming from our sin. 

Hebrews6 v 18&19 tells us that  "We who have found safety in Him are greatly encouraged to hold firmly to the hope that is set before us. We have this hope as an anchor for our lives. It is sure and steadfast ."

You see the reason we have this hope is because of the cross. But why does the Christian hold the symbol of the cross, a means of torture and execution, so dearly?


It is because on that cross, Jesus who had spent eternity loving his Father was separated from him. Gods rightful anger at sin was poured out upon his own son. He loved US so much that HE took the punishment. God humbled himself and gave up EVERYTHING on that cross, so that we could be free from our sin! But Jesus didn't just die for us, otherwise we would be merely worshiping some dead man. He rose again! God was able to defeat death!



So what does this mean?
1. This means when death comes, we no longer have to fear. We instead cry,

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?.... But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

(1 Corinthians 55-57) 

Death does not have the final say, although it hurts now, we have the ultimate victory because of the cross. 

2. This means that we can live with the certainty that we have an eternal life waiting for us in heaven with God. We can be sure that one day all pain and suffering will be gone, that he will wipe away every tear from our eyes and that all our needs will be satisfied because God is the only one who can satisfy.


3. This means that no matter what we have done, we can have a relationship with the living God. We can admit that we don't know best and hand our lives over to the one who knows our every need because he created us.

You might be reading this blog and have never heard this message before. You might think Iam just some mental brain washed Christian and reading this was a waste of time. You might have heard this a million times and it just seems like it is not for you. Perhaps you are a Christian who has lost faith that God is a good God who loves us and wants to help us.

Whatever you think and feel about God, can I ask that you take the time to look deeper into Christianity, to think about what is the truth! The Bible makes a promise..."Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be open." (Matthew 7v7)

Looking deeper means wholeheartedly searching for the true, living God. Not the God who suits you best, or who fits in with your lifestyle.
If you feel like you have been there, done that but have had previous bad experiences, I urge you, don't let past experiences of church or Christians put you off, but instead fix your eyes on the only person who will never let us down because he IS LOVE and we are not.

You may think Christianity is simply a crutch for the "weak" but if you really take a look you will discover that Christianity is not a crutch for the weak. Although God promises to give strength to the weak, Christianity is for those who have discovered the truth and who are strong enough to stick their neck's out for what they believe.

If you are a someone who understands who God is and what he has done, but you haven't decided to fully commit then I urge you to stop wasting your life. God has called us to be a light to this world so that others can have this hope of eternal life, are we going to waste this opportunity to give it to them? Are we going to put our faith into practice, or are we going to continue to believe it yet do our own thing? Luke warm Christianity doesn't work, I have tried it and have found that it only leads to a sad double life, where you feel far from God because you do not trust that he is good enough to provide all your needs.


For me as I have experienced death in adulthood for the first time, I realise the absolute pain it brings but I have also realised the joy it is to know that the people I love are safe with God.
I believe that only Jesus Christ can heal the brokenness of this world fully and that he loved us so much that he sent his only son not to condemn us but to save us so that we can have everlasting life!


If you don't know Jesus I ask with all the love in my heart that you find out more about him, not so more can join the Christian club or so we look good but so that you too can have this gift of a life with Him. If you are a Christian but have forgotten that Jesus is a God of love, then go back to the cross. Discover the wonder of what He did for us and ask God to dissolve your frozen heart which is so forgetful to his love. 

'When wounded sore, the stricken soul lies bleeding and unbound, one only 

hand, a pierced hand, can salve the sinner's wound.

When sorrow swells the laden breast, and years of anguish flow, One only 

heart, a broken heart, Can feel the sinner's woe.

When penitence has wept in vain over some foul dark spot, one only stream, 

a stream of blood, can wash away the blot.

'Tis Jesus' blood that washes white, His hand that brings relief, His heart 

that's touched with all our joys, and feeleth for our grief.

Lift up Thy pierced hand, O Lord; Unseal that cleansing tide; We have no

 shelter from our sin, But in Thy wounded side.'

The Race of Perseverance...

According to statistics in about 5 years time approximately one third of Christians in your C.U will claim that their faith was nothing but a "passing phase". 

Another third will be luke warm, nominal Christians. 

But the final third will have continued on the narrow path with Jesus being at the centre of everything they say and do. 

These statistics seriously scare and sadden me. They make me wonder how many of us are as passionate as Jesus' disciple Peter saying "Lord Iam ready to go with you to prison and to death." (Luke 22v33) and yet it is inevitable that some of us will deny Christ just as Peter did. 
And so Iam writing this blog because I realise that I may one day be a "Peter" and therefore need to be constantly reminding myself, of the goodness of Christ, and the importance of not falling away but instead glorifying Him with every minute of my live.


Hebrews 3v12 Tells us to make sure that none of us have an unbelieving heart. The Israelites...they caught a glimpse of Gods awesome power in Egypt (the plagues, the parting of the red sea) and saw His faithfulness in leading them out of slavery, yet they still had unbelieving hearts! How can this be?

