Love?

14th of February. For the couples out there it's Valentine's Day, a wonderful excuse to get mushy and buy presents for one another. For everyone else it's, it's S.A.D. Single-Awareness-Day, another day of being alone. Apparently.
 Most singles react to Valentine's in one of the following ways:

• Branding it a commercial holiday that's really all about selling tacky heart-plastered merchandise rather than love
• To state their independence and declare to the world that they don't need a significant other to feel special
• Having a night spent watching romantic films with Ben & Jerry, pining for the Valentine's Day to come when they'll have their special someone sat beside them on the couch.

I think that, since the time I realised that boys weren't just for playing sports with, I have probably reacted in all three of these ways at some stage. All I wanted was for someone I liked to let me know that I was special to them, and Valentine's Day was just a painful reminder that that someone wasn't in my life yet. 

Since coming to university, God has been teaching me more about who He is and how I can trust Him with everything; my family, my future, my feelings. He has taught me that He is worth trusting, and that only through trusting Him completely and surrendering all of these things to Him can I have His peace, peace that passes all human understanding. And why can I trust Him? Because through His Word, the Bible, and by His faithfulness towards me all my life, He has shown me that He loves me. 

This February 14th I won't be moping about, feeling sorry for myself because I don't have someone to share it with. Ultimately, Valentine's Day is about Love, and God has shown me the most perfect love that I will ever have. Throughout my life He has pursued me, just as He pursues you, relentlessly showing me that He loves me and asking me to love Him back. 

Just like in The Notebook, when Noah climbs up onto a ferris wheel just to show Ally that he likes her and relentlessly pursues a date with her, God has saught after my heart, proving again and again that He loves me completely.

 In the Bible, it often makes use of the imagery of a marriage to demonstrate our relationship with God. God loves us and pursues a relationship with us, ultimately proving His that love by sending His son to die for our sins, and we're just not interested. We tell Him that He's not needed, that we're not interested in anything involving serious committment, that we just want to have fun, that there's someone or something else in our lives right now that is more important. Sometimes we just think that we're not good enough for Him and so we can't accept what He's offering us- His eternal love.

 One of my favourite books of the bible with regards to this is Ephesians. In chapter 5 it talks about the relationship that a man and wife should have in a marriage, by using Christ's love for His bride, the Church, as an example:

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." Ephesians 5:22-25 

 Husbands should be willing to die for their wives, and wives should live for their husbands, just as Christ died for the church and we are called to live our lives for Him. In chapter 1, it talks about how, when we come to Christ and accept His offer, we are "sealed with the Holy Spirit":

"In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:13-14

I like to think of the Holy Spirit like our engagement ring to Christ. We have accepted His proposal, and He has given us His Holy Spirit as a sign of our promise to one another, until He returns and takes His bride home to be with Him forever. 

As a Christian, I still don't get it right all the time- far from it. I wonder from God and try to do things my own way in my own time, not trusting Him and His sovreignty. Sometimes I am downright disobedient and turn my back on His will. But it doesn't matter how many times or how badly I let Him down, He promises to never let me go, He has forgiven me and He loves me with a perfect love that looks past my imperfections because of the price that Jesus paid on the cross for me.

 God has shown me the greatest love story ever known, and given me the chance to be a part of it. This Valentine's, I can celebrate the love that I have through my Saviour Christ Jesus and praise the God of all creation who loved me enough to pay the ultimate price so that I could be with Him forever. That doesn't mean I don't look forward to a day where I can share a Valentine's Day with my beloved, or that I won't sometimes wish that he was with me now, but I can have confidence that he will come in God's time and that God's plan for me is going to be so much more amazing than any love story that I could come up with. I'm not afraid to be honest with you, sometimes I do feel like that day will never come; I think that there must be something wrong with me because no one seems to show any interest or pay any attention to me; that I'm not pretty or talented enough. 

 But God has never told me that. 

He shows me in the Bible that He has and will provide me with everything I have and ever will need, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and that He will fulfil the desires of my heart as I delight in Him. All I need to do is trust Him.

God wants you to be a part of this story. He's pursuing you and asking you to love Him back and accept His offer of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. He's down on one knee, offering you everything that you will ever need. What will you say this Valentine's; yes or no?

