Showing posts with label challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label challenge. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Stop just making it a youth movement

Now is the time, God is preparing a generation.

I remember hearing this time and time again as a teenager and in my youth group 'God is building up a generation'. I was excited, I was ready, I was keen...And then I hit twenty. I was no longer a teenager, I was no longer able to go to youth events, be invited to teen-oriented functions or change lives. I felt like I'd wasted my teenage life, I hadn't led thousands of people to faith, I'd hardly brought about a revival. If I was meant to be part of a generation that was going to change the world, maybe I'd just been missed out of this part, maybe I was just not good enough. I'd come to university and I was a young adult, I stopped going to a youth group and started helping out at one, I started being known as someone (and not just my parent's daughter), I'd started being asked to pay taxes - safe to say I'd become an adult. I felt like I'd missed out on this generation movement. God preparing a generation was just a youth thing, not a church thing.

But this is not just a youth movement, the generation doesn't just stop at the youth.

We as a church are a generation, it's not just for the gifted, the old, the young. It is for all of us as a body of Christ. We are all made to praise Jesus; 'Kings of the earth and all peoples; Princes and all judges of the earth; Both young men and virgins; Old men and children. Let them praise the name of the LORD, For His name alone is exalted; His glory is above earth and heaven.…' (Psalm 148 11-13). We all praise Jesus and we all live to serve Him. We shouldn't be stuck in the groups that we have put ourselves into. We shouldn't take away the value from others, we shouldn't limit ourselves to people we relate to better, we should break away from this being a '(fill in appropriate name) movement' and make it a church movement.

This is not just for the youth, this is not a youth movement.

We are part of a generation, all of us. We all are to make a difference to the nation we belong to. Together we create the army that God is creating, we need to stop being civilians and become soldiers. God is rising up the young. God is preparing the old. God is calling the under-qualified. God is preparing the way for the qualified. It doesn't stop. God is calling you. 

We need to break away from the bondage of what we believe, that we are not young enough, clever enough, good looking enough, good enough...we are the generation. Don't just encourage the youth, don't just believe it for the youth, we are a generation that God WILL and DOES use. WE ARE A REVIVAL GENERATION. 

Blessings
May
xx

Thursday, 5 February 2015

I'm not religious

I don't have a religion. I don't follow my parent's beliefs or go to church every Sunday because they told me to. I don't enjoy the religious entitiy Christianity has become. I don't follow the rules.

I love Jesus though.

I believe in the living God, the same God that made Eve of Adam's rib, the same God that sent his only son into a suffering world. I believe in that God. He knows me deeply, I have a profound relationship with Him and I simply cannot get enough of Him. I'm not religious, but I have a tangible and alive relationship with Christ himself.
    We need to stop being like a Christian and become more like Christ. We need to live the way Christ lived, love the way he loved. Not be stuck in the rules and regulations of a religion. 
     Christ loved the poor, He hung with the lowest of the low. He didn't sit in a middle class home with his middle class friends doing middle class things, He didn't once attempt to get something just because he was the son of God. He went into the world as a man and lived as one. He experienced emotion and loss as we do. If he can be like us than we can strive to be like Him. We should get out of comfortable lives and be uncomfortable. It begins to get dangerous when we have too much comfort. We stop growing, caring and loving. If Christ meant for us to be religious he would've loved the Pharisees. We aren't meant to be the ones who sit on high and judge, we aren't meant to be the ones who have it sorted and live inside our Christian bubble. We are made to be Christ-like.


We are in a world where people are more uncomfortable to be like Jesus than to be as a Christian. What would Jesus do?

What bracelet are you wearing? WWJD or WWPD?

Are we becoming too religious?

Blessings
may