Another repost for you! 

Originally posted here, 21st March, 2012. What I talk about in this post is a simple concept, but sometimes with all the busyness of life we forget to live this way. I trust it will serve as a reminder to you. 

Enjoy.

Hey people,

Well aware that there haven't been any posts in a while, humblest apologies.

This one is going to be a quick one, it's just something that came to me while doing the dishes yesterday.

Most of the washing up had already been done, and I had just begun to tackle a large baking dish. I placed it in the water that was already in the sink, but the water didn't reach the rim of the dish, so to get some water in the dish I turned on the faucet. The water I turned on was hot water, while the water in the sink was cold. And boom, revelation time.

Do you see it yet?

Look at it this way:

Faucet - God
Hot water - the Holy Spirit, God's blessings, giftings, etc.
Baking dish - You (God's vessel)
Cold water - your current situation, people around you, etc.

The hot water wouldn't change the cold water, it wouldn't make it warmer, until the dish overflowed.

You can't/won't change the current situation you're in or the people around you, until you overflow all that God has poured into you.

Having done science in Secondary school, I know that if the dish full of hot water had been left sitting in the cold water, eventually (due to energy transfer if I'm not mistaken), the water in the sink and the water in the dish would eventually become the same temperature.

The problem with that is, what's inside the vessel has become indistinguishable from what's outside of it.

I think this is a kind of 'Be in the world, not of the world,' kind of situation. As Christians, there should be something different about us. Philippians 1:27 talks about letting your manner be worthy of the Gospel of Christ - people should know by how we live our lives that we're Christians - and Romans 12:2, talks about not conforming to the pattern of the world - again, regardless of how long we are in the world, we should not become like the world.

As I'm typing this up another point comes to mind, and that is that the water only stays hot as long as there's a constant source of hot water. If the tap were to be turned off, after a while, the water would become warm > lukewarm > cold.

Outpouring of the Holy Spirit, spiritual renewal, God blessing you, these are not one-off things. You should be constantly spending time with God being refreshed and restored.

And that's it for now. May add a bit more to this as I have a chance to turn it over in my head, but this is the basic thought that came to me at the time. Be overflowing - a simple revelation, but hopefully it gets you thinking.

Chello people! Another repost for ya! New stuff coming soon, just a few more weeks until uni is done!

This isn't what I had planned on posting today, but went over to the old blog and this post, the last one I put up was just staring me in the face, begging to be reposted. I also had the privilege of leading the song I write about at my friends' wedding last week, so it kind of fit. To this day it is one of my favourite [worship] songs. Enjoy! 

Originally posted here on 27/03/2012.

This post is just some thoughts that came to me during some quiet time at a Worship Team workshop a few weeks ago.

There's a song that came on during that quiet time that has really been speaking to me recently, One Thing Remains. The chorus goes:

Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me.

And the bridge:

In death, in life, I'm confident and covered by the power of Your great love.
My debt is paid, there's nothing that can separate my heart from Your great love.

It's an absolutely amazing feeling knowing that regardless of what you say, what you do, who you are, God loves you unconditionally. I'm not really a person that cries, but I can't even get through the chorus the first time without becoming overwhelmed to the point of tears.

I think part of the reason this song moves me so much now, is because while I know God loves me, I didn't KNOW God loves me. I'm only now properly coming into that realisation. Let me explain.

In French, Spanish, and Italian, there are two verbs for 'to know.'

In French:
Savoir and connaitre,

In Spanish:
Saber and conocer,

In Italian:
Sapere and conoscere

In each of the three languages, the verb starting with 'S' has to do with having a technical knowledge of something, while the verb beginning with 'C' has to do with being familiar with something/someone, or as one definition I've seen said, 'to know in one's heart.'

I think I'd been living life with the technical knowledge that God loves me, but didn't always know or feel that in my heart.

Now this may be wrong, but I'm willing to guess that there are many people that, feel (or have felt) like this. We know with an 'S' God loves us, but we don't KNOW with a 'C' God loves us. We say it, but don't live it, or we sometimes forget.

God loves, us, and that's a definite, but in thinking otherwise, we have a self-shaped block keeping us from experiencing and living in the fullness of God's love. We get in God's way.

Talk is cheap. We say that God loves, us, but how do we know?

Well, if you'll just take a little look over at John 3:16 with me you'll see. "For God so LOVED the world..."
Not saying you should do this, but to make that scripture more real and personal, in my bible, I've actually crossed out 'the world,' and wrote my own name. So now my bible says:

"For God so loved Marla-Joy, that He gave His only Son..."

You are SO loved, that Jesus died on the cross, taking on all your sin, so that you could have a new life, and a perfect love.

So yeah, God loves you. True story. (:

Until next time...

Originally posted here on 31st August, 2011.

*We interrupt our regularly scheduled (...ish) posts, to bring you a special Hurricane Edition. 


This entry was written last week during Hurricane Irene.*


Be homeless - Follow wholeheartedly

As I'm writing this post, for two different reasons, the title has taken on a new meaning  for me. Today, 25th August 2011, most (if not all) of the Bahamian population is boarded up in their homes waiting out the category 3 Hurricane Irene. As we are beginning to get reports from the southern-most islands, we are learning that some settlements have been up to 90% destroyed, and there are some islands we've heard nothing from at all. Fortunately (up to the time of publishing), there has been no reported loss of life in The Bahamas. 

Be homeless.

Up until yesterday, 24th August 2011, I was technically homeless upon my return to England. My friends and I, have been waiting with baited breath for several weeks to hear whether or not we were going to get the house, or would have to keep looking. For a contract beginning September 1st, this was cutting it fairly close, and it didn't help that we're currently scattered around the globe. My degree was in jepoardy; with nowhere to stay, British passport or not, I could be refused entry into the United Kingdom. 

