Philippians 4:8 is probably one of the verses I come back to time and time again to help me to think the right thoughts. I have real trouble with my thoughts, often allowing my mind to dwell on worries, anxieties, untruths and half-truths which will end up crippling me, so I have a constant need to do what this verse instructs:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

A few weeks ago we went out to Brimham Rocks, near Harrogate, one of our favourite family places. It’s a place of lovely, rugged beauty, with lots of strange rock formations to climb:

It’s looked after by the National Trust, and there is a shop there selling souvenirs. I found a book called ‘The Complete Pocket Positives’ there, an ‘anthology of inspirational thoughts’. As the preface says, ‘There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” (a quote from Albert Einstein.) I suppose that sums up how we can think.

By nature, I am more of a pessimist, someone who is quite cynical and tries not to get too excited about things to stave off disappointment and disillusionment that way. I don’t find that to be a Biblical way to think of life, however. So I have to concentrate hard on thinking the right thoughts and using the right words. Coincidentally, I had an email from the gym I attend this week which was headed ‘Healthy Lifestyle Tip: The Power of Words’. God can speak to us in a number of ways and using all kinds of people! Here are the ‘healthy words’ they quoted:

“If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results.” ~ Jack Dixon

“Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states.” ~ Carol Welch

It’s easy to view these proverbs or aphorisms with a wry smile and a pinch of salt, because they are short and snappy and we may well think ‘easier said than done’ (most things are, I find!) But the Bible clearly affirms that what we are thinking about and meditating on will have a real effect on who we are and how we live, so we need to be careful to think about things which are true, admirable, praiseworthy, lovely and right! If, like me, this requires effort, remember that ‘success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out’ and let’s make that concerted effort to think in a right way that pleases God!

Anyone entering our family service last night had good cause to feel a little bit bemused. A plastic iguana had pride of place at the front; we were singing songs about it and doing a quiz about it as well. Had we really lost the plot?!

Well, it’s true that we did learn some facts about iguanas last night, such as their place of origin (Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean), their appearance (spiky scales on their back and three eyes), their diet (herbivores living on leafy vegetables), and their life span (the longest known living iguana was 69 years old!) But in actual fact, the lessons Igor had to teach us were far more than enhancing our knowledge of reptiles!

Just as Igor was originally ‘not from round ‘ere’, so we too live in the world but are not of it (see John 17:17-18). When we go on holiday, even within England, different accents and words (such as the many different words for a breadcake) can confuse us and cause misunderstanding. The world was created perfect and we all long for the perfection of Eden, but sin has marred God’s creation and we now find ourselves living as ‘foreigners and exiles’ (1 Pet 2:11) or as ‘foreigners and strangers’ (Hebrews 11:13). We cannot ever be fully happy or know total fulfilment on earth, for we are still ‘longing for a better country—a heavenly one’ (Hebrews 11:16).

Reptiles often use camouflage to disguise themselves and we too, if we are not careful, can want to blend in with our environments so well that we become indistinguishable from the world. The antitode to this is to let God transform our minds (Rom 12:2) and to put off the old self and put on the new (see Eph 4:17-24). There was some excuse for living as the world did before we knew Christ (see Eph 2:1-6), but now His life in us means we are called to be different, to stand out, to shine His light in the darkness. Peer pressure and a desire to conform can often make us ‘blend in’ with our society and culture, but since this world is not our home, we shouldn’t make ourselves cosy in it! (see 1 Pet 2:11-12, The Message). We need to keep our eyes fixed on what is really important and not be led astray by the visible (see 2 Cor 4:18).

Finally, Igor teaches us about adventure. He may only be a plastic iguana, but he’s been on holiday to different places and gets to see all kinds of different things. Most of us long for adventure to break the dull monotony of everyday life, but perhaps we need to define what we really mean by adventure. Is it the dare-devil exploits we see in films like ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’, where Tom Cruise’s character climbs the tallest skyscraper in the world with only a pair of electrified adhesive gloves?

Or does it perhaps look more like the lives of the Fredericksens in the film ‘Up’? (where Carl is surprised to learn that his wife did not consider their lives to be lacking in adventure, even though they did not achieve their dream to visit Paradise Falls in her lifetime.) Adventures in God involve living by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7) There can be great excitement and miraculous interventions to witness, but for every parting of the Red Sea and healing of Jesus, there are periods of silent waiting and doubting (think of how long Abraham had to wait for the birth of his son or Joseph had to wait in prison.) In fact, if you had asked the disciples about their great adventures with Jesus on Good Friday, it’s doubtful they would have had any hope of adventure left. But the Resurrection proves that you can never rule out what God will do!

God has adventures for us all: as individuals and as a church. They may not look like the adventures we want to have. God often works in ways that are mysterious to us and rarely does things the way we expect Him to! But we are called to live by faith and not by sight and that life of faith is the biggest adventure you could ever hope to have, bigger than any adventure Igor has yet experienced.
“Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” (Heb 10:22-24)

Igor the iguana is, therefore, a parable, a metaphor, a spur to each one of us to keep our eyes fixed on our eternal goal, to live life on earth secure in the knowledge that we are citizens of heaven and to walk by faith into all the adventures God has for us.

