Reflect

Meet Lecrae.

This artist recently tweeted in reply to ‘what’s the hardest part of being a Christian artist?’ He said ‘remembering you’re a reflection not the source of light’.

I think that applies to us too.

When things are going well – we’re getting good grades, being admired by other people, or doing what God would want in a situation – then it’s tempting to think that it’s all down to our own awesomeness. That we switched our goodness, our ‘light’ on extra bright, and God must be impressed at how well we’re doing this. We’re doing so well he doesn’t even need to help us, right?

Wrong.

Because if we think like that, what happens when things go badly? When we mess up, when it doesn’t feel like God is with us, when we disappoint someone? We end up believing that we’ve let down God. That we’ve shattered his expectations as well as our own. That we’ve stopped shining, so we’ll somehow have to pull ourselves together and switch the light back on.

But that’s not how it works.

Isaiah 60.1-2 says

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.”

This verse basically means that we should shine because God is over us like the sun – he is what is making us shine. Without him we would be utterly dark, dull. We are called to shine as we are shined on. We don’t need to make light, or strain to switch it on. As reflections, we depend on God for all our brightness.

So I reckon that as long as we’re facing God (by trying to make him centre of our lives, even if we don’t always succeed) then we’re shining, reflecting him. We’re displaying his goodness and his love and his holiness, even when we don’t feel like it. Because it doesn’t depend on our efforts at all, it depends on God.

shining light :D

hey all 🙂

Recently there has been this verse that has been stuck on my heart and i want to share it with you all 🙂 so here it is – matthew 5:14-16 – You are the light of the world. A town put on a hill may be seen by all. And a burning light is not put under a vessel but on its table; so that its rays may be shining on all who are in the house. Even so let your light be shining before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.

Sometimes we try to hide the fact that we are christians and maybe feel embarased about telling others and that its ok to feel like that i know i do sometimes. My biggest task as a christian is probably telling others about jesus but i do it and even though sometimes i feel scared its worth the risk because its a truly amazing  feeling to watch someones faith grow and to see there lives changed by god :D. God loves it when we tell people about him because he is never ashamed of us so why be ashamed of him. So remember god is always with you and even though you are scared he is there and he is looking after you 😀 so go and be a shining light for god 😀

god bless 🙂

Listen to the lyrics…

This week has been a pretty hard week for me for various reasons, and when I am down and don’t know what to do with myself I turn to music and that usually cheers me up and makes things right. Only recently I have started actually listening to the lyrics of songs and thinking what kind of a meaning you can get from them. The song that has stuck out the most for me this week would have to be “Perfect” by Pink.

Pink’s (Alecia Beth Moore) father is Catholic and her mother Jewish and I am sure in this song there is messages from God included.
In the start of the song it says “Made a wrong turn,Once or twice, Dug my way out, Blood and fire, Bad decisions, That’s alright, Welcome to my silly life”

This just reminds me that no matter what you have done, God will always love you and all you have to do is ask for forgiveness and because Jesus died for us, your sin is washed away!

Later on in the song, in the chorus it says “Pretty, pretty please, Don’t you ever, ever feel, Like you’re less than, Less than perfect, You’re perfect to me”

Need I say anything? God has made you the way he wants, not the way anybody else wants. You should be happy with yourself because if you think you are perfect and God thinks you are perfect, THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS!

So I encourage you to keep these two messages in your head for the following week and next time you listen to your favourite song on the radio, listen closely to the lyrics and you never know god might be speaking to you!
God bless! 😀

Stepping Out

I love Bonfire Night.

There’s something in huddling around a fire feeling slightly sunburnt but cosy, singing or just staring into the flames (and not being able to look away… agghhh!) that makes everyone friends. The fireworks are always stunning, and I end up trying to draw them the next day and fail dramatically. And it definitely helps that I’m a bit of a pyromaniac.

The fireworks yesterday reminded me of so many lovely memories, but also this: Wouldn’t it be handy if God spoke to us through some kind of massive firework to tell is what to do? We could have a code, green for yes, red for no… And it would be a great talking point (‘wow did you see the amazing fireworks last night?’ ‘Fireworks? Ahh yes. That was just me ‘n’ the Big G chatting). But there’s a serious point behind that too.

Because somehow we always find ourselves holding back. We make resolutions for new leaves, new years or imagine, then we get back home and see the old crowd and realise we’d forgotten just how hard it was to do what Jesus did. So we convince ourselves we were deluding ourselves. That we never really heard Gods call. That the bible didn’t mean for us to read it literally like we did last summer. That we’re back in reality now and we’ll not do strange thing like pray for people or let them know what you belive. Because of course God wouldn’t want us to do that.*                                        (* Sarcasm, by the way folks)

So here’s a reminder: Look at what God did when he was in human shoes.  He taught, he prayed and healed people, he told his disciples to spread the word.  Do we follow in his footsteps?

