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“What is church? It’s people, broken people … pretending not to be broken … and that’s what breaks it…”

The quote is from Phil Groom’s blog post – here / The clip is from Rev, a new BBC sitcom – here – its profound!

I think what’s so great about Rev is, its not making fun of God but it is highlighting how absurd people are.

This clip exposes the ‘Jesus is awesome’ mask brilliantly – if you can watch the full episode on iPlayer, you must do so! It highlights so much of what is wrong with our “21st Century Church” but also shows a beautiful and genuine Christian reaction to such false behaviour. Like i say, profound stuff!

“If Bible teachers could only remember that the ‘Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost’ and gave us divinely inspired truth, and never for one remote moment meant to give us anything to satisfy our intellectual curiosity, they would realise that the prophets meant to give us truth to transform spirit and soul and bring us into holy living and holy believing. They never intended that we should have theological baby rattles to entertain ourselves.”
A.W. Tozer

You have to admire Tozer’s ability to just ‘say it like it is.’

I just started reading one of the ‘never before published’ titles that landed recently – ‘Living as as Christian’ – and in typical Tozer fashion im blown away in the first chapter. Challenged is perhaps a more apt way to describe BUT…………yes there is a big BUT!!

How often are we challenged by a book or by a sermon to the point where it brings about change? Let me explain….

“Today we sing songs that are so dishonest that i sometimes hesitate to sing them. Yet when we sing the average hymn, if God Almighty compelled us to be entirely 100% honest, we simply could not sing them because their words would not be true of us.” A.W. Tozer

I read that Tozer quote yesterday afternoon and as i stood in Church last night i stared at some of the words and found myself not singing…i couldn’t help but be stopped in my tracks as i pondered the words and whether i meant them or whether we were all just entertaining ourselves.

I don’t say this to boast because these moments are rare – i promise you that – i am no saint!

Each of you can examine your own heart – so, feel free to chuck away this blog post as another aimless rant if you have this all nailed down!

Sometimes i just don’t care about what theological subject you are a ninja with, how well you can argue for dispensationalism or what kind of worship you prefer………its a baby rattle!

I know some of you will say “but its truth, and this is the right way to do things” which is lovely, but how is your life? How is the Holy Living working out for you? Do others think of you as a rude arrogant sod who knows a lot about the Bible? Do you have all the doctrine hammered down tight but yet can’t look a brother in the eye to say hello to him?

Has all the knowledge and intellectual thinking changed who you are?

If not, then what are you rattling, what theological/doctrinal toy are you playing around with?

Holy living and Holy believing…..NOT Holy entertainment! Thats what we need………

Buy the book thats kicking my ass – here – let it kick yours also!!

“Jesus answered, The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Is this the most important thing Jesus said?

Around all the questions and ideas and theories of what we should do to please God, is often a self centred delusion that we need to “do something” physically…

We don’t do certain things to maintain an image, or we do certain things to gain favour – lets face it we all do that or have done that. By slipping into the suit and attending Church we will really impress Jesus won’t we? Maybe its more than that, maybe we travel to the other side of the world to help sick children and somewhere in the back of our heads we think that our actions will get us a bungalow beside the Apostle Paul on the new earth!

If we pray more and read our Bible more then Jesus will give us a gold star right? If we volunteer for loads of Church ministries He will make sure we don’t get sick right?

If we, if we, if we, if we…………..

The question that Jesus answered was this “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”

“Jesus answered, The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

and there it is,  NO REALLY, there it is – I am pretty sure i have never heard this emphasised as well as I did in Church last night. I needed to think about it some more last night & this morning, i needed to digest it a bit more – i think you should also!

Especially if you are busy “doing stuff” for God…..

Right now, as i type this, my thoughts drift toward these words;

“many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me……..”

Do they not really believe in Him? Are they believing more in their works? They think their own works are the ‘work of God?’

“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Contrary to popular belief John of the baptising fame did not start the first ‘Baptist’ Church…..he was far more essential to the history & growth of the Christian faith than that……

Next weekend at our Church we start a short series on John….

What do you know or think about John?

In Northern Ireland we have a problem with ‘christian’ fundamentalists.

Its not exclusively a Northern Irish problem though! I’m sure you knew that!

Some people automatically think of certain denominations when ‘fundamentalists’ get mentioned but they are in my church, they are in your church and we all need to be careful that we do not become one of them.

This is 9 minutes that i think you should listen to