Life is lived by each moment

…..the power of choice we exercise with regard to our relationship with Jesus Christ have eternal consequences. Those consequences will be glorifying or terrifying to each of us.

Source: PInterest

On Thursday 2nd July 2008 I woke up at 4:30am and did my usual thing. I went to the Wellness Center at 5:00am, worked out until 5:45am and then went back home and then went to work. I had a highly-active and fast-moving day at work, which was fun. When I arrived home at 5:00pm I noticed some tightening in my chest. Then it happened. I could not breathe, it felt like my heart was pounding out of control. By 6:30pm, I was in the hospital. Now, I have a serious heart problem. Three days later I went home to live an altered lifestyle. You may ask; ‘why am I telling you this?’ Well, here is the reason: If there are high priority things in your life that need to be done and you are procrastinating or waiting for the right time to do it, you could be making the biggest mistake of your life as well as everybody else’s life that you affect. My advice to you is --- Do not wait! Thursday morning and during the day, all was good, I did my usual things that I do and had a great day. However, over a one-hour period of time, things went from great to the potential of death or disability. Think about it – just one unexpected hour!

I was reminded again how fragile life is and why we should live on a moment by moment basis. On the 11th March 2016 my doctor ordered a heart catheterization. The reason he ordered it was because of progressive tiredness and exhaustion over the past year. The stress test and echogram seemed ok, but just for safety’s sake, the doctor wanted a heart cath. As it turned out, the window blood vessel was almost completely blocked in three places, so they placed three stents in that vessel (A stent is a small mesh tube that's used to treat narrow or weak arteries). They caught it just before a heart attack and potential death. One day I seemed fine, and the next day, potential death. Here is another question: Do you know when your last moment might be?

Source: Canaan Christian Fellowship

Now, here is my concern based on these life-altering experiences: I have questions for myself and for you.

1. If you were to die today, would you go to heaven or hell? - Our soul is eternal. Our flesh will die, but our soul lives on.  Where will your soul be? In glory or in agony? 

2. If you died today and had the chance to reflect on your life, what would you do differently? - Today is the day to make the adjustment; tomorrow may not be here for you.

3. If you were to die today would you use those resources He has given to you in the same way? -  If you had a chance to look at the world through the eyes of Jesus and you could hear the prayers coming to Him – If you could feel His passion for the unsaved and for the people that are considered the least by social and economic standards – If you could feel His hurt for the hurt of His people – If you could assume the role and passion of Jesus and then evaluate how you have used the resources He has given to you, would you use those resources He has given to you in the same way? The resources you were given were to elevate God among men, not to elevate man’s self among men. If you could see lost souls and did nothing, how will you answer that question when you are asked?  If you could see acute hunger or if you could see the naked or if you could see those in prison, and did nothing – how are you going to answer that question? 

4. If you could do it over again, would you choose to live your life the same way, or would you choose to live your life a different way? Would you see Jesus’s people through His eyes of passion, glory and pain? Or, would you remain cold to the heart of Jesus?  

5. Has your life been the example that you would want your family to follow? - Have you unconditionally loved your wife/husband and kids or grandkids? If you were to die, are you happy with the example of your life for them to follow?  How about your friends and community?  How was your example with them?

6. Have you prepared to take care of your family financially if you were no longer here? The capitalistic system we live under is a cold and cruel survivor system. You can benefit from that system or you can be a victim of that system.  Will your family have a chance to survive in that system?

Answers: While you are still alive you are given the power to make these choices. We have that power of choice today, but some day that power will be taken away and then there will be the consequences.

These are things that I have had to consider. Will you consider these things? I have come to know that in most cases, we are a product of our own choices. I have also come to understand that maybe the greatest power we possess is in the power of choice. There is no power in our life that is greater than the power we have to make choices, and someday, when we die, that power will be taken away and the consequences of our choices are fixed, and they will prevail. The power of choice is great. Let me remind myself and you that the power of choice we exercise with regard to our relationship with Jesus Christ have eternal consequences. Those consequences will be glorifying or terrifying to each of us.

This is something worth thinking about.

Author: David Leatherman 

May God bless and enrich your life

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Don’t Get Distracted

We can have all the glitz and glam of church and make worship ‘cool’ but we’ve missed the point if we don’t have the presence of God. After all it’s the presence of God that changes lives and transforms us

Source: EvangelismHelp.com

I find myself writing this in the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool. I’m sat in one of the side chapels surrounded by such beautiful architecture, design and craftsmanship. There is such simplicity, yet the attention to detail is amazing. What I love though is that everything surrounding me does not distract me from what its intended purpose is. It’s a space which draws me into the presence of God.