It’s fine say ‘YEAHH!’ now, but at school or work or wherever it’s a different ball game. What I often do is say, ‘Sure God. I’ll pray for my friend – who isn’t Christian – to be healed, as long as you tell me to first.’ And usually my good intentions don’t get any further than that. I tell myself, when my friend has a terrible headache, ‘that’s just you  ____, wanting you to do something Godly to make a fool of yourself.’ And maybe I’m the only person who does this, but somehow I don’t think I am.

Do we send off prayers in the morning asking God to tell us when to do something, then plough through the rest of the day  having completely forgotten our prayers, even on purpose, so that even if God did send off a firework, we’d be too busy to notice? Do we expect God to produce a massive jolt of obviousness when he wants us to pray for someone or to mention him? Have we always waited to see some sort of sign before trying to follow in Jesus’ footsteps?

Judging on the number of times I’ve done that, only to convince myself God hasn’t boomed at me because he doesn’t want me to do that sort of thing (I conveniently forget WWJD in these moments…), I’d say we don’t have a very good way of seeing things.

So heres the way I’m going to see things from now on: Maybe God wants us to trust him rather than relying on facts, so he let’s us decide whether it’s his will or not. If we had a 50-50 chance God wants us to do something for him, would we do it? But it’s much better odds than that – so often we wait for God to put an arrow with ‘go’ on it above our friend’s head, but Jesus already told us to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’. He didn’t guarantee safe, comfortable results, but he promises he’ll be with us. In fact, if you get laughed at or rejected because of it, ‘great is your reward in heaven’.

Daniel’s friends once said, ‘If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.’ and for us I think that can be translated as, ‘God could make this person believe in him by putting the Holy Spirit’s words into my mouth, or get healed when I pray, but even though he might not, I’m still going to do it on the off chance he will.’ Even if he doesn’t, we’ve got to take faith to where it actually means something, without insurance or assurance, other than what we get in the Bible, which is that Jesus says ‘follow’ and he heals, he speaks about God.

Stepping out in faith to pray or speak about Jesus to people could change everything or nothing for them, or it could take time. But surely God’s sacrifice for them is worth a sacrifice from you. Surely with their eternal life in the balance, it’s a risk worth taking. And wherever that step leads, the one place you can be sure that it goes is towards God.

As we have to trust him, rather than things we can see, we get closer to him.

Crying out to God

Sometimes things suck. There are so many things that throw us off track. Worry. Fear. Anger. Bitterness. Doubt. These things just pile up and become too much and we can’t help cry out to God and ask where he is in a situation.

Sometimes we get so caught up in a problems that we fail to see God working in them. If things don’t go the way we want we start freaking out. Worry can be such a huge thing that can overwhelm us. It can be the first thing we think of when we wake up and the last thing we think of before we go to sleep. Worry can crush us. We worry about all kinds of things; from small petty stuff that nobody else even notices to huge things that are way out of our control. The future can be the most terrifying thing in the world, the uncertainty of what life may hold. We can ask ourselves huge questions like, “What if I fail these exams and don’t get into Uni?”, “What if I end up getting a rubbish job that I can’t get out of?”, “What if I never get married?”. What if…? What if…? What if…?

We can get so bogged down in fear of things that are out of our control that we totally lose sight of God. We cannot deal with our problems alone and every time we try to face up to these ‘Giants’ we get discouraged. David – the guy who fought Goliath – handed the situation over to God as he knew he could not beat Goliath by his own strength. The same goes for us as Christians, the things we struggle with or worry about we must hand over to God and ask for him to do his work.

If your going through a discouraging, rough patch and there are things that are overwhelming you then ask God to be in those situations and for you to see him in them. If your life seems to be on the rocks and you have no clue where your meant to be going ask God for guidance. We try to lead ourselves but ultimately God has to be our compass and where he’s wanting us to get to is a million times better than where we think we want to go.

There is nothing better for us to do in times of confusion, distress or discouragement than to just simply cry out to God.

Hello world!

Hello one and all, this is the beginning of something which I hope will take off, which will give Mezzoers a chance to give their say..A chance to tell the rest of us about their week, their Sunday, their Mezzo Experience, something funny, something sad, something challenging, something that will make us think, God stories, good stories, etc etc etc……

I hope you all subscribe to this and I hope it take off….Its another opportunity to share, be young people that journey together and get alongside each other…so go on , dare to be different…and lets shine!

The Mezzo Leaders!

P.S If you have randomly come across this blog…..hi!