Pressing On

Doers, Leters and Becomers ... Which are you? There are lots of different tools which can be helpful in enabling us to gain a better understanding of who we are, how we function and how we affect others of differing personalities to ourselves. Recently, I read an interesting article in which the author proposed that there are THREE basic christian viewpoints. Basically in the form of a triangle - with each viewpoint at the apex, in other words, we may find ourselves anywhere within the triangle and that would represent the balance, or mixture, that describes who we are. These three ‘types’ are: The Doers - they want to know what God desires of them, and then they do it. The Leters  - they focus on waiting en god seeking his face and letting him change us and work through us The Becomers - their focus is entering into being the kind of person God wants them to be, to be transformed inwardly in order to reflect the nature of Christ outwardly. So what? These...

  Christian mysticism In the past year I have read a number of articles and books on the topic of Christian mysticism. (A good starting point would be the aptly entitled Christian Mysticism W R Inge, in which the author traces the history of Christian mysticism, the dangers and pitfalls of pursuing a particular line of thought too far but, most importantly, the riches that can come through exploring mystery.) What does it mean? For the purposes of this blog I will use Inge’s helpful definitions: Religious Mysticism may be defined as the attempt to realise the presence of the living God in the soul and in nature, or, more generally, as the attempt to realise, in thought and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal.   The mystic makes it his life's aim to be transformed into the likeness of Him in whose image he was created. Now, beginning with the assumption that all believers acknowledge that we could not work ...

In 1 Chronicles 5:20 we read ... "(God ) a nswered their prayers beca use they trusted i n Him ." We know that across the world the re are many people that pray . For example, i n the book " Christian Prayer for Dummies " a survey is quoted stating that in the UK 82% of adults and 89% of teenagers pray at least once a week!  We kno w, too, that prayer s may be directed to a 'god ' , 'divine being' or 'some one/something' that it is supposed can hel p in time of need, whether or not there is an experience of being in a relationship w ith the object of the prayers or not.  However, what strikes me in this verse is t hat the peoples prayers w ere answered not simply beca use they pr ayed, but because they exercised faith, they trusted in the One they were prayin g to ... which leads me to the question " How do we have faith?" How can our experience m ove beyond a blind hope into a confident trust? For me the answer ...

Recently I was reading in the book of Philemon, which doesn't often happen because it is so small and easy to overlook, so let me start with a quick plug extolling the benefits of systematic reading of scripture if nothing else! This time, as I read, I was struck by a couple of verses - in this blog I will focus on the first .... in verse 1 we read "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus..."  Which is an interesting way to start a letter, especially when we consider that Paul was in f act a prisoner of the Rom an state ... so why does he refer to himself in this way? W hat is captivity?   The greek word 'prisoner' is transl ated as " a captive (as bound):--in bonds, prisoner." The idea of captivity can be expressed as follows; The dictionary defi nes cap tive as; n. 1. One, such as a prisoner of war, who is forcibly confined, subjugated, or enslaved. 2. One held in the grip of a strong emotion or passion. Which interestingly leads us to reflect o...

Sacred Pathways: Discover your Soul's Path to God - Gary Thomas  When you became a christian did you look around other people's lives and seek to model some of their spiritual disciplines? Did you find that somehow they didn't work for you in quite the same way as they seemed to work for them? Did this lead you to a place of discouragement? Did you think that, somehow, the things that bring such life to other people but don't bring life to you must mean that there is something wrong with you? Or that maybe God doesn't love you as much as He loved those people whom you sought to emulate? These are very real questions that all c hristians probably grapple with at some point. As we grow and mature in Christ we eventually reach a place of liberty where we realise that we are unique and therefore we shouldn't be surprised when our Father deals uniquely with us - and the way we most easily 'connect' to Him is also unique. Or perhaps we find over time th...