Stories (Cont...)

I wrote about the usefulness of stories as my first blog (see below). I missed some stuff out.

Why isn't Jesus so present in our lives that we have to talk about him? 

If I love a football team I always bring them up, If I love a girl I can't stop thinking and talking about her, if I meet someone new I want to tell people about them, if something unusual or funny happens in my day I want to spread it, if I have a good pizza from the JCR then people know, if I enjoy some new music, if I think something is funny, if I think something is sad, I love to talk about it, to tell people about it. I love to gossip.

Why isn't Jesus as easy as that? Why can't I gossip about him? Why isn't it natural?

I love Jesus. Why isn't he cropping up in my every conversation?!

We need to be gossiping about him, spreading rumours about his work, lighting fires in peoples hearts, planting seeds that the gardener can tend to.

We need to start spreading the gospel...!

Hypocrisy

I've just been to a DICCU CU Central meeting, the preacher, like last week, was preaching on Luke 12, and about how we can be hypocrites as Christians. How we can live a life, pretending.

It is so true (and doesn't the truth set you free?). 

We (when I say we, I probably mean I) can spend a life concentrating on worldly (maybe even positive) things like a degree, a girlfriend, a friendship, popularity, a sport, a fitness, a charity, a 'life', or on a night out, a beer, a flirt, banter, crude/lude/unhelpful jokes. Building up our earthly possessions.

One of the basic messages of the Gospel is about treasures on Earth and treasures in Heaven. Simple. Jesus said (Luke 12 v 34) 'For where your treasure is, there your heart is also.' (Is my heart in the Lord? For his kingdom?)

If I spend my life building up Earthly things, concentrating on here, now and me, then where will I be left in heaven?

I want to live a life where my everything is about and for and including and prompted by and uplifting Jesus. Whether that is through a beer with mates, in a conversation, in my degree, in my sport, it doesn't matter, just in my everything. So much so when a randomer at lunch says they have a cold, I offer to pray, when I speak to a friend about church, I am so in love with Jesus that my excitement for church rubs off on them, that it is the normal for me to be gossiping about Jesus, to have him in everything, so my smile, the way I act, the way I treat everyone is obvious and infectious, so he is my first thought in everything, so that my work, my sport, my words, my hands are for him.

I don't think that is something I can just change, that can be a physical, emotional, mental change. I need to be changed supernaturally, to be so filled by his power that my life is his, to be overflowing with his spirit that I cannot contain it, to not be frightened by opinion, and to let my yes be yes and my no be no, to be plain, to be honest, to avoid hypocrisy.

I've got a bit of Deja-Vu, I've been here before..........