Read and Grow

Do you consider yourself to be a worshipper? You might think that if you’re not religious then the obvious answer is ‘no’. But it’s not as simple as that.

Worship sits at the core of humanity’s collective heart. Entire ancient cultures were shaped by their recognition of a power or deity beyond themselves. Tribes worshipped the sun hoping it would bring a bountiful harvest. Religious groups offered sacrifices of riches and obedience hoping for some blessing in return. But worship goes beyond religion.

Worship in its truest form is about how you respond to what you value the most. The word worship originates from the acknowledgement of worth in something, worth-ship. These days people worship careers, relationships, possessions, hopes and dreams and fame. These things are healthy when they are a part of your life, but become destructive when they take it over.

A helpful illustration is social media. Social media has become an object of worship for many people. Their lives can revolve around growing their following, they make immense sacrifices of their time to it, their actions and behaviour change, and it can determine their self-worth. Social media is fine when it’s kept in appropriate boundaries, but it brings disorder as an object of worship.

Worship of social media causes mental illness, bullying, narcissism, and addictive and dangerous behaviour. This can be said for any object of worship in your life. An unbalanced priority of work, study, relationships, hobbies, and socialisation often ends in disorder. Many people have a ‘worship problem’, and they don’t even know about it.

So what role does worship play in your life?

Ask yourself a few questions. What takes ultimate priority in your life? What good things are you sacrificing to serve that ultimate priority? And is it worth it? Does it bring order and goodness to your life, or disorder and brokenness?

If you think you might be struggling with what you worship, it can be helpful to consider looking outside of your current experience. Every physical thing in this universe will one day pass away, your money, friendships, status – even your life. Many people have discovered that having Jesus as their ultimate priority and object of worship brings a life filled with love, joy and peace. A life of ordered goodness.

Jesus says, he stands at the door knocking – waiting for you to open it. Why not try opening the door to Jesus today? You can do that by simply talking to Him. Ask Jesus right now to help you know him and understand who he is. Ask him right now to bring order and goodness to your life.

Have you ever stopped to think about love? Love is central to our lives. Love is something we can’t live without. Love drives some people to incredible bravery, while others do some very strange things in the name of love. Love is a mystery, yet we still strive to define and capture its essence.

There are many ideas of what love is.

“Love is that feeling you get when you know you’ve met the right person.”

“Love is being able to stay committed to someone through struggles and conflict.”

Some will even say “Love doesn’t truly exist, all you can do is live each moment seeking self-fulfilment and pleasure.”

Love is a mystery, yet it’s something we all experience and have an opinion about. Because of this, talking about love is a great way of opening a conversation that leads to Jesus. Share Jesus, by talking about love.

A great way to highlight the awesomeness of God’s love is to explore how His love is different to human love. When it comes to human love, we place conditions on love all the time. When other people hurt us we can’t help but withhold or limit our love towards them. The same goes for someone who is consistently needy or selfish. As limited humans, we can’t help but love in a limited manner, but God is different.

There are two key verses in the Bible that highlight the nature of God’s love. In John 3:16 it says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. Put simply, God loves the whole world. God’s love does not discriminate. It’s not restricted to a certain group of people or just reciprocated to those who love Him. In fact, God’s love goes a step further, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” - Romans 5:8. God's love is unconditional. Not only does God’s love extend out to every single person, but He also shows his love towards you regardless of what you’ve done.

A good way to open a conversation about love is with the question “What do you think love is?”. You could also share with them a time when you experienced conditional love, to illustrate the difference between human love and God’s unconditional love.

Commit these verses to memory (John 3:16, Romans 5:8) and share about them next time the Holy Spirit prompts you to talk about Jesus.

References:
Philippians 2:5-7
Matthew 20:28
John 10:18
Luke 23:44-46

Are you tired of avoiding failure?

It’s easy to become lost today. A single moment of failure can cause your world to crumble around you. Life turns from familiar stability to chaos and uncertainty.

