I receive messages from a mental health organisation called ‘Moodscope’, focussing on how to deal with differing moods and remain able to see the ‘bigger picture’ when times of depression or anxiety hit. Today’s message had the title ‘broken crayons still colour’ and looked at how easy it is when depressed or anxious to feel just a shadow of your self and therefore for feelings of uselessness and helplessness to increase. It is easy to become locked in a vicious circle: feeling low about yourself leads you to condemn yourself which leads you to focus on negative thoughts even more and so the cycle continues.

The fact remains, the writer commented, that broken crayons still colour. Even when we feel useless, a shadow of our real selves, we are still able to be used by God to love, encourage and help others. I have been meditating on 2 Cor 4: 6-7 lately: ‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ^. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.’

We have the treasure of God’s life within us, the treasure of His Spirit living and working within our earthly bodies. And God’s not finished with us yet! (see ‘Create In Me’ by Rend Collective) We may well be broken, but we can still run into God’s arms and know His joy is available to us. (‘Joy’, Rend Collective) We may well be a broken crayon, but we can still colour. We can still show God’s love, grace, mercy and forgiveness to a broken world. It’s when we are weak that He is strong. (2 Cor 12:9-10)

Garry continued looking at 1 Cor 2:1-5 in the Bible study tonight, this time looking at God’s power. Paul went to Corinth from Athens (see Acts 17:16-18:1), having used rhetoric and persuasive arguments to preach the gospel in Athens. However,  it seems that when in Corinth, he felt that this method was no longer as useful, since he came in weakness and trembling and with much fear and no longer relied on eloquence or superior (worldly) wisdom, but instead resolved to know nothing except Christ crucified. It is not wrong to debate with people or to use reason (in fact, in 1 Cor 9:19-23, Paul spoke of using different methods to reach different people), but the fact remains that people are not always going to be persuaded by reason (see Ex 7:8-13).  God’s power confirms His word, for it is easy to speak words (eg of forgiveness) but harder to demonstrate power (see Matt 9:1-8); nonetheless, we need to see God’s power at work through His Spirit.

We show the power of God by the way we live and the way we love, our lives being a testimony to God’s power. We must not seek the gifts of the Spirit more than we seek God, but we should not be afraid of God’s power, for it is His validation of the preaching of the gospel. Those in Athens listened to Paul until he spoke of the resurrection from the dead and then this became, as Paul has expounded in 1 Corinthians 1, a stumbling-block, for the way God works is beyond our understanding. God’s power and our vulnerability are not mutually exclusive, either. We need to understand that without God, we can do nothing; we need His power and grace if we are to see lives transformed as Paul did.

A trip to the seaside isn’t complete for many people without a visit to the amusement arcades:

… where keyrings were won!

Some went on boat trips (though we have no photos for that!) Others learnt new games:

Once learnt, they enjoyed teaching others!

Others enjoyed playing boules on the sand or going shopping or visiting coffee shops! All in all, an excellent day out with lovely weather. Thanks to Oakleaf for transporting us safely and to all who contributed to making this a very special day.

Today the weather kept fine and GPCC went to Bridlington!

People had a great time on the beach:

Some played in the sand…

Others were more energetic, playing touch rugby!

Then there was a game of rounders:

However, it wasn’t all frenetic activity. There was time for food too!

It was clearly an exhausting day, though!

In nature, we see metamorphosis in some biological processes by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching. Some insects, fishes, amphibians and molluscs undergo metamorphosis, usually accompanied by a change of habitat or behaviour. The most well known is probably the butterfly.

The butterfly looks nothing like the eggs or caterpillar; transformation in this realm means a radically different form. In the same way, the spiritual work God is doing in our lives may not necessarily make us look different to other people (after all, people could not cope with Jesus being both God and man and frequently asked things like ‘“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?’ (Matt 13:55)), but does involve radical change, since we actually carry the treasure of God’s life in ‘jars of clay’ (2 Cor 4:7), and our final spiritual body will look nothing like the earthly body we now inhabit (see 1 Cor 15:51-57). Paul reminds us that ‘our citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil 3:20) and it is  God’s power which ‘will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.’ (Phil 3:21) Our life on earth is simply one stage of this transformation process. We’re not at the butterfly or frog stage yet!

Transformation comes as our minds are renewed (Rom 12:1-2). This involves action on our part (a refusal to conform to the world’s pattern or way of doing things) and action on God’s part. The Message version paraphrases Rom 12:1-2 in this way: ‘Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.’ When talking about Abraham’s grasp of faith, it says ‘Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.”’ (Rom 4:3) Embracing what God does for us is definitely the best thing we can do, and part of that is accepting that He is the One working transformation in us… a transformation which is still ongoing, a transformation which God Himself will perfect and complete.

May’s family service looked at the topic of ‘Transformation.’ Often, when we think of this, we think of makeovers or losing weight or changing our appearances:

If we’re mathematically inclined, we might think of rotation or reflection or translation:

However, in spiritual terms, transformation comes from the Greek work ‘metamorphosis’ (‘meta’ means ‘change’ and ‘morphe’ means ‘form’) and involves real change in us. This kind of change is described in 2 Cor 3:12-18, looking back to Ex 34:29-35, when Moses’s face was radiant and dazzling from being in the presence of God. Paul reminds us that any glory Moses knew is as nothing compared to the glory of the new covenant, where all barriers to God have been removed and we can boldly enter His presence (see Heb 10:19-20). Because of this, we realise that as we spend time in God’s presence, He wants to transform us into His image, recreating the image of God in man which was spoilt when sin first entered the world (see Rom 5:17-19, Rom 8:28-29). Such a transformation is an ongoing process which will only be completed when we see Jesus face to face (see 1 John 3:1-2), but we can be sure that God not only starts this work, He is able to complete it! (Phil 1:6)