18 September 2016

1..10..1000! - By Jack Lewis

Quite often we go to big Christian events, where there's amazing worship alongside several hundred or even thousand other Christians. We love these times, and God does too, in fact he probably circles it with big red marker on his calendar! But he doesn't just value times like that, in fact he also circles it when any amount of us get together and worship him. People often say that God doesn't move as much as when there's thousands there, but that's because we don't let him. Don't let anyone ever fool you into thinking God will only show up when there's thousands there, and everything's perfect. If you ask and let him then he'll do the same miracles that you could get anywhere. I've just been to Soul Survivor and there was 8,500 people there, but most importantly God was there. But last night I went back to a2j, (A youth group at my church) and although there was only about 20 of us, but guess what, God was also there. While we didn't have 1500 people become Christians, there was still that sense that God was there and I'm sure many of us, myself included, went away encouraged and with a brighter fire to go and serve Him. It can be even smaller, some of the most amazing miracles have happened when one person simply prayed for a friend! It's not about the amount of faith in the room that affects how God comes through for you, it's how much faith that you have! If you have faith then you can do anything, in Mark 11:23 Jesus says: "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them." We have so much potential, and the heart of what I'm saying is: Don't wait for the perfect opportunity to practice your faith, because there never is a perfect time. Step out in faith and you'll be amazed how much you and God can do together! :-)

2 September 2016

There are Christians...And then there are Christians... -By Jack Lewis

A lot of us have probably said before that we wouldn't want to get too involved with other non-Christians, and there's nothing wrong with that. Although I'm not saying at all that we shouldn't be friends with non-Christians, in fact it's a great thing to have friends who aren't Christians or even come from another religion. What I mean getting to close, for example, this blog is aimed more at teenagers, so it's not unreasonable to think that a few of you are at that stage of your life, and it's not unlikely that you are thinking about finding yourself a place to live in a few years time. To save money you might be thinking of house sharing with a friend, and here's what I'm saying: would you want to share with a non-Christian, who might not let you have the car to go to church on a Sunday, who might often mock your faith, and just generally put a dampener on your relationship with God? Would you want that, or would you rather have someone who encourages you in your faith, who might pray with you and understand why you want to go to church or youth group so much? Which would you rather? Taking it slightly further you could also apply the same principle to relationships. But then there's also a slightly deceptive third class. The people who claim to be Christians but really aren't that bothered. While on the face of it they won't stop you going to youth groups/church and such things, they are often easily susceptible to trying out some very damaging stuff, and then they might try to make you do it too, and remind you that they are also "Christians" and therefore if they can do it you can too. While it's great to get alongside these people and help them up to a proper faith we must be wary not to be dragged under by these people. So the message today is just watch out for those who aren't properly committed to God, try and help them as a friend but don't get dragged into their way of thinking, it can only go downhill from there.