Why do I share this? How is this relevant to us today? For me it’s simple, but something that even I sometimes get distracted from all too quickly, and it’s this… sometimes we focus so much of our time and energy into how things look in our church. In our worship times we have the lights, the smoke machine and maybe we’re even tempted to get a giant LED screen for the back of the stage. We want our singers to jump up and down, the band to at least sing along to the songs they are playing. All these are great and I love them and at times these things are really important, but the danger is that they can become our focus. Our job as worship teams is to create a space where people can come into the Presence of God, not create a space that replaces the Presence of God. Everything we do and bring, the surroundings we create and design should always have a purpose in helping to point people to Jesus.

Source: Patric Benziher - WordPress.com

Psalm 22:3 tells us; ‘But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel’. I love this verse as it reminds me that God’s presence dwells in us when we worship him. But our worship must come from a place of authenticity and not dressed up with bells and whistles!!! We can have all the glitz and glam of church and make worship ‘cool’ but we’ve missed the point if we don’t have the presence of God. After all it’s the presence of God that changes lives and transforms us.

As church leaders, worship pastors, worship leaders, creative freaks, let’s not get so caught up in how things look in the experience of worship that we forget the one true thing we should experience in our worship. The presence of Jesus. There is no substitute for that. I’m not against all the lights and technology, in fact it’s something I love, embrace and encourage my team to work hard at - but it has to have a purpose. As worship teams, our services are an opportunity for us to worship God and just as importantly help lead and encourage others to worship Him. Let’s lead from a place of authenticity without creating a distraction, keeping the main thing the main thing. Let’s create an environment which helps point people to Jesus.

Author: Simon Harper – AOG Worship Team

May God bless and enrich your life

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On Christ the Solid Rock, I’ll Stand

When we come into the presence of God we stand on Holy ground. Holy ground is immovable, it cannot be shaken, it is the most solid ground you will ever stand on

Source:SlideShare

During a recent time of worship at one of our Sunday Services we sang the wonderful worship song ‘I go to the Rock’.  For many days after the service the song kept going around in my head and particularly the following words; ‘When the earth all around is sinking sand on Christ the solid rock I’ll stand, when I need a shelter, when I need a friend I go to the rock’. I was really blessed to be continually reminded of what a magnificent God we serve who gave us Jesus, the Cornerstone that will never be shaken and who provides a firm foundation for those who know Him; Isaiah 28:16 ‘So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic’. I love the way in which the Holy Spirit just drops things into our minds because the words of the song also made me think of foundations and how important they are. I suppose the thought of foundations was not such a surprise for me as I’m a Building Surveyor and I teach about stability and structure to my University students. What is interesting is how God uses our everyday lives, activities and interactions etc. to communicate with us.

An important part of the design of any building is an assessment of the ground conditions to establish what the most appropriate foundation will be. This can be influenced by lots of different things, such as the type and nature of the ground (sandy ground, clay soil, or more solid ground etc.), the amount of water in the ground, contaminants in the ground, such as high levels of sulphates, nitrates etc. Basically, without getting too technical, there is a lot to think about. The whole purpose is to ensure that when built, the foundation will be strong and stable and the building will not move. This can also be related to our Christian journey.  We want to ensure that when times are tough and when our world is being shaken (because it will), when the world seems to be falling apart all around us, that our foundation is strong enough to support us. Praise God He shows us how to build a strong foundation; Matthew 7:24-25 'Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock'. Reading and hearing the words of God is important, however what is even more important is being obedient and putting them into practice.

Source: Nan Jones

I have often inspected buildings where cracking had occurred which was a result of ground movement (you may have heard the term subsidence). Some of the damage I have seen was superficial and only required minor repairs however some of the damage was so severe that it required extensive and very expensive remedial works to rectify. In some cases, a building may have been over 100 or 150 years old and had been perfectly stable, without any problems, until recently when something happened in the ground to weaken it to a point where it could no longer take the load of the building and it started moving. On other occasions the buildings were only a few years old but after a very short period of time they had started to move. God used this as an example to show me that even Christians who have been following Jesus for many year can allow the ground to be taken from under their feet as well as demonstrating how vulnerable new Christians are. Satan does not care whether we are a mature Christian or a new Christian, he is always trying to distract us and to take us away from God, however these are precisely the times we should stand on the Rock; Psalm 31:1-5 ‘In you, LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness. Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me. Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me. Keep me free from the trap that is set for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, LORD, my faithful God’.

Following a building inspection it was sometimes necessary to provide additional support to a building’s foundations because the foundation and/or the ground underneath had weakened or failed. One way of doing this was to introduce a new deeper foundation directly underneath the failed foundation to ensure that the building transferred its load back onto solid ground. This is a technique known as ‘underpinning’. Sometimes we might find the ground under our feet is weakening as the challenges of life are continually thrown at us. However at any moment we can go to Jesus, the Rock, who will provide all of the support we need to strengthen us. Jesus is our ‘underpinning’, our Rock and stronghold who will ensure that our foundations will never fail if we call on His name; Psalm 18:2 ‘The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold’.