Good Person?

It's a term we all know pretty well, in fact most people believe this term would cover most people- apart from that one person you really don't like and the obvious 'baddies' out there, and most people would say that it's only the "good" people who go to Heaven. So, what constitutes as a "good" person? Where's the line? Is there a line; or is it more of a gradual shading from good to bad? I'm sure, depending on who we asked and what their background was, that we could find a whole myriad of different answers to this set of questions.
  The issue is, surely there can only be one right answer? What's the point of being a good person if only a select group of people believe that you have done all that's needed to earn that label? Surely then, you couldn't be a good person unless everyone agreed and you met everyone's requirements and standards,  of which we know there is no end.

I'm going to tell you what the Bible, God's Word, has to say on the issue. I'm not going to tell you my opinions, because ultimately I'm a sinner and I'm flawed; God is Holy and Perfect and His Word is the only source that we can 100% put our trust in.

Now, what I have to say here may shock you, especially as most people would view Christians as people who claim to be "good" people- whether you believe them and their life reflects that or not is a different story. So, massive whop of Truth #1:

The Bible says there are no "good" people.

Say whaaaaaat. Isn't being a Christian all about just that; about being a good person? Isn't that the whole aim of Christianity; the rules, the morals bla bla bla?

 Nope.

Here are a couple of verses to back this up- (I wouldn't ask you to just take my word for it):

"Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins." Ecclesiastes 7:20

"The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." Psalm 14:2-3   

(Italics my own)

So what are Christians doing then if the Bible says that no one is righteous; does this mean we don't need to be good people to go to Heaven? 

 I think if you spoke to most people, they would all have the same basic principles for what they think constitutes as a good person; someone who's kind, who doesn't murder people or act maliciously... the list could go on. The thing is, why do we, as humans, recognise this need to be "good", and why do we constantly find ourselves falling short of that standard? Wherever you go on earth, all people have these basic ideas of what it means to be good, and that we should aim to behave as such. Why is this? Some would suggest that it is because that is the only way that society can work, but then why do we find ourselves telling that occasional lie; stealing that odd thing from that person; having malicious thoughts towards those we don't like? We have this, it would appear, inbuilt standard of conduct but we can't even live by it ourselves- and yet these basic principles and morals do not change to accommodate this fact because, ultimately, we know that whether we like these rules or not that they are right.
 So firstly, why do we have this desire to do what is right; to be a good person? We are told at the start of the Bible that out of everything that God created, man was special; he was the pinnacle of it all. We are made in God's image.

"Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”" Genesis 1:26 

We are special. We're not just lucky that we happened to evolve into the most intelligent and capable beings on the planet- God made us specially and specifically to be like Him! So part of that is that we were created to have a special relationship with God, to worship and honour Him, and part of that is living in the way God would have us live. We were created to live for and serve the Living God, and that is why we all have this seemingly inbuilt desire to do good. So, why can't we?
  Because the story doesn't end there.
  In the garden of Eden, there were two trees (besides all of the normal trees): the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve were free to eat the fruit from ANY of the trees, including the Tree of Life, except for the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You know how the story goes: Satan appears to Eve in the form of a serpent and twists God's words to try and confuse Eve into eating the fruit from the tree, which she does, and then offers to Adam.
 Cue sin.
 From then on, man's first instinct was no longer to honour and obey God, being in conformation to His perfect character, but instead was disobedience and shame before God. It was then that man started the habit of trying to cover up the things we are ashamed of and to hide from God and we've been doing it ever since. We still have the knowledge of what is good and right, but because of the presence of sin, we are no longer able to do it which is why we are ashamed and spend our whole lives trying to hide it from the rest of the world and from God.
 When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, the whole of creation was corrupted. Their bodies became imperfect too and began to decay along with the rest of the beautiful world that God had made for them. Their relationship with God was made imperfect, their relationship with creation was made imperfect and their relationship with each other was made imperfect. Creation began to die. The Bible tells us that death is the natural result of sin:

"For the wages of sin is death..." Romans 6:23

It all seems pretty hopeless right now, doesn't it? None of us can be good, we're all sinners, and the result of sin is death.
 But the story doesn't end there.
 Massive whop of Truth #2:

We can be GIVEN goodness.

