There is a saying ‘we are what we eat’ which has been used to educate people about the kind of food they ought to be eating. I’ve had to deal with a difficult relationship with food most of my life; I am prone to gluttony and have often been overweight; if I’m addicted to anything at all, it’s probably food. It’s not particularly difficult to know what we ought to eat; the problem usually comes because we like a whole range of things that are not especially good for us or because we don’t know when to stop eating! (or know, but don’t want to stop anyway!)

Just as important as our physical health is our spiritual health, however. Paul tells Timothy ‘train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.’ (1 Tim 4:7-8) Sadly, we’re often more interested in our physical health than our spiritual health. (Perhaps it seems more visible and ‘real’ to us…)

Over the past thirty years I have come to see that ‘we are what we believe’. We simply cannot divide faith from any aspect of our lives. Why should we look after our bodies and strive to be healthy? Because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:20 TNIV). Why should we care about the poor and disadvantaged in our society? Because God commands us to. (Deut 15: 11 TNIV, Prov 22:2 TNIV, Is 58 TNIV). Why do we believe in the sanctity of human life and therefore oppose abortion and euthanasia? Because we believe we are made in the image of God (Gen 1:27 TNIV), that life begins at conception (Psalm 139:13-16 TNIV), that life is precious as a result and that God holds the keys of life and death (see Revelation 1 TNIV).

We have to know what we believe and why we believe and whom we believe. As a church I hope we teach these things regularly, because if it’s true that we are what we believe, then it’s obviously important we are believing the right things. Our faith will determine our actions and as the world very well knows, actions speak louder than words.

There is a great deal of diversity within churches over what we actually believe. The Apostles’ Creed sets out what could be called ‘the bare minimum of belief’; most churches have a ‘Statement of Beliefs’ pinned up on a notice board. But belief and faith are about more than giving mental assent to a neatly typed list. We have to do more than read the Word of God; we have to obey it (see James 1:22-25 TNIV). One of the prayers in the ‘Book of Common Prayer’ urges us (with regard to the holy Scriptures) to ‘hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.’

Computer programmers used to talk about ‘GIGO’ – ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ Whether it’s computers or food or spiritual things, the principle is the same. What we inwardly digest will determine what kind of people we become. Let’s train ourselves to be godly and believe all that God says!

Yan Hadley spoke this evening on the dangers of distraction, distortion and deception, using texts from Matt 24:4, 10-11, 24 TNIV and 2 Cor 11:14-15 TNIV to discuss how the enemy seeks to sidetrack us from a pure devotion to Christ. His deception is accomplished by subtly targeting and questioning God’s integrity, as in the Garden of Eden, when he distorted the truth (Gen 3:1 TNIV), contradicted what God had said (Gen 3:4 TNIV) and suggested that God was withholding good things (Gen 3:5 TNIV). Just as Eve was deceived, we can be led astray by those who look and sound plausible, being dressed in sheep’s clothing, but who are false prophets and wolves (see Matt 7:21-23 TNIV, Matt 7:15-16 TNIV).

The enemy seeks to damage us through distortion to the message, the methods and the mission of the church. Nowadays, the message of the gospel can be distorted through liberalism (rationalising the supernatural and denying the miraculous), through humanism (developing a system of thinking with mankind at the centre and no focus on God) and through secularism (where any sense of the sacred is lost). We need to be unafraid to confront any message which distorts the truth, as Jesus did when confronting the moneychangers in the temple (Luke 19:43-44 TNIV), for we must not be conformed to the world (Rom 12:2 TNIV).

The enemy seems to focus on methods which involve personality, manipulation, sensationalism and celebrity rather than allowing God to build the house (Ps 127:1 TNIV) and work through His Spirit (Zech 4:6 TNIV). All wrong methods have to be renounced (see 2 Cor 4:2 TNIV), for we must be people of integrity.

We must also never lose sight of the mission Jesus has given us to go and make disciples of all nations. We are to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8 TNIV) and must not be distracted from this primary task.

God has given us a number of safeguards against deception:
1) A commitment to the supremacy of Christ and the centrality of the cross (1 Cor 2:2 TNIV, Col 1:18 TNIV)
2) A reliance on the absolute authority of God’s Word (Matt 4:4 TNIV, Acts 17:11 TNIV)
3) A dependence on the fullness of the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth (John 16:13 TNIV)
4) The sacrifice of making time to be alone with God, allowing time to be unhurried and undistracted in His presence (Matt 6:6 TNIV, Ps 27:4 TNIV, Jer 33:3 TNIV)

Mark has just returned from a business trip to America and has so much to share with us! The scenery in North Carolina where he worked was stunning:

Being Mark, he also took photos of the Baptist Church he attended:

He also took photos of the meals he had!