When we come into the presence of God we stand on Holy ground. Holy ground is immovable, it cannot be shaken, it is the most solid ground you will ever stand on. So, when our lives are being shaken when our world seems to be falling all around our feet then let’s enter the presence of God and stand on the Solid Rock of Christ. Let us protect ourselves by reading God’s Word and applying it in our lives, let us pray, let us seek the counsel of a trusted Christian brother or sister, let us worship and glorify God. All these things will help to bring us into the presence of God and to put our feet on Holy ground which will strengthen our foundation.Let us not build on the sandy foundation of human philosophies and ideas, let us build on the solid foundation of grace and righteousness which is to live by faith in Christ. Amen

Author: Gary O’Neill

May God bless and enrich your life

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What would Jesus think?

What do you think Jesus would say if He attended a church service and witnessed the declining attitudes towards God? Mobile phones being taken out during service and calls being taken is a common occurrence and an example of declining attitudes.

Source: PInterest

A book called ‘The Visit’ written by Adrian Plass, encourages the reader to ask the question in all situations ‘What would Jesus Do’? In summary the book is about Jesus Himself arriving in the flesh to attend a service at a local church and the author asks the reader this question ‘would your church be ready’? The answers to these questions can be no more than a guess however the messages that emerge from the pages of the book are very powerful. At times, it was almost embarrassing to read because in the story there are many different characters and the idea is that the reader will relate to one of those characters. I could see myself as the ‘organiser’, not the best character in the book. The ‘organiser’ is a bit religious and set in their ways, however this unveiling encouraged me to seek God in prayer. Reading this book coupled with a recent study at MCF Life Church on the seven churches (Revelation 2 and 3), led me to ask God for His guidance and direction for our fellowship to ensure that everything we did would bring Glory to God’s Holy name always.

During my time of prayer God led me to look at the church in the wider context and even though there is amazing work being accomplished in many churches there is still some areas of concern. Outside of the regenerated ‘born again’ Spirit there can be confusion where people of the world sometimes feel a ‘lack of love’ within the Christian Churches. I have witnessed on rare occasions seats not been given up because some attendees at the service have wanted a chair to keep their possessions on. Even though this behaviour does not happen often, I pray that it never happens at all.

A further question I asked is what would Jesus think if He attended a church service and witnessed the declining attitudes towards God? Mobile phones being taken out during service and calls being taken is a common occurrence and an example of declining attitudes. Mobile phones are being put before reverence to God Almighty the Creator of all the universe! There was a time when God was feared and worshipped and loved with a sincere heart of honour; Proverb 1:7 ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction’.

Source: Britton Christian Church

What do you think Jesus would say to a Church bearing his name with a large food bank refusing to feed a hungry family with young children because the family had the wrong postcode? When Jesus fed the five thousand He never asked for postcodes!  God’s Holy Word teaches us that everyone has a right to eat and drink in the name of the Lord. This also led me to ask in prayer what Jesus would think of churches charging an admission fee to get into a service? This financial cost may exclude the widows, the orphans, the poor, the needy, the disabled, the marginalised and all those that God loves and that Jesus Christ come on earth to save. (Read; Luke 14:13-14, James 1:27, Deuteronomy 10:18 and Psalm 68:5). Jesus Christ is our number one role model and He never charged for any of His teachings, Jesus welcomed everyone.

Another area of concern is the confusion around all the different denominations within the Christian Church and the ongoing disagreements between them. This can be especially confusing to those who are seeking a relationship with God. My prayer is that as a child of God my response to any questions around the different denominations will be clear and the answer will always be; ‘I love the triune God with all my heart, and when the living reality of the presence of the Holy Ghost sent by Jesus Christ comes upon me and within me I see no denominations but only the true believing soul to be the bride for His Beloved Son Jesus Christ’ Amen. The scripture that comes to mind is Acts 19:2 ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed ……….’.

In conclusion, let us be sure of one thing; Jesus Christ is coming back for one spotless Bride. Our earthly life is to prepare to be at the wedding feast as the Bride of our beloved Jesus Christ, our eyes fixed on the cross and our lamps overflowing with oil; Revelation 19:7 ‘Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready’. Our Prayer is that our life will be an accurate reflection of Jesus to others. Father, help us to die to ourselves (2 Corinthians 4:12 and Philippians 3:8-14). Holy Spirit help us to Glorify God in everything. We pray that our church has Jesus at the very centre of everything and we pray that everyone feels the overflowing love of God in their lives. Amen

‘Here we are Lord’, use us to bear fruit for your Kingdom on earth and to change the world. God have Mercy on us when we get things wrong, we know we are all a work in progress, as is your beloved church.

May God, bless you all in Jesus Christ’s name and through the Holy Spirit Amen.

Also, why not join us in reading three chapters of the bible a day? The chapters are posted on our website every day so that you can keep track of where we are in God’s amazing Word. (MCF Website link)

Author:Christina O’Neill

May God bless and enrich your life

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