This is my first blog; I’ve started to feel the need to record some of the things I’m wrestling with, I guess so that I wont forget my own thoughts, and also as a sort of diary with depth.
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I was thinking about the idea of times of preparation in the church, whether that’s corporately as a church, or individually as its members. I can see need for preparation in NBC at this time, with Dave’s sabbatical coming to a close and the way in which God seems to be directing us in a certain direction as regards to worship, mission and fellowship. I believe that we do need to ‘get ready’ for God’s movements in the future; the idea of ‘cleaning house’ as NBC but more importantly as individual believers, making holiness a priority in all areas of our lives and interaction as a church. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”; John’s was a message of expectancy and hope but also brought a responsibility – if we are to receive Jesus and the blessing that He has set aside for us, we must actively be pursuing God’s standards of holiness and righteousness, admitting freely and unashamedly when we fall short, and with repentant hearts, get up and try again, and this time get further. I am the biggest hypocrite writing this; I fall often, and rarely repent as I should. I do understand though, that shame and guilt are far from Godly attitudes of the heart. Satan endlessly exploits our guilt and shame linked with past sin and uses it to propel us further into the hole we are trying to climb out of. The imagery needs not to be that of clawing desperately at the sides of such a hole, throwing ourselves in hopeless desperation at the light but never quite reaching it, always covered in dirt but never cleansed; we need to understand the glorious nature of redemption that Jesus has made available for us. We are not clawing hopelessly, but climbing steadily. The mountain is high and the path is difficult but we press on in the knowledge that all the armies of heaven are at our backs, holding off the forces of the enemy as long as we have our eyes fixed upon Jesus. The nature of God’s unimaginable forgiveness is such that confessed sin is CANCELLED. Sin that is in the past and has been repented of has been dealt with by Jesus and the cross. Given this, we actually have absolutely no grounds to be ashamed or feel guilty. It is not God’s will for us to remain in a place of guilt and remorse, if we stay there too long we find ourselves unable to carry out the tasks that God has set aside for us. How are we to disciple and encourage those accountable to us if we ourselves have not got a firm grasp on the fundamental truth of forgiveness. “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free, His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me.”
The question with preparation is, can we always be getting ready? Is there a point at which we are ready to do the will of God? I think that there is a more immediate nature. Walking the centre of God’s will for us applies to here, now. Yes we need to be prepared for His call on our lives, but the call is not for the future, the future is now, the call is for our lives TODAY. Something that I have heard on a number of occasions is that if God revealed His plan for the whole of our lives, we would most probably refuse, ask for an alternative, or try and get there too fast or in our own way, which would definitely screw things up. Of course, the very nature of a ‘lifeplan’ is that God is calling us in a certain direction in our walk with Him. But we do need in many cases to wake up to the fact that having discovered the person of God, committed ourselves to following Him and accepted salvation, we ARE walking God’s plan and we’re doing it NOW. We need to acknowledge God’s sovereignty, accept His plan and commit ourselves to actively acting in accordance with the prompting of the Holy Spirit and in that, allowing Him to change us into His likeness and therefore becoming more and more equipped as a steward of His glory. This inward change is the preparation; preparation for the next stage of our life of worship.
