I am Legend

I went to see the new Will Smith movie - 'I am Legend'. It's about this guy who seems to be the only survivor in New York city from a deadly virus that wiped out the majority of the population. I have heard mixed opinions on this movie, but for me - I really liked it. I thought the storyline was really well laid out to the viewer and the tension had you gripped the whole way through. Without giving too much away for those who haven't yet seen it, the only bit that was disappointing was when they introduced a new character, they protrayed that particular scene a little cheesy for my liking. Aside from that this movie gets my thumbs up. It would have Melanie's as well except she really never got over what happened to the dog!

There was one particular line that resounded with me, and I think this is a great message to everyone out there. It was when someone asked smith how could God create such a thing, and smith replied with...

"God didn't do this, we did"

It was the humans who accidently created the virus. If anyone wants to know the reason why there is pain or suffering out there, it's because man does the evil, not God.

worship part 2...

Quite often there are arguments over what is an acceptable way to worship God in church services. There are many ways we can express ourselves with our body in worship. Some feel there is no Biblical basis for what is performed, so here are some scriptures for where most of it came from.

Saying - Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name ~ Hebrews 13:15

Singing - Sing praises unto God, sing praises, sing praises unto our King, sing praises ~ Psalm 149:6

Shouting - Cry out and shout thou inhabitant of Zion; for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee ~ Isaiah 12:6

Lifting Hands - And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. Then all the people answered, 'Amen, Amen!' while lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground ~ Nehemiah 8:6 (Lifting hands is a sign of surrender and blessing)

Clapping - clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph ~ Psalm 47:1
... and other instruments
Our hands can be used to play musical instruments "Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty firmament! Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him for His excellent greatness! Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; Praise Him with the lute and harp. Praise Him with the timbrel and dance, Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes.Praise Him with loud cymbals: Praise Him with clashing cymbals, Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! ~ Psalm 150

Kneeling - O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our maker ~ Psalm 95:6

Dancing - Praise Him with the timbrel and the dance" (Psalm 150:4). "Let them praise His name in the dance ~ Psalm 149:3

Togetherness - Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing ~ Rev 5:13

Silence...

The point is that unless something directly violates what God's word says, we can worship God any way providing our motive is pure and to God alone. Sometimes it can be easy to be sucked into looking holy for others to see in worship and the Bible warns strongly about this (Pharisees) stating God can see through it all, and He will spit you from His belly! Of course true worship is just not what we do in our church services, it is a whole lot more; and more on that will come in the next entry.

Happy birthday Jesus

'Tis indeed the season to be jolly, as today is Jesus' 2008th birthday. Today we are reminded of where God began His redemptive work of His new covenant. We have so much to be thankful to God for, and I pray you will feel a fresh amazement about the truth that God saves people like us. Just remember to say a prayer for those today who do not have a warm home, nice presents and a cooked dinner.

There are some things about the Christmas story that I don't yet understand, and I hope I do not sound stupid. But what exactly were the shepherds for? And those carols that talk about snow - was there snow in Bethlehem; was there not a clear sky for the wise men to see the star?

Another thing that struck me the other day during the carol service is the line; no room in the inn; in a manger he lay. Aside from the David healy connotations, I find this sentiment typical of our giving and good works for the Lord. We claim there is no room in the inn, and so we give him not even second best in the form of a manger. How often have we given begrudgingly, or made a contribution but kept something back for ourselves (we had better be glad that God doesn't treat us all as Ananias and Sapphira!). We feel good about ourselves for the every so often random act of kindness we do do.

When Christians talk about Christmas, they usually mention how far away it is from it's original meaning. A quick google search for 'Christmas' revealed that the first website found which was remotely close to the real Christmas story was found half way down page 4 coming in the form of Christian Cyberspace! Even the image search produced few and far between God related images. So in light of this, I just want to remind myself of how amazing it actually is that Christ came from the power of heaven, to become a baby in a sinful world to be slain for our sins.

SOS Bus

I was walking through Belfast yesterday when I came across the SOS bus on the Dublin Road. The guy who was running it was kind enough to invite us in and give us a tour. It turns out this guy is actually one of the visionaries for this faith-driven mission.

The SOS bus is a really simple idea yet such a versatile tool for bringing the Word of God alive in the community. During the day they going into schools helping with social issues and learning difficulties. Afterward they would go into the local estates and park the bus so the kids can play playstation on widescreen television or just hang out. Similary older people can come and enjoy each others company and the generations can join together.

Then at night the bus parks outside the local social scene and acts as an aide to people struggling on their way home. They offer tea, biscuits and heat to help people sober up. They do shuttle runs to bring people home and they even have a fully equipped medical centre. One must wonder how did this all got on its feet and became so sucessful.

The answer I believe is offering your talents fully to God instead of saving them (remember the parable). They don't use Bibles as they believe that God is already written all over what they do (and men often make a mess of telling God's story), people come to God by being touched by the love offered to them. They have been donated a whole batch of decomissioned translink buses, and why can't we bring one of these to Lurgan?. This truely is an amazing mission and you can check out more at:-

http://www.sosbusni.org/

worship Part 1 ...

I have been rather disappointed with a few of the new Christian 'worship' cds I have bought recently. For example I buy the annual Soul Survivor live CD every year as it usually has 2 or 3 gems on it (e.g. From the inside out, happy day, whole world in His hands, God of justice) but this year was a let down. Some of the songs are ok but most of them lack any real kind of depth to them.

That is something I am finding with a lot of Christian lyrics these days. There are lots of airy fairy lyrics with nice tunes, but seldom is there some real truth to declare. John McMullen did a good article on this a while ago, you can find it here.

Oh, sing to the LORD a new song!
Sing to the LORD, all the earth.

That can be found in Psalm 96:1. I think it's great that there are people trying to write these new songs, but lets actually write a new song, not the same lyrics rearranged. I wonder does God ever get bored of hearing the same thing? I can't say anything I guess as I am no songwriter, but I would say is that it is great to sing your own words to God.

Some of my favourite songs are...
When the music fades - matt redman
Blessed be Your name - matt redman
God of Justice - tim hughes
Consuming fire - tim hughes
In Christ Alone - stuart townend
Holy Holy - nathan fellingham
My soul praises the Lord - andy flan

I realise that the term 'worship' is a huge topic and a word which is highly generalised and over stereotyped in the shallow Christian culture of today, so I have labelled this topic part 1 as I will release further thoughts on this topic over the coming weeks and months.

23 today

Today is my 23rd birthday. I could say all the usual cliché's people say about birthdays....so I think I will :p

I can not believe I am 23 already, it does not seem that long since my last birthday. Time is going so fast at the moment that it brings into sharp relief our mortality. I am not scared of getting older and it annoys me when people harp on about wanting to be younger, or not wanting to grow up, or even when people try to hide their wrinkles!

There is nothing we can do about our age, so lets stop whinging about it and embrace it! I find it amusing that we spend our childhood desiring to be older, and we spend our adulthood desiring to be younger! I don't want to waste time like that, I want to use whatever precious time God has given me for Him.

Thanks to everyone who got me a gift, I really appreciate it. I once knew someone who asked for scarves and hats for their birthday so they could give them to the homeless, I think that's an amazing statement to make!