"...but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Romans 6:23

Yes, the penalty for sin is death. Yes, we are sinners. But God sent His son Jesus Christ into the world, to live a perfect life, face all of the trials that we face, and to die a horriffic death on a cross at Calvary in order that we should not have to pay the price for our own sins- so that our relationship with God could be restored through him and we could have eternal life in him and be with God forever in Heaven. Sin and death no longer have dominion over us, and we are free to live the kind of life that God intended us to have. We're still not good, but we are told that we are given goodness through Jesus:

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus can take us from being enemies of God to being His children through the Holy Spirit:

"For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." Romans 5:10 

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12-13

What a transformation! From a seemingly hopeless situation of being slaves to sin- knowing what was right and yet constantly falling short of it- and being the enemies of God, not only are we given the strength and ability to obey God through the work of Jesus Christ, but we also are given the right to become His children! The Bible even goes further than that to say that we are fellow heirs with Jesus Christ himself:

"The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." Romans 8:16-17 

All we have to do is believe it, to accept this Get out of Jail Free card that is being offered to us; to have faith in what we cannot see but what we know is right. We're not perfect, but we are being perfected. Through the work of His Holy Spirit in our lives we are being conformed to the image of Christ, the only GOOD person that has ever existed or will exist on this earth. 

  As a christian, I am only able to truly know what is right and to do it through God's strength and the guidance of His Holy Spirit who now lives in me:

"You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Romans 8:9-10 

Through Christ's (The Son) death, we are reconciled to God (The Father) and the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us, giving us true life through the righteousness that it brings. However, we still have a choice of whether we listen to the Spirit or not. We are still imperfect and therefore we still get it wrong sometimes by choosing to ignore God because we think we know better. But God will always fight for us and wait for us to return to Him with arms wide open, like a Father awaiting the return of His lost child. He promises to finish the work that he starts in us:

"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6 

One day we will be perfect. Not in this body or on this earth, but when God has defeated Satan once and for all, casting him and all who have rejected him into the Lake of Fire. There will be a new Heaven and a new Earth where everything will be perfect:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”"

Revelation 21:1-7 

Wow. Why wouldn't you want a bit of that, eh? Even though we are sinners, constantly letting God down and turning our backs on Him, He gives us this chance to be free; to have everything. To have LIFE. 

 But God loves us and so He gives us a choice. If you don't want Him in this life then He won't make you be with Him in the next, He'll let you pay for the consequences of your sin for yourself. If you reject God, then you accept DEATH. The passage continues:

 "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8 

At one time, we all came under one or more of these categories. Only through Christ can we be free from these sins and come under the category "Child of God" instead. God is giving you the opportunity to have your name written in His book of Life. Nobody ever has to go to Hell. It was made for Satan and his demons, not for people created in the image of God, but if you reject His offer of eternal life then this is your destination. It's up to YOU to change that.

As always, if you have any questions about anything that I've said please feel free to get in touch via facebook, if you've come from there, or my twitter account "Amy Ferry" (currently @amythebeth). The life that I've been telling you about isn't worth missing out on just because you didn't look into it. Ask questions, pursue the Truth for yourself. 

 Praying that you find God's peace,

                                    Amy

Aventura en la Gran Habana

So here we are, after an unfashionably long wait, the second part of my Cuba story is here!


For those of you who know me, you may know two pieces of important trivia about me: I don't like flying because I get ill and I have a very particular palate (a very polite way of saying I'm a bit of a fussy eater). Naturally, travelling thousands of miles in a plane to Cuba, a completely forgein culture was going to be a bit of a challenge for me.

I met up with my 7 other teammates at Gatwick Airport, and before going to check-in we took some time to shift about and balance out our luggage; spanish bibles, first aid kits, a clown outfit, crayon face paints- y'know, the essentials. After a lengthy wait at check-in and a quick dash to the gate it wasn't too long until we were on the plane and waiting to take off. This took longer than anticipated and we soon found out the reason when a noisy latin american family made their way onto the plane about half an hour after the expected take off time. This was to set the trend for much of our experience in Cuba.

