Moggerhanger - Temporal or eternal?

Jim invited me to a River Church men's breakfast meeting at Moggerhanger Park. Dale Hewitt from Dreambuilders Church in Perth, Australia, spoke to us after the meal. He first met Rob Macfarlane in Harare in 1995, long before Rob came to St Neots and founded River Church.

After a marvellous full English breakfast we settled down to listen to what Dale had to say.

He began by pointing out the pressures on men to succeed, especially in modern times. And this is pressure that's always focused on achieving things that are temporal, things that will not remain for eternity. It occurred to me that this is just as true for women although the specific pressures are sometimes different.

Reading Ephesians 1:15-23 as a basis, Dale explained that this is actually Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church. At heart it's about the fulfillment of Father's purpose for your life - his purpose, not yours. Paul begins with praise (verses 3-14) before moving on to his petitions. This is such a good principle. There's an eternal perspective here, we should always praise with eternity firmly in mind, it's not just about the blessings we have in the here and now.

This raises a question, 'What am I going to leave as an eternal deposit when my life in this world is finished?'

Paul's prayer for the Ephesians is that they'd have greater intimacy with the Almighty, greater vision, and greater power. Why? So that they might grow! And how do we demonstrate our increasing knowledge and reverence of the Lord? Putting it another way, what do we do that is different from what the world does? We will give him more time in our lives and we'll have an increased passion for his presence and for his people. We are workers in his Kingdom, not rulers over our own kingdom.

Jesus is not just a friend, he is much more than that, he's the King of Kings, the creator of the universe and Lord over everything. Do people know that he's a priority in our lives? They should do!

The more intimacy we have with the Lord the more we can see where we're going, the greater our vision. Like the blind man at Bethsaida, getting closer is the key to having our eyes opened and opened fully. In Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus tells us that like him, we are the light of the world. As we touch people's lives they begin to see by his light shining through us, they begin to see 'like trees walking'.

If we're born of the Spirit we will know his power in our lives (Ephesians 1:19-23). As we focus on Jesus he will reveal the path for our lives and guide us along it - and he will be glorified in the process.

Eaton Ford (day) - Life in the light

Stuart was with us this morning for the first part of the meeting. We spent some time chatting and then prayed with him for some of the things he needs in his life. Roger told us that his friend Andy starts a new job next week, and that is a wonderful answer to prayer. Paul's sister also has a new job and is loving it, while for Roger's sister things are looking more promising too.

We also talked about Roger and Ruth's desire to see new life in the church where they live. I felt the Lord saying about this issue in particular, 'Begin and end with love'. I hope to visit them at home on Tuesday to pray about life in Offord.

Then we briefly discussed whether we should add some more deliberate Bible reading to our weekly meetings. Roger thought it would be good to read through some Psalms and share what the verses might be saying to us. I felt it would be good to work through Mark's gospel. We decided to try both and made a start right away with Psalm 30.

Verse six seemed very relevant, 'When I felt secure, I said, "I will never be shaken."' We've all been in that place in our lives, we feel capable of dealing with anything without help, but when we hit real difficulties we crumble. We need the Lord to lift us up, it's a big mistake to try to lift ourselves up!

Eaton Ford - Tossed on the waves of life

Mary began by telling us about a situation at work that had made her angry. She had made up her mind to retaliate but as she read Titus and Matthew 5 and 6 she felt the Lord speaking to her and calling her to be peaceful, both in her heart and in her actions. This was a very direct revelation, clear evidence of Father's guidance and involvement in her life.

We shared news of a number of friends who need prayer right now and we prayed for them and for ourselves, expecting the Lord to meet all these needs.

Jim told us about a trip to the north where they went to minister to two very different churches. The first one was physically poor but spiritually rich with a great deal going on and lives being impacted. The second church was rich, had a grand meeting place and did everything in style, but they were formalised and spiritually poor. This had greatly impressed Jim who saw that we can be so rich in ourselves that we feel we don't need Jesus.

I had a clear picture of a river in the desert, like the Nile. Far from the river there were no trees or other plants because of the utter dryness. But closer to the river there was much more greenery. And the Spirit said, 'Stay close to the banks where you will grow strongly and bear a lot of fruit.' Jesus is the river, he is the flow of living water which we need to sustain us and make us fruitful.