As promised, the Family Service last night continued the theme of ‘The Adventures of Igor’. Mark did a quiz where we had to identify where Igor (and his friend, Pepe, the peperami stick he had tried to consume…) were in the church building.

Later in the service we sang the ‘Ode to Igor’ (to the tune of Barry Manilow’s ‘Copacobana’):
“His name is Igor
He is a reptile
With spiky scales on his back
And he sometimes wears a hat.
His name is Igor
He likes to travel
To places far away
Eating chocolate every day.
Olympic things he’s seen,
Contrasting gold with green.
He is green and he is handsome,
Who could ask for more?”

Did you recognise the upside-down birthday hat in the photos above? We also had a birthday to celebrate last night:

Dave spoke this morning from Hebrews 11:6, looking at the question ‘Why do we pray?’ There are many different answers that could be given to this question, but the verse in Hebrews reminds us of 3 reasons:

(1) We pray because there is a fundamental need to pray within all people and anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists. Even atheists often cry out for help in times of need and each culture and people group have worshipped some kind of god, recognising a higher power than themselves. God created man in His image and prayer is the gateway to connecting with the God in whose image we are made. Prayer is the result of a conscious, deliberate decision to seek God.

(2) Without faith, it is impossible to please God. In order to effectively pray, we have to believe not only that God exists but that He is interested in us and wants a relationship with us. He is not simply the Clockmaker, setting everything in motion and then abandoning His creation, but He continues to take an active part in His creation. In prayer, we affirm the belief that not only does God hear us, but He answers us and it is possible to please God. When we pray, we are communicating with the invisible God, showing faith in that which we do not necessarily yet see.

(3) We also believe that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Does prayer actually work? Does God answer prayer? There are a variety of Scriptures which indicate that He does (see John 16:17, Matt 7:7-11). James tells us that we do not always have because we fail to ask God. Prayer needs to be our first response to situations, not our last resort. James 5:16 indicates the effectiveness of prayer (think about Elijah, Hezekiah and the apostles in Acts 4, for example), but that is not to give us ‘carte blanche’ in how we pray. Ps 66:18 reminds us that sin will always block answers to prayer and that we must live in right relationship with God if we are to see answers to prayer. Faith is necessary too and we have to be sure that we are praying within the will of God.

In summary, therefore, Dave reminded us that:
(1) prayer pleases God
(2) Jesus prayed (and He is our great example in how to live to please God)
(3) Jesus taught us to pray.

Prayer is our lifeblood, our means of communication with our heavenly Father, as vital to us as the air we breathe. Let’s pray!

Tonight is the family service for September at 6 p.m., looking at the adventures of Igor. Intrigued? You need to come along to find out how this iguana can teach us truths about God!

Midweek meetings also resume this week. We will be having a prayer meeting on Thursday (6th September) at 7.30 p.m. and will be resuming Bible studies the following Thursday (13th September), continuing our studies on the General Epistles, starting with James. Everyone is very welcome to attend these midweek meetings, which are crucial to building our understanding and faith.

The youth club and Parent ‘n’ Toddler group will also resume this week, on Monday evening and Friday morning respectively.

Later in September we will be having the Macmillan Coffee Morning. This will take place on Saturday 29th September from 10 a.m. until 12 noon. Coffee mornings take place every Saturday, but proceeds on 29th September will all go to the cancer charity Macmillan.

You are very welcome to attend any of these meetings. Sunday meetings continue with a communion service each Sunday at 10.30 a.m. and a family service at 6 p.m. We also celebrate communion on the second Sunday evening of each month.

Stephen preached on the subject of heavenly marriage last night. Marriage (hotly debated in our current society, but traditionally recognised as the union between a man and a woman as indicated by the Genesis account, involving the commitment and covenant between those two parties) is one of the ways the relationship between God and His church is pictured.

Is 54:5 says “For your Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is His name – the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is the called the God of all the earth.” In this verse, we see that the relationship we have with God is personal, but it is also collective in that God is the husband of all the church and is also the God of all the earth.

John 15:12-13 talks about the love that should characterise our relationships. Earthly marriage takes commitment between two people; heavenly marriage also involves God’s commitment to us (so great that Jesus laid down His life for us) and our commitment to Him.

Earthly marriage has a timescale of life on this earth attached to it (the wedding vows explicitly say ‘until death separates us.’) The heavenly marriage God wants is eternal, however (‘I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord’ Hosea 2:19-20). Even death cannot break God’s commitment to us.

Earthly marriage brings many blessings and advantages (security, happiness, commitment, love, even – in olden times – a dowry and wealth!) The heavenly marriage God gives us brings righteousness, justice, love, compassion and faithfulness to us.

Our response to all that God offers us in this covenant of marriage should be heartfelt and total (see Deut 6:5). We are to love God with all we have and make ourselves ready for the wedding of the Lamb (Rev 19:7). The heavenly marriage we have with God sets us apart for His purposes for ever. We were chosen by God and we also choose Him, to live in union with Him for all eternity.