Be homeless.

And? We live in a pretty self-centred world. How do those situations affect you? I couldn't possibly be telling you to be homeless simply because I was right? They say misery loves company, but that would be taking it to an extreme. Well what if it wasn't M-J telling you to be homeless, but Jesus? Would it make a difference?

The main verse we're looking at today is Luke 9:58. It's Jesus' response to  a man that said he would follow Him wherever He went; He said "Foxes haves holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." Ok, to be fair, Jesus wasn't exactly saying 'Be homeless,' but rather warning that it was a very possible consequence of following Him. What I notice however, is that He didn't ask of people something He wasn't willing to do Himself. He told the man that He, the Son of Man, had nowhere to stay. Know this, when you say you're a Christian, people watch what you do. Jesus said He was the Son of God, so everyone watched (and many criticized) what He did. Jesus lived a life of example. He told us to love, then showed us how.

Luke 9:57-62 is about the cost of following Christ. The main point being made in this passage is that living as a follower of Christ requires a wholehearted commitment. You have to be ready to give up everything, drop your old life, and take on a new life in Christ. Again, Jesus set the ultimate example in that He gave up everything - Heaven and perfection - to take on the sins of the world, to take on my sins.

In today's world it seems as though people have 'glamourized' Jesus' life. People talk about the highlights -water to wine, walking on water, raising people from the dead, being the Saviour of the world, rising from the dead Himself - but what people seem to skirt over are some of the details. Those last three years of His life when He was doing all those amazing works, Jesus was homeless. He had a God-given purpose, and to realize that purpose He had to put behind Him His old life, that of a carpenter, and take on His new role as Son of Man.

Nowadays we don't have Jesus the man to actually physically follow around, so maybe you don't need to be homeless to follow Him, unless of course you've been called to a life of poverty or missions work ;), but it's the mindset you have that's important. 

At some point during my final two years of high school, I created a major called 'International Bumology,' and began telling people that that's what I was going to study at university. It was basically studying the world's homeless, and the different factors that contributed to their current status. There was even a knesthetic learning aspect where you would live the life of a homeless person for a time. It is only now, seven years after, I am realizing, how true that may turn out to be living life as a follower of Christ. 

Now again, I'm not I saying that to live a Christian life you have to become a vagabond. What I am saying, is that it is not a life of material possesions and narcissism, but one of heavenly wealth and servitude. 

So yes, maybe I am kind of telling you to be homeless, but homeless here on Earth. Store up your treasure somewhere with a better insurance policy. Matthew 6:19-21  Look, I don't know about you, but I have a mansion waiting for me. John 14:1-4  You may want to get on that. ;)

P.S. "The closer we get to September, the more awesome the miracle of us getting a house will be. " That's what I said in an email to one of my (now) housemates, while we were still unsure of what was going on with the house. There's a song we sing during Praise and Worship at my church in The Bahamas, 'He's a Miracle Working God.' That's so true. We found out last week, with 7 days until the beginning of September that we got the house. God is good. :)

I first heard Andrew Wilson speak at Mobilise, a Newfrontiers conference for Students and 20s. His talk "The Only Question" was by far and away my favourite talk of the week. I've recently started following him on Twitter, and one of his most recent tweets with the title of, and a link to this talk caught my attention. After having listened to it this morning, it thought it was something that had to be shared.  Some of the questions he asks of atheists and those that believe that faith and science are mutually exclusive are things I've asked myself. In all fairness, though the conclusion he comes to shows evidence of a Creator, there is of course still the argument that this creator need not necessarily be the God of the Bible that we believe in, but that's a debate for another time.

Enjoy.

(:

A repost for you today! 

Originally posted here: 2nd Aug, 2011

If your childhood was anything like mine, you played with Lego growing up. At the end of the day you would 'tidy up' by throwing everything into the container as-is. The next time you came back, you would very likely find a 'creation' that someone else had already started, and what would you do with it? Take it apart, and start again. You wouldn't continue what someone else had already begun. I think God is like that. Often, we have built a foundation for ourselves. We have plans, dreams, goals. We are attempting to live (and control) our lives, and then try and fit God in where it's convenient. When we come to God, or in some cases come back to God, He has to take us apart, strip us down to our lowest point, to our nothing, the same way we used to do with our Lego. God will not build on someone else's foundation. He has a different, and better vision for our lives.

When I began writing this entry, my thinking was that when you let God take control of your life you had to be two things, a) willing, and b) committed. To me, being willing meant you would stick around until things got difficult, and being committed meant you would be there until the end, but more out of sense of obligation than desire. I even referenced Luke 9:57-62 (which is about the cost of following Christ), and how those men were willing but not committed. I thought when you were both willing AND committed, then you were starting to head in the right direction. I thought. Then I read this article: 'Why I'm Not a Committed Christian (And Why That's a Good Thing)'* and realized, it's not about willingness or commitment, it's about surrender.

Surrender is where it starts. James 4:7-8a says 'Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.' Earlier I talked about when we are trying to live our lives how we want, and adding God in as an afterthought. I now understand that when you surrender to God, the things of His heart, what He desires for you, become your desires as well. Things line up. In our container of Lego growing up, we had two big green pieces, one a square, and one a rectangle. They were the perfect base for making houses, schools, anything that needed a solid foundation. How much more important is your life, than some house made of Lego that will be taken apart the next day? Instead of trying to be a construction worker (unless that's your actual job), why not let God be the builder? Make Him your big green square, and let your life be His Lego.

To finish I will leave you with the words of a song I grew up hearing sung in church:

*The website on which the article was originally posted is currently under construction (see here), so this is a link to an article that contains a copy of the piece. 

Photo: The Guardian Photographer: Anders Brohus/AP