Jim read Titus 2:1-15 and reminded us that the grace of God is the most important aspect for us. We have so much to be thankful about! We all have an appointed time to leave this life, but today is the day for all of us to say 'Yes' to Jesus. He wants to encourage us daily with the living word that cuts right through to the marrow.

The words of an old hymn ('It is well with my soul') popped into Sean's mind,

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

I shared some thoughts from Mark 4 which had come into focus for me when I read it recently. In verses 35-41 we see Yahshua sleeping peacefully while the disciples were very frightened. They didn't understand, as he did, that he was on an unfinished mission and his Father would not allow him to fail through a mere storm.

All the parables in the earlier section of the chapter help them to see the spiritual truth which he already fully understands. The physical world often mirrors the spiritual world and can help us grow in understanding. Yahshua himself is the lamp, the Light of the world that is meant to be disclosed. He told them to 'consider carefully what you hear'. Consider well and get a good dose of understanding. We grow in spiritual understanding in the same way as the growing seed, we don't understand how, but in the end there is a benefit - a harvest, a shady place for the vulnerable to rest.

This is why, when they were afraid, he said, 'Do you still have no faith?'

Jim told us about some men who were sharing the good news on the street and felt strongly led to go to a phone shop. They found the staff were Muslims and one woman told them, 'I'll believe your God is real if you can tell me something about my life only I could know'. And while they were looking at one another wondering how they could meet such a challenge, she suddenly shrieked! It turned out that at that moment the Lord had revealed himself to her in a vision and she could no longer deny him!

We talked about faith, and taking risks, and growing in wisdom and knowledge and grace. It was all very encouraging stuff.

Weird and wonderful maps

I love maps and plans. I always have. Most likely I always will. They encapsulate a place, a landscape, an idea, a society, politics, history, whatever may be of interest to whoever created the map.

Maps convey so much in convenient, overview form. I can pore over a good map for hours and hours.

So imagine my delight at discovering 'Strange Maps', a blog that's updated every day or three with yet another wacky map. Some of these are awesome, most are amusing or intriguing, all are fun providing they're not taken too seriously.

Take a few minutes to view a few of the posts, you won't be disappointed. Here are some that I particularly recommend for the cartophiles amongst my readers.

• The roadmap to success
• Scroll Britannia
• The Swiss Röstigraben
• Extraterrestrial TV?
• Sakoku
• Travel times from London
• Shoe world

Great Doddington - Letting go

Jody spoke about the shrewd manager described in Luke 16:1-15. He was about to lose his job, so let his master's debtors off with part payment. That way he was sure to have friends when he needed them. This was dishonest, but the master was impressed by his ingenuity.

She also reminded us of the widow in Luke 18, we should keep praying and never give up. I added that we need to have a right understanding about Yahshua. In all the varied circumstances of life concerning people and events, we need to know he's always with us and is more than able to do whatever he thinks we need.

Jody thought that we need to 'let go'. There's a temptation to, as it were, ball up our fists. But we mustn't do this, he wants us to relax. We are in Christ and he is in us so we can certainly have peace!

Rachael remembered the old Batman TV series. Batman and Robin were sometimes shown climbing up the side of a skyscraper but what they were really doing in the studio was crawling along the floor! Sometimes life seems such a struggle, it's as if Jesus want us to scale a high building. But our perspective is wrong. When we adjust and see it from his point of view, what seemed hard is really easy - all we have to do is crawl along the floor.

We spent some time in prayer for people we know, including one who has to undergo a rather difficult procedure in hospital. We also prayed for Jody and Peter's house and that it would be a place of blessing and peace for the people who move into it in future.

I commented on the still quietness that enveloped the meeting, it was not an uneasy quietness but seemed to me to be evidence of the peace and love of Yahshua in our hearts.

Rachael read Proverbs 27:9-10 which reminds us of the importance and value of local community.

Colworth (CU) - Be wise

Andy brought some thoughts on the topic 'Wisdom' based on readings from United Christian Broadcasters Ltd (UCB). The comments covered Deuteronomy 32:29 and were published on 29th and 30th October. We read verses 24-47 for context.

Andy reminded us that wisdom is needed in deciding where to put our effort and how to spend whatever resources we have. In many ways it's the art of knowing what to overlook since we simply cannot aspire to do everything that might be possible. We need to avoid doing petty things and instead focus our energy and time on  what will be useful.