This is particularly true in the world of social media. Your life is on display and judged by people who hardly know you. So you post and post and post, trying to soak up as much love from strangers as you can. And as much as you try to cover your failures, they are there for everyone to see and judge.

What hope does our culture offer in response? If you want acceptance, you need to earn it! You need to cancel the right people, support the right organisations, express the right opinions, and wear the right clothes - oh, and look great while doing it.

Our culture says “nothing comes free”.

The hope our culture offers is nothing more than fairy floss. It looks great, tastes great, but there’s no substance.

Jesus offers something different.

In the Bible, Jesus tells a story about a wayward son. A son who left his family taking with him his inheritance. He spent money on partying and seeking fame, but as the money dried up, his friends and followers left him. Soon he had absolutely nothing. He was a failure both in the culture’s eyes and in his own.

As he lay down in a pigsty, the only accommodation he could find, he finally decided to go back home. But what would his family think of him? What would his father think?

Those questions were answered sooner than he thought. While he was still a long way from home he saw someone standing on the driveway. It was his father. His father ran towards him, embraced him and welcomed him home. He didn’t have to earn his place back, he didn’t have to make it up to father. He was loved and accepted unconditionally.

Jesus told this story because it’s a picture of how he responds to your failure. When you fail, you don’t have to earn your way back to His favour, his love is available right now.

Jesus stands on the driveway with his arms open waiting for you to come home.

If you think you’ve failed you can talk to Jesus about it. Talk to him like he’s a close friend, he is listening. He won’t shame you, he will show you love and grace.

Why not take a moment to talk to Jesus right now. Be honest about your failure, ask him to help you and accept his unconditional love.

Does it ever surprise you that each year the whole world stops to celebrate the birth of Jesus? Despite the increasing commercial and secular focus of the season, Christmas is fundamentally about one thing – Jesus. So how do you bring Jesus into focus? How can you make the most of Christmas by talking to your yet-to-believe friends and family about Jesus?

Everybody loves a good story and Christmas is the ultimate story. Stories have a powerful way of communicating truth in our culture, and the best thing about the Christmas story is that we are part of the story. Eugene Petersen framed it perfectly in his paraphrase of John 1:14 – “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” Jesus moved into OUR neighborhood.

Throughout history, humanity has told stories as a means to share traditions and to remember the past. The story of Christmas goes deeper than that. As we celebrate and share the story of Jesus' birth, God is inviting us all into the Great Narrative that He has written out over history. This narrative is not fiction; it’s the ultimate true story. A story of sacrifice, redemption, and good overcoming evil. We’re a part of it – but the ultimate hero of the story is Jesus.

Ever binge-watched a TV series and enjoyed it so much you insisted on telling everyone you knew to watch it too? Well, yeah, who hasn’t! The Christmas story is like the ultimate TV series. What better time to talk about Jesus and invite your friends and family into their own stories of following Him.

So many of our Christmas traditions have their genesis in Jesus. Here are 3 ways you can use Christmas traditions to bring Jesus into your conversations:

1. Gifts

Jesus was first given as a gift to the world. In that spirit, today we give gifts to the people we hold the closest.

2. Carols

Most of the traditional Christmas carols we sing are actually worship songs about Jesus. Don’t believe me? Go re-read the lyrics to songs like Joy To The World or Hark The Herald Angels Sing.

3. Candy Canes

Yes, even candy canes. Originally created by a German choirmaster to keep the kids quiet during the nativity play. The ‘sugar stick’ was fashioned into a shepherd's cane and colored red and white. The shepherd's cane represents Jesus’ humble beginnings, the white stripes represent his holiness, and the red stripes represent the blood of his eventual sacrifice on the cross.

Christmas holds a special meaning for everyone, but according to God’s great narrative:

• Christmas means you are not alone.
• Christmas means you are loved.
• Christmas means God’s in control.
• Christmas means good will one day overcome evil.

Make the most of this Christmas season and take the time to invite your friends and family who don’t follow Jesus into their own redemption stories.

BIBLE VERSES

John 1:14 – “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

Matthew 1:21-23 – “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).”

Luke 2:6-7 – “And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”