We’re glad to have him back!
‘Here In America’, Rich Mullins

Garry continued preaching about the topic of growth as he continued his study on 2 Peter 1:8-9 TNIV. Peter urges us to add various qualities to our faith and reminds us that if we possess these qualities in increasing measure, we will not be ineffective. Growth may seem painfully slow to us and is at times difficult to measure. We have been growing a chilli, far more slowly than the instructions indicated, but there are definite signs of growth here!

As we walk with God, growth will come, even if this is not as fast as we would like it to be! We often feel anaesthetised by the ordinary, but God wants us to have an effect on all around us; He wants us to be ‘out of the ordinary’, for we are called to be salt and light in our communities (Matt 5:13-16 TNIV). The Message version reminds us that we are here ‘to be the salt seasoning that brings out the God-flavours in the world’ and the light that shows the ‘God-colours in the world.’ There will always be avenues of service within the church, but God also wants us to realise that we have an area of effectiveness outside the building as well, for the salt needs to be shaken out of the salt-cellar to be effective and He wants our light to shine in the darkness.

Most of us view our working lives as ‘jobs’, but we need to understand that for Christians, every job is a vocation, for God has called us (see Matt 9:13 TNIV, Acts 2:39 TNIV.) God wants us to be headlights, not indicators. Indicators are intermittent, but a headlight shines brightly and consistently into the darkness. We are called to reflect His light in our ordinary, everyday lives, understanding that we are called to be different, not obnoxious! (More like salt than pepper, which can get ‘up your nose’!) Christians are called to be different, since we are marching to a different beat, but we are not contrary or obnoxious for the sake of it. Instead, we should be winsome (attractive or charming in a delightful way, showing a childlike joy which is pleasing to all in its freshness and honesty.) We need to remember that we are representatives of God, His ambassadors (2 Cor 5:18-20 TNIV), called to be His ‘movers and shakers’ (since God is the God who will shake all that can be shaken – see Hebrews 12:26-27 TNIV).

When Phil Wickham first announced that his new album would be called ‘The Ascension’, I assumed he was talking about the ascension of Christ to heaven after His resurrection. However, as he talked more about the album, it became obvious that what he was actually referring to was the journeys pilgrims made to Jerusalem each year, captured for us in the ‘Songs of Ascent’ (Ps 120 to Ps 134). These fifteen psalms were sung by Hebrew pilgrims as they went up to Jerusalem three times a year for the great worship festivals. Jerusalem was the highest city geographically, and so they were called the ‘songs of ascent’ because the people literally had to go up to get there! Eugene Peterson comments ‘The ascent was not only literal, it was also a metaphor: the trip to Jerusalem acted out a life lived upward toward God, an existence that advanced from one level to another in developing maturity. What Paul described as the “upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:14)’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Journey’ P 6)

These ideas are captured in the title song on the album, as we reflect on the ‘start of something amazing’ when heaven touches earth, when we realise that there is so much more of God to be seen and experienced.

‘This is the start of something amazing
A moment when heaven touches earth
Here in our hearts, Lord, we are waiting
For something that’s far beyond what we have seen or heard

Let us start the ascension
Let’s begin the climb
Up this holy mountain
Where Your glory shines
Further up, further in
Just to be with You again
Let us start the ascension,’ (‘The Ascension’, Phil Wickham)
‘The Ascension’, Phil Wickham

I have vague memories of physics lessons (over thirty-five years ago) talking about potential and kinetic energy. Apparently, energy can be in two states: either potential or kinetic. It can be transferred between objects and from one state to the other. Potential energy is ‘stored energy’, energy that is ‘ready to go’ (a ball at the top of a hill that is about to roll, for example.) Kinetic energy is the energy of movement, as when the ball actually rolls down the hill.

The diagram below shows further examples, this time with a cyclist:

The reason I have been thinking about potential and kinetic energy is because of two quotes I have read recently. The first, by James Houston, says ‘True Christianity is turning the possible into the actual’ and the second, by Nelson Mandela, says ‘Everything seems impossible until it’s done.’

Both these maxims reflect a truth about faith. There is a sense in which when we believe something God has said, it seems impossible that this can ever actually happen – certainly, impossible without God (see Luke 18:27 TNIV, Matt 19:26 TNIV). Abraham’s story shows us how he received God’s promise of a son in faith and had to work through the many years when this promise that life would come from the barrenness of his and Sarah’s bodies seemed impossible to fulfil. Once they held Isaac in their arms, it did not seem quite so impossible! Similarly, receiving God’s promises is a little like holding potential energy in our hands. We believe God can do great and mighty things through our lives. but at that stage, it is only ‘possible’ and not ‘actual.’ As we mix faith with obedience and patiently wait for God to fulfil the ‘impossible’ part of the equation, we have the joy of seeing the possible become actual.