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I stand here thirsty…

15 01 2008

It’s my baptism this Sunday at the NCC and boy am I looking forward to it! I have written my testimony; it has been approved by the church, packed my change of clothes bag and am currently practicing my testimony word perfect in preparation for the big day. I am hoping to be cleansed within the sea at Newquay, but with the weather looking rather stormy outside at the moment, I am praying very hard for a calm day.

It’s a great anticipation feeling knowing that my life will change for the better come this Sunday. I know there might not be any dramatic changes or physical changes to be seen, but the thought of actually being baptized is like coming of age and finally understanding the true meaning of life. We put so much importance on the baptism, but I paraphrase Colossians 2:12 “For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life.” This makes it clear that God loves us, his mighty power allows him to cleanse us and effectively start again (born again). All our previous wrong-doing on this planet is forgotten by the Lord. How powerful is that, our one and only God is a forgiving God. Not only is he mightier than anything I could ever imagine, he also forgives me for sins I might cause.

Wouldn’t it be great though if you could have a sneak preview in God’s little black book he holds on each and every one of us about sins we will cause in the future; although the doing of this would probably be classed as a sin in its own right!





Looking forward to 2008

3 01 2008
2008I sure do hope judgment day doesn’t happen this year, I have so much to learn and feel my journey is just starting. I know I don’t have a choice and it is the mighty Lord who will decide, but sometimes a prayer might help! For me though 2008 brings so much promise; getting baptised, becoming involved with the church, Hope 2008, attending Christian events as a Christian and on the whole, building on the foundations I have set over the past six months.

Do you ever wonder whether there is something us humans are missing in our journey with God? I have started reading the Ten Commandments by J.John, a great inspiration and an even better read, and the book covers to Ten Commandments in detail. I must confess that I had never thought about these Commandments in this much detail before. Let alone being able to recite them in the correct order, but as J.John points out, there have been over 30 million laws created over the past 2,000 years, but none of them have ever been better than these Commandments. Can you believe that atheists wish to rename the Commandments or remove them altogether because they believe that they do not meet modern day society. As a modern day Christian who attends a modern church, my brain boggles as to what new commandments for our society would be made, and who would create the new commandments; is the Pope powerful enough in today’s society, would the western world agree on eco-friendly commandments and where would we draw the line on coveting?

Time for me to go lie down and try to make sense of this me thinks!





Taking Christ out of Christian’s

23 11 2007

Firstly if you take Christ out of ‘Christian’, we all know that Ian isn’t the one who is going to help us!

Anyway back to it…With Christmas fast approaching my mind has for the first time in my life turned to what Christmas is all about. We all know why we celebrate Christmas, but do we though really understand what Christmas is all about. With more than 160 countries worldwide celebrating Christmas it is believed that Christmas was chosen for the 25th December so that the Catholic Church could compete with rival pagan rituals held at that time of year! Once again a sign of Church wishing to find a quick win solution to compete with the world we live in. In fact we have got so swept up with the gift element of Christmas that each person will spend an average of £390 on Christmas gifts this year, up 18% on 2005. To put this into perspective 60% of all annual retail turnover in the UK will occur over the 6 week period leading up to Christmas!

Stripping away the commercial elements of this period and going back to basics, this time of year is a really good excuse to think about the bigger picture. Jesus is God and God is Jesus, so why it then that is there are denomination out there that don’t believe in the Trinity? This is a hard concept to get one’s head around, but Jesus himself spoke about this in the bible – “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30-33).

As a new Christian I have so far stumbled across four issues which I think are all corner flags to be an active Christian. If we can embrace these then the foundations are in place:

• The Holy Spirit is all around you
• Jesus resurrected from the dead
• Jesus is God
• Blind faith

These are all great thoughts and ones that make me shout out “wow”. Next on the list is to ensure that sin is recognized and how I can combat minor sin (if there is such a thing as minor sin!) over the festive period – gluttony and laziness for starters.





Pro-active atheists – if that’s possible!

22 10 2007

I found this on another blog and had a wee chuckle.

Forget the Jehovah’s, meet the new door to door salesperson in your area!