The problem is with the sinfulness of the human heart. 

It is inclined to constantly wander away from Gods good ways and from the belief that He has everything under his absolute control.

Christians...we'r good at "faking it". It is possible to look like you love Christ from the external, to do and say all the right things, even to turn up to all the right events but internally have an unbelieving heart. We are deceivers. This deeply saddens me-it is not how we should act towards one another. 
Instead as a family in Christ we need to "encourage one another daily" and hold one another accountable in our relationship with God.


Things WILL present themselves as more valuable than Christ, be that a job a  relationship or even "good works" that simply promote self more than Jesus.
Whatever it is, it may look more valuable right now but I want to encourage you that NOTHING is more valuable than Jesus. 

For who else created the universe yet stepped down to become a mere human? Who else loved us so much that he put all his glory aside to be tortured and put to death a horrendous Roman cross? 

Who else has defeated death so that we can be saved from it and have everlasting life?

To satisfy the righteous anger that God has towards sin, Jesus was separated from his Father, this is why he cries out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" because at that moment, Jesus took all of our past sins, and our future sins and bore the punishment that we rightfully deserve. And so I ask you, where is his superior and where would we improve him? I have not yet found anyone who begins to be more valuable than Jesus, have you?

Preaching Jesus Christ and the Gospel to yourself is the only anecdote to drifting away. 

So I encourage you to "throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so entangles easily, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith....Consider him who endured  such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12v1-3) 

The Problem of Prayer.

As I sit here with a mug of tea in my hand and my final slice of bread from the loaf, apart from thinking I desperately need to do a shopping, my thoughts have turned to prayer.


Over the past year I have taken on the role of Prayer Secretary for the Christian Union. I have to say that this role has been an incredible privilege but an incredible challenge at the same time. 


Privilege: Having the opportunity to try to help people understand something about the mystery of prayer has been immense! I have made some massive discoveries about prayer myself which I probably would have never done had I not been prayer sec. I have had the privilege of praying with so many honest loving people and have seen so many answers to prayer over the past year. Finally spending time praying for Gods people has made me love them more and love Jesus more for what he has done. 


Challenge: Disciplining my own prayer life has been one of the most challenging things. Having to speak to the C.U about the wonder of prayer and what it does, and then follow through on my words by committing myself to "pray continually" has been SO HARD. I have also faced alot of discouragement this year because of the lack of numbers to prayer meetings and just generally the lack of chat about prayer and how it is affecting peoples lives. 


What I have learned through this role has been immense and I just want to share some of that with you...or else I would be here all night.

Number One

"The problem we have is not with prayer but with need and with complacency." Pete Greig

ISN'T THAT SO TRUE? We get so satisfied in our own selves and in our own sin that we forget we NEED God! We forget that he is the bread of life, that without him, we are exposing ourselves to spiritual danger. Our human nature is to get so wrapped up in this life, that we forget about the one who made life possible! We are so self focussed that we sometimes can't even hear what God has to say to us because we are thinking about our own needs. We sometimes love life, more than the one who made it. That is a cold hard fact that we need to identify to fix this problem of prayer.

Number Two

"We have taken this war-time walkie-talkie and turned it into an intercom button to call the butler to bring us another pillow." John Piper.

I challenge you to take a look at your own prayer life, as I have been forced to do, and see how many selfish things you ask God to do for you. I know I was extremely struck by the amount of selfish petitions I asked of God- like he is some kind of vending machine! 

God is our Father and yes he wants us to bring everything before him but really doesn't your Father know your needs before you even ask them. Could you spend more time praying for the salvation of others? Could you spend more time thanking God for what he has done? Absolutely. How often is it we just bask in Gods goodness and listen to what he has to say to us.

Number Three

 "..real praying includes an element of struggle, discipline, work and spiritual agonizing against the dark powers of evil." D.A Carson

Prayer is a spiritual battle-it is difficult! Why? Because it is the only thing that the devil has no power against-none what-so-ever! He will therefore do everything in his power to try to stop us from falling to our knees in prayer. Without prayer we are effectively allowing the devil to do his work. So how do we tackle this? We "Stand Firm", put on the full armour of God and "pray in the Spirit on all occasions." Not sometimes-always. When we feel like we can't be bothered praying first thing in the morning, we "Stand Firm". When we feel guilty about our prayer life, we "Stand Firm". And when we feel that God is not answering out prayer, we "Stand Firm". 

To summarise...

How do we overcome the many problems of praying? 

The truth is, we will never overcome the problems of praying. 

"We are still contaminated by failures, sin and self-centeredness; we are not yet what we ought to be." D.A Carson. But by Gods grace we are not failures because we do not feel like praying, instead love and mercy is poured out on us through Jesus Christ.  

However...

We must try to overcome this problem by doing two things. 

1.Eyes off self.