We arrived in hot and humid Cuba some time later and after waiting around for a bit for the immigration staff to find our visas and discovering that half of us were apparently Irish on them, we met up with our Latin Link supervisor and the church's pastor and hopped onto a comfortable, air-conditioned minibus. This, we were told, was to be our most comfortable journey while in Cuba.
 

 Shortly, we were at Getsemaní Baptist Church in Regla, a small urban community very close to Havana. We were welcomed very warmly and had a "merienda" or small snack before being shown to our rooms. The six of us girls were staying in the bedroom of one of the pastor's daughters, Esther, and we were greeted by beautifully decorated pink walls, 3 bunkbeds with a welcome note and folded towel swan on each bed. Meanwhile the guys were in a small room downstairs.  After having some time to unpack, get settled and freshen up a little bit we had dinner and met some more people in the church.
The next few days were spent purely at the church; we had a small orientation with our LL supervisor and the pastor, who told us about the local area and the kind of work that the church were involved with, which included a four week program which constituted of getting to know a group of people in one street or small area of Regla, letting them know about the church and eventually spreading the gospel with them. It was the church's goal to do this for the whole of Regla in a year. We also had a great bible study looking at 1 Corinthians and the importance of working together, not only as a team, but as a group of believers and brothers and sisters in Christ so that we could faithfully serve God and the people in Cuba faithfully. Had some fun getting to know some of the young people while playing some football in the upper hall of the church (where I managed to bag myself the nickname "fútbolista"!) and at a special youth service on the Saturday night. This included having to help organise the music which, between language differences and so on, took a lot of effort. Everyone we met was just so happy to meet us and treated us as if we were old buddies.
  Regla is only a five minute ride away from Havana by a special boat called the lanchita. One evening we took a small trip with a group from the church to go over to Havana's side of the water to the malecón which
is basically a promenade beside the water. We took guitars and some little drums with us and had a jam as we waited on the lanchita and then headed across on the little boat. I began speaking to a couple of guys which was really encouraging because this was the first conversation I'd had in spanish with someone by myself and, even though many gestures and help were needed, I was able to communicate which felt really great.
On the Sunday, we learned that the main church service is in the evening and a small service + bible study/sunday school is held in the morning for the children and young people, both of which we participated in.

  Early on Monday we hopped on a mini bus with the pastor and one other girl to Yumurí, a youth camp out in the country in a region called Las Mantanzas. We would be here until Friday morning, helping out the camp director with various tasks, helping in the kitchen, supervising the prayer room, organising any games and sports and just taking part alongside the kids. The week we were there, we were working with approx. 150 kids aged 12 or 13. The camp itself is beautiful and has existed from before the revolution, which is amazing. The days were long and very, very hot and sticky but we had lots of fun and it was amazing to witness how enthusiastic the kids were, not just about God's Word, but in pretty much everything they did. No one went in a huff about something they didn't want to take part in or complain- for many of the kids, this short time is the only holiday they get and it is the highlight of their year. One of the young men from our church who was there as a leader, told us his testimony here and about the special place it holds in his heart because it's where he came to know Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. The enthusiasm of the kids wasn't the only thing that was impressive; the leaders and organisers were just as, if not more, enthusiastic! So much effort was put into everything and their creativity and love for these kids was overwhelming. My stand-out memories include playing water balloon volleyball which was great fun (even when the sandy ground got wet and splattered all up your legs!) and trying to set up a water slide on our last afternoon.

AFTER

BEFORE

We used this huge tank of water on two wheels which was positioned at the top of a hill with a plastic sheet put in place. Unfortunately, the stand on the tank was removed at a rather unwise time and it got stuck leaning to one side (photos will explain). A lot of time was spent attempting to rectify this problem. Eventually we succeeded though, and much fun was had as we all got terrifically muddy sliding down the make-shift water slide.

