Living Stones

Continuing with the theme of Church I was really encouraged last weekend to hear Dave Emmett speak on 'living stones' and the nature of the Church, whilst we were in Cardiff. We enjoyed a great wedding on the Saturday and had an opportunity to catch up with the 06/07 School of the word students.

Even better than that God spoke to us and the Holy Spirit continues to lay this theme on my heart. We are the Church, we are living stones, being built together in love. It strikes me that when the Bible refers to the Church as an inanimate object like 'stones' or 'temple' it is careful to add that we are the temple and that these stones are alive!

Images of the Church # 2

Jesus loves the Church. The Church is the Bride of Christ. Paul wrote to the Church in Ephesus that a man should love his wife as Christ loves the Church.

John the Apostle sees the Church descending from heaven prepared as a bride for her groom. Jesus loves the Church, its his Bride, his passion, his desire and his joy.

Ephesians 5:25 - 32
Revelation 21:2

Under the skin...

OK so I knew I said I was going to blog on images of the church and I will....but I just read this in Rob Bell's book 'Velvet Elvis' and felt the urge to share it....

He says this:

"Inspired words have a way of getting under our skin and taking on a life of their own. They work on us. We started out reading them, but they end up reading us"

Whoa - I like that a lot..!

Images of the Church

I'm going to post a few simple statements that describe the church. The Bible uses metaphors to talk about and describe the church. The first one to consider is found throughout the New Testament but is hinted at in the Old Testament a lot (that's for another post).

Paul writes to the Corinthians

'Now you are the body of Christ' (1 Cor 12:27)

So one of the images of the church is of a body but specifically the body of Christ.

House Rules

We had a great time together last weekend and were blessed to have Roger and Dianne Aubrey with us (visit Roger here). A couple of times Roger mentioned a phrase that stuck in my head - he said 'house rules' and then went on to make some statements about how God's people should live by faith.

As a family we've got house rules to help us live within proper boundaries and to order our lives according to the word of God. The kids aren't allowed to say 'stupid' and there are other words and statements we avoid. This helps us (not just the kids!) to live right and speak right. Words are powerful for good or bad and Roger really emphasised the power of our own words. For this reason we need to agree and establish some house rules, for how we as the family of God live together.

House Rules:

- we talk about ourselves according to God's word i.e. positively!

- we speak about each other according to God's word i.e. positively!

- we speak faith into our situations not unbelief

- we face the facts (like Abraham) but continue to speak faith

- we agree audibly and loudly with God's word in its various forms

- we disagree with anything contrary to God's word

- we regulalry declare and proclaim God's word

These are all ways we can imitate God (Eph 5:1) and live by faith (Hab 2:4).

Targets

A man in the business world once told me 'if you aim at nothing you'll always hit it!'

Sometimes we worry about aiming too high and failing.

Caleb was a man who didn't think like this - he said

"Let's go up and take the land—now. We can do it." (Num 13:30)

For the year ahead lets set faith goals as individuals, families and as a community - we can do it!

Childlike Faith #2

Today Graham mentioned this scripture from Isaiah 11:6:

"and a little child will lead them"

It's funny how in God's Kingdom things are often upside down. We may sometimes imagine that God is interested only in the big and the bold. Jesus said we must come with simple faith - just like a child. Children believe what their parents tell them. Children believe that what their parents promise them they will have.

That's how we're to come to God.