2.Eyes on the cross  

1.By taking our eyes away from our selfish hearts, we remember who God is. We remember that he is our maker and that he is the only one who deserves our attention. When we take our eyes of ourselves, we suddenly remember how unworthy, weak and powerless we are before Him and we fall to our knees in worship.

2.By focusing our eyes on the cross, we remember just what Jesus has done for us and how privileged we are. We remember that Jesus took the FULL FURIOSITY of Gods rightful wrath, instead of us. We remember that God loved us so much that he created this master plan of the cross when we rightfully deserved to be destroyed.

When we do this and our eyes are completely focussed on Christ, we begin to see something of the wonder of prayer and we catch a tiny glimpse of the glory of God our saviour. 

Listen to these words...Can we truly sing them knowing that we want God alone to be our vision?

High King of heaven, my victory won.

May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

A misconception about Christianity...

God: Well Laura, you have done some pretty dodgy stuff in your life. 


Laura: I know God, but look at the good stuff I've done, what do you think about them?


God:Hmm yes, there is some pretty good stuff in there. Hang on, let me count up how many good things you have done, and compare them to the bad things you have done.


Laura: I think I have made it by the skin of my teeth.


God: ... 1399,1400. Yup, your in, your good deeds have outweighed the bad. Well done- You have passed the test of life. 

Thankfully, not so! 

The belief that our entrance to heaven depends on our good deeds, is a complete and utter myth. 

There would not be a single person who would be able to reach heaven if it depended on our goodness. Why?

Because of the simple fact that we are human. Through Adam and Eve, sin entered the world. They decided to turn their back on God's ways and turn to their own ways therefore a curse was upon the human race.


So even if we do all the good in the world the fact is it doesn't matter-we are cursed. our hearts do not want God first, they want self first and God later...maybe.

 But why is self such a bad thing? 

 C.S Lewis wrote “we are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”


You see by thinking that OUR way is best, we are missing out an this amazing opportunity to have a relationship with the one who created the universe, the one who knows us best and the one who created us! 


Can you picture that child choosing to play in a dirty slum instead of having the joy of experiencing the sea, the waves, the sand and its glorious freedom. I know what option I would choose...


So lets abolish this misconception of "good deeds=heaven" and start to wrap our minds around the fact that it is about having a real relationship with and experiencing the living God!

He took our sin, all the bad stuff we have ever done. The one who was sinless became SIN because he LOVED us so much. Are our "good deeds" more sufficient than his death?
 We all have the option to chose whether to play in the slum with the mud, or to experience the glorious freedom of the beech.

Life is not a test to see how well we do. Jesus said...

" I have come so you they may have life and have it to the full." John 10v10

The beginnings of my pursuit of God... or His pursuit of me.

"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, I can only conclude that I was made for another world." C.S Lewis

So this is one of my favourite quotes and one of my favourite songs by Brooke Fraser-a paraphrase of a quote from C.S Lewis' 'Mere Christianity'...


 I can say that I do "find in myself desires that nothing in this world can satisfy" and have concluded that "I was made for another world." Most Importantly I have concluded that I was made by a God who loves me and who is so rich in grace and mercy that he died a horrific death so that he could win back my soul, and bring me into a relationship with Him. 


AMAZING!


Ok, so how did this come about? 
Well-your average Christian testimony begins.."I was brought up in a Christian family.."
                     and so I was, a great one who really helped me understand something of who God is and what he had done for me. 
Although I committed my life to God at a younger age, I really believe I did not see the fruits of the gospel in my life or understand something of God's grace until I came to university.


You see before I really committed my life to Christ, my relationship with him consisted of seeing how much he could do for me-when really it's NOT about ME- its ALL about HIM.
I would go through a series of short highs after Christian activities etc and then long periods of lows where I would basically turn my back on God and decide for myself what I thought was the best way to do life.


After some major mess ups, I was hit like a ton on bricks, with the realisation that if there was a God- there was no way could I live my life purposely going against his will. And if there wasn't that I would carry on living my life anyway I wanted-after all why be good if there is no ultimate purpose to this life anyway? 


And so my pursuit of God began....
To confirm my faith in Jesus, I began to check out other religions, Atheism and a series of Ultimate questions. 
My Conclusion: Jesus is the ONLY way and the only answer that satisfies. 
                   
 No other religion presents such a loving God, that even when we chose to turn our backs on him, he chose to pursue us.
                                      But how did he do this?


                      "And being found in appearance as a man, 
                                  he humbled himself 
                            by becoming obedient to death— 
                                even death on a cross!" Phil 2v8


You see the amazing thing is, this God who created the universe, chose to love me and chose to save me and so what more can I do but give my life to the pursuit of Him! 


He is the only one who eternally satisfies the soul that is thirsty for the love of God. 


Am I now perfect and sinless? Far From It. My best deeds are filthy rags. Hence my desire to continue to pursue God, so that I might become a little more like him and a little less like my sinful self.