  However, I think my most precious memory of our time at  Yumurí was on the Thursday night, the last night of camp. These kids had been hearing all week about the gospel of Jesus Christ, who he was and why he came; tonight they were asked what their response to him would be, to reject and forget everything they had been told or to accept Jesus into their hearts and lives and his free gift of eternal life. They were asked to stand up if this was what they wanted. There was a pause, and then one boy bravely stood up. Slowly, one by one, more began to join him until the whole room was on its feet. The music started up and we sang in joyful praise to God for the work he had done in these young people's lives. We then headed outside, and the biggest bonfire in the world (I exaggerate slightly...) was set up and we sang and prayed as we stood around it. It was a truly, breathtaking experience. In situations like that, it's impossible to know who really has made a genuine committment to Christ, and who stood up because everyone else was doing it, but that is between them and God and I pray sincerely that all of the young folks who stood up that night hold firm to their faith in God.


   On Friday morning, we headed off for our team holiday! It had been a tiring week so we were all glad for the break, but even if it hadn't been, how can you not appreciate a beautiful beach and the crystal blue caribbean water? We were in a hotel in a resort called Varadero, and it was really lovely. After a week of camp food, it was so great to have something that wasn't some variation on rice and beans- I don't think I've ever appreciated a burger more in my life. Parts of us did turn slightly pink/red which made for a couple of painful days, but it didn't spoil the lovely time we had as a team having devotions on the beach and sharing our testimonies, as well as our night time dips in the sea which were lots of fun.

We arrived back in Regla on Sunday afternoon and it was lovely to be welcomed back to the church so warmly; even though my home was thousands of miles away, it felt so amazing to know that I had been welcomed into this one. The next five days we helped the church run a holiday club, very similar to ones that I have been involved in helping out at here- except at the ones here, I'd never been up, learning dance routines at 8am in ~33°C heat. The kids arrived, excited and ready to have fun and we spent time singing and dancing before splitting into three age groups who then went off to different activities: games, crafts and bible lesson. Everyone in the team had a turn of helping out at a different activity, but 3/5 I was on games which was great fun, if not a little stressful at times! Cubans, in general, aren't very good at playing by the rules, so taking that into consideration with a big group of Cuban kids and you can imagine the fun we had! We brought out some of the classics; Cat & Mouse, What's the Time Mr.Wolf?, Simon Says and Broken Windows to name a few. After doing all three activities, we gathered back in the church to sing some more, watch a mini puppet show, and then the kids trooped off home, while we had lunch and took what time we had to recover!

  Throughout the week, we had the afternoons to organise what was needed for the next day and to rest, but often we had extra activities for the youth. One afternoon, we had "water activities" in the upstairs of the church building (the room in the picture of the kids with their crafts), as you can see the floor is polished so all they did was get some water and soap on the floor and the games began! However, while preparing the water balloons we found a box of some that had been prepared earlier; except these weren't exactly the expandable rubbers that we had been expecting; our ever resourceful friends had found some condoms to use for balloons instead. Let's just say, it was a little bit of a shock, but a laugh-out-loud moment nonetheless. On another afternoon, we had our first church outing to the beach. We grabbed a set of goal posts and some other sports equiptment and all jumped onto the this truck-bus-hybrid. We had a great time messing about with the other young people, snorkeling, swimming, playing volleyball and having spitting contests with the seeds from some funky kind of starburst-tasting fruit. Much banter was had.
  One of the afternoons that week we had our first experience of a tropical rain storm. The heavens opened and the rain just poured down, bouncing off the streets. It was amazing to witness. That evening we had an outing to a local fort, where a canon is set off every night at 9pm. The most interesting part of all of this was that they charged a lot more money for foreigners, so all 8 of us had to make as much of an effort as possible to fit in with the Cubans, linking arms, wearing caps, adopting Cuban names for the evening- you name it. Aboslutely great fun.

On Saturday we took a trip into Havana with the Pastor, Yan and Meyli and Ruslan. We walked around Old Havana and visited some big tourist spots as well as the oldest cathedral in Cuba. It was really interesting to go in and see firsthand what a hodgepodge of religion there is in Cuba- at a glance it looked like any other catholic catherdral but at a closer look- and with a cuban friend to explain- it was a big mix of catholicism and naturistic religions brought over from East Africa; this religion is called Santaría and it is very popular in the area we were in. That night there was a social night at the church which, we learned that afternoon, that we had to dress up for. We consisted of a mix of Scottish "national dress", a pirate, 2 self-made Cubans, a bunch of grapes, a zebra and a Nigerian. We played some games and watched a video that had been made of the week we had just had at the holiday club. In the evenings, we also had the opportunity to learn more about the Regla community by visiting family of people in the church at their homes and by taking part in their home groups. It was a wonderful thing to be able to put language and cultrual barriers aside to just gather around God's Word and share fellowship with one another.
The days were flying by and, just as I had known from the start, I didn't want to leave.
 On the Monday, we had another outing to the beach except this time it was further away with more people crammed onto another truck-bus-hybrid. I think we counted about 80 people, sitting down on the two rows of benches lining the sides and then the rest standing and fitting the spaces in between. Safe to say we were all pretty friendly by then. The beach was great fun and we were there all day, playing Uno in the shade, swimming, sitting on the beach soaking up the sun before heading back to rainy Britain and learning to play a new game. It consisted of a group of people standing in a circle with one person kneeling in the middle. The people on the outside passed the ball around in a volleyball-like fashion and anyone who missed the ball or hit a bum shot had to join the person in the middle. To add to the fun, as well as passing to the people around the circle, you were also allowed (and encouraged!) to take a spike at the people sitting in the centre. However, if you didn't hit anyone you had to join them. If someone in the centre catches the ball, then they can all go back to the outside of the circle and the person who caused the ball to get caught starts a new group in the middle. I wish it was more acceptable to play this kind of game in Health-and-Safety-obsessed-Britain, genuinely laughed so much and had an amazing time.
  Our last couple of days were spent organising bible sessions in the mornings for any church members who wanted to come and preparing ourselves for going home. It was in these last couple of days that I really began to appreciate the relationships that had formed between us and the members of the church. Being the music coordinator, I had to take time to sit and go through the music that had been chosen for the small services we were organising and, it was while doing this, that I had great fellowship with Yan and Meyli, the youth pastor and his wife. We spent time flicking through their hymn book to try and find songs that we all knew, and it turned into an amazing time of worship spent together- we even got onto Christmas songs! It felt wonderful to know that, it didn't matter if I understood all the words that I was singing; my God did and we were enjoying praising His Holy Name.
 On our last night we had a service of remembrence and praise. Lots of the young people came and it was so lovely to think that we'd had an impact on their lives. We sang, had a quiz, watched a video that the Cubans had made for us of our time with them, and prayed together.
 I didn't want to go to bed that night because I knew then that the morning would come; when I woke up it would be time to go home and leave my wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ. I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet. However, I did have to go to bed and the next day did come. We packed up all of our things, spent some time thanking our amazing hosts and giving out gifts.
 Leaving on that minibus with all of our luggage felt like leaving a second home and a second family, however, I know that I have the hope of Christ and that, whether it's in this life or the next, we will be reunited and it is going to be incredible.

Since coming back from Cuba I am more certain than ever of God's calling on my life to go and serve Him long-term in Central America. I don't know where exactly and I don't know when, but I am sure of one thing; my God is going to lead me there and He will provide me with everything I need.

The Road to Cuba.

So, for those of you who don't know, I spent three weeks in Cuba this summer on a christian mission trip with an organisation called Latin Link who have a passion for spreading the gospel in Latin America and helping to develop the church out there.
  Seeing as I haven't written in a bit I thought that, for those people who I haven't had enough time to explain what my Cuba experience was really like (that being most people!) or those of you interested, I would tell you what it was like and everything that we (and God) did out there.
  In this first post though, I'm going to tell you about how I got there. I don't mean like, by plane, I mean how I came to going in the first place. It's quite a tale, and for those of you doubting how God can be active in a person's life, maybe this will give you a little bit of an idea.

Last year, my first year of university, I had to pick an outside course to give myself enough credits for the year.  As my course includes  year abroad I was encouraged to take a language. Seeing as I had done German at school up until standard grade (which I got a 1 in by the way!) I thought that it made sense just to pick it up again for my course- that's what would be easiest, right? So, I met with my Director of Studies and he put me down for studying German as my outside course. However, as things turned out, the university were only running a beginners course in the first semester which I was overqualified for. I literally turned up for the first class and the teacher said that if anyone had any previous experience in German that they should leave, right there and then. So I did. It would have been easy to just stay in the class and pretend I was learning all of this for the first time and I was just amazing at German but that would have been dishonest and I'm not a very good liar.
  So, I looked at my other options. Elementary French wasn't running that semester, Introductory Italian clashed with my timetable. That left Spanish. I'd never really had much of an interest in Spanish before but it was the only European language that I had been left with and so I thought, why not. It was only for a semester until I could do intermediate German in semester 2, I just needed to pass it for the credits. So I emailed my DoS and I was put on the class list for Introductory Spanish.
 So my journey began.
 The way it had all happened, I just knew that God was doing one of His God-things and that I should be on the look-out! A few weeks passed and nothing significant happened until one evening at my small group. Small groups are organised by the uni Christian Union and are groups of Christians  or anyone who's interested, who meet once a week to chat, study the bible and pray together. One of the leaders of my small group mentioned one evening that he and the CU president were looking at taking a team of people to Cuba for a mission trip and asked if we could pray about God showing them the way forward if there was to be one. They spoke Spanish in Cuba, right? I felt something inside me telling me this must be it, but I decided to hold back and pray about it.
  A few more weeks later and my small group leader said that the trip was going ahead and told us if any of us were interested to let him know and he'd send out information and so I did. I looked over the information and as I read I only became more enthused. I spoke to my mum about it when I was home that weekend and she was really positive about it. In my heart, I knew I really wanted to go and that it was right, but I thought I'd better do the christian thing and pray about it some more.
  The next Friday evening after I got back from CU I decided to have some me and God time, praying and then watching a christian biographical film that I love called Faith Like Potatoes. I spent a long time in prayer, speaking to God about a variety of different things, including asking for confirmation on whether He wanted me to go to Cuba or not. After praying I went to my laptop to find a copy of the film online seeing as I didn't have the DVD with me. I found a website with a large amount of different links and I just clicked on one at random. It was a good'un and loaded really quickly and I cosied myself into bed while the opening credits were playing. I looked at the screen and burst out laughing in amazement at what I saw. At the bottom of the screen were subtitles.
 Spanish subtitles.
I knew this was God giving me the confirmation I had asked for. I was so excited; God had asked me to do something, something amazing! He was taking me to Cuba on a mission trip, something I had never even considered doing before! I emailed my small group leader right away and said that God wanted me to go; I was in! I then called my mum to let her know, but she said that she'd known as soon as I told her about it that I'd be going so it came as no surprise to her.
  The next stage was then waiting for a meet-up with the female leader of the team. December came and then so did the Christmas holidays and still no-one had been in touch. I didn't think anything of it, assuming everyone had been as busy as I had been with the pre-Christmas exams.
  Over Christmas I was with my grandparents who are missionaries in Phuket, Thailand for their 50th wedding anniversary. My cousins, who live as missionaries in China, were also there and it was a wonderful time as, due to us all being in different areas of the globe, it's not very often we are all together. I told my grandparents and aunt and uncle all about me going to Cuba and what we'd be doing and they were all really excited and enthusiastic for me. Before university started back up again, I emailed my DoS saying that I wanted to continue in Spanish and take the intermediate course that semester instead of moving to German as planned- I was going to need it!
  I got home and returned to uni the third week in January. Halfway through the week I received a facebook message from my small group leader.
  I wasn't on the team going to Cuba.
  In the information they'd sent out it hadn't been explained how many people they were looking to have on the team and what male: female ratio they were looking for. Both he and the other leader had prayed very seriously about it but felt that I wasn't suited for this particular mission. He encouraged me to pursue my interest in mission, but perhaps somewhere more locally.
  The world came to a halt around me. What was going on? I had felt so strongly that this was what God wanted for me, that He wanted me to go to Cuba. So why was this happening? I respected both of the team leaders as Christians and knew that they must have prayed a lot about their team, and I knew that God doesn't lie or lead us on. So that left me; I must have gotten it wrong somehow. How could I have been so convinced that God had spoken to me if it was really just me imagining things; what did this say about my ability to listen to God, my Heavenly Father?
 So I did what any girl would do: I sat and cried for a while.
 Then read the message again... and cried some more.
  And a little bit more after that.
 How was I going to tell everyone I wasn't going to Cuba anymore? My Mum, Grandparents and other relatives, all the people at church who my Mum had told. What would they think?
  That Friday at CU was a special missions night with lots of different organisations speaking about the work they did in different countries and what type of people they were looking for to help out. I listened to them all, eager to hear something that would explain why this had happened and get rid of this confusion. But nothing did, speaker after speaker I listened and still felt no call to any of the projects.
  I continued to pray and seek God's voice, having faith that something was going to come of this, this wasn't the end of something; it was going to be a beginning. I felt the Holy Spirit comfort and assure me and so I continued to pray and wait for something, anything to happen.
  The weekend after that was the weekend-away with the student group from my church. It was a fantastic weekend with brilliant teaching from God's word and wonderful times of fellowship getting to know more of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Throughout the weekend during prayer times, I continued to ask people to pray for me, that I would be able to decipher what was God's voice and what was just my own will. I arrived back on the Sunday evening and called my Mum to tell her about the weekend. However, she had some interesting things to tell me too!
  That very morning at my home church, the Scottish representative from Latin Link (the organisation the CU team were going to Cuba with) had been speaking. My Mum realised God was doing something and spoke to him afterwards and spoke briefly with him about my 'situation'. He'd been very enthusiastic and said that I should get in touch and he'd see what he could do.
 At last, SOMETHING WAS HAPPENING!
God had listened to my prayers of anxiety and confusion, He had comforted me and felt my pain and now He was showing me His power and ultimate sovereignty. He had a plan for me.
At the beginning of the year I had felt convicted to read through the whole bible and so I had started having a daily quiet time with God which I had never gotten around to before that point. I read three chapters of the Old Testament, a psalm and a chapter from the New Testament and read from a devotional book called "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. The Monday morning after, I started reading that day's devotion and felt like I had just been knocked over the head with a bag of bricks. The words were speaking directly to me:

