Found this video online, I found it a great encouragement as a first generation Christian wife and mum, hope you’re blessed by it too 
Leaving a Legacy: an interview with Voddie and Bridget Baucham
11/06/2009 at 10:50 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Bible, Bridget Baucham, children, Christ, discipleship, faith, family, fatherhood, God, godly family, gospel, motherhood, parenthood, Voddie Baucham
Know Christ, Know the Gospel
28/05/2009 at 9:37 pm (thoughts)
Tags: Bible, born again, Christ, Christianity, essential, eternal, faith, good person, gospel, Jesus, knowledge, life, new life, Salvation, soteriology, the life, the truth, the way, treasure, truth
I remember many years ago when I finally realised that I was indeed not a good person, I thought that I cannot go to church as it’s for “good people”. I wanted to at least be perceived as “good” and “respectable” so I thought that by joining a church and becoming a faithful member that that should do the job.
How little I knew!
The Bible tells us that no-one is good (Psalm 14:1, 3, Psalm 53:1, Psalm 53:3), all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The just and true penalty for sin is death, but faith and repentance in Christ brings new, eternal life (Romans 6:23).
I also remember being told very early on in my Christian walk by a minister that it’s sad that some people “never move on from repentance”, as though repentance was a one-off event! Thank God for His word, I now know that repentance from sin is a hallmark of new life in Christ, that we are being sanctified. The gospel is central to the life of the believer! I’m in the middle of reading a book called “Living the Cross Centred Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing” by C.J. Mahaney. In it, he declares the same thing – that while there are many worthy things to ponder and study from Scripture, the gospel is indeed central – the only essential message. In my mind, it’s a grave and sad error to toss the gospel aside once a “decision” has been made at the altar, as though salvation is a mere ticket to heaven.
In the clip below, Mr Paul Washer expresses the point better than I can.
By the way – if you’re not not convinced that you’re not a good person, whose standards are you going by? Yours or God’s? Take this test and see.
Religion – is it such a bad word?
04/01/2009 at 10:56 pm (random, thoughts)
Tags: Bible, Christ, Christian, Christianity, Devotion, God, Jesus, Lord, piety, religion, religious, worship
“It’s not about religion, but about relationship.”
I’ve heard this many times since I’ve been a Christian. Okay, I am a bit of a pedant at heart and disagree with the denigration of the term “religion”. Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary definition:
religion
• noun 1 the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. 2 a particular system of faith and worship. 3 a pursuit or interest followed with devotion.
— ORIGIN originally in the sense
life under monastic vows: from Latin religio ‘obligation, reverence’.
If you talk about relationship as opposed to “religion”, I think I do understand what you’re getting at, that Christianity is not about dead formalism or fake, shallow devotion to God. I just think that when we say things like “I’m not religious” though, we should be careful to explain what that means. It’s possible that I could be thinking too much into this, but the phrase is wide open to various interpretation. For instance, someone could deduce that it means that it’s unnecessary to fellowship with other believers, if their idea of the word “religion” means going to church. Or to them it could mean that you don’t bother with “religious” stuff, such as reading and studying the Bible or prayer. Someone else could wonder if the phrase means that the person saying it is a bit of a fruit-loop, tree hugging, woolly hippy type and dismiss them accordingly. Or perhaps they could simply think that you’re trying to somehow “trick” them, and trying to repackage Christianity to “sell” to them?
As I said before, I could be over thinking this and may be way off the mark. But I do believe that “religion” isn’t a dirty word. From the King James Version of the Bible:
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27)
One of my resolutions (by the way, I don’t just have them at new year, I need resolutions all year round!) is to be more accurate in how I speak about the Lord and the things of God… and while it is true that once we are born again we do have a relationship where we can cry “Abba, Father”, we must be clear about how we get that relationship and how mere church attendance or other vain worship pales just doesn’t cut it.
“If we were more like Christ…”
01/10/2008 at 8:58 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Christ, Christian, cross, holiness, holy, Jesus, Spurgeon, world
Are we popular with the world? We don’t seek to be unpopular as it were, by being unloving; however if we are of God, we can expect to be mocked, ridiculed, scorned and hated as Jesus was.