"January 30: The Dilemma of Obedience
'Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision' (1 Samuel 3:15)
God never speaks to us in dramatic ways, but in ways which are easy to misunderstand. Then we say, "I wonder if that is God's voice?" Isaiah said that the Lord spoke to him 'with a strong hand,' that is, by the pressure of his circumstances (Isaiah 8:11). Without the sovereign hand of God Himself, nothing touches our lives. Do we discern His hand at work, or do we see things as mere occurrences?
  Get into the habit of saying, "Speak, LORD," and life will become a romance (1 Samuel 3:9). Every time circumstances press in on you, say, "Speak, LORD," and make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline, it is meant to bring me to the point of saying, "Speak, LORD." Think back to a time when God spoke to you. Do you remember what He said? Was it Luke 11:13, or was it Thessalonians 5:23? As we listen, our ears become more sensitive, and like Jesus, we will hear God all the time..."
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Updated Edition

OOFT. I was blown away. Again, God was letting me know that He had spoken to me. I had to have faith and trust that He had it all under control.
 So, I knew that I hadn't been imagining things, God had spoken to me and I knew that, even if it wasn't to be Cuba, His plan for me included Latin Link. My Mum sent over some information and booklets she had picked up at church and I read through them and looked on the LL website. I felt the same as I had at the CU missions night, nothing was calling out to me. Nothing except Cuba.
  Eventually I decided just to go with it, and I sent off an application form for Latin Link's Cuba Step team. The next week I remembered about phoning the LL rep and so I gave him a call. I explained to him what had happened how I felt God calling me to do this and he was really encouraging and said that he'd received my application that morning. He said that, if I wanted, he could speak to the leaders of the CU and see if he could still put me on that team. It wasn't what I had been thinking of and I hadn't actually met up with my small group leader to chat about what had happened yet, so I decided that it would be better if I spoke to him first, rather than have it look as if I had gone behind their backs.
  I did eventually speak with both of the leaders separately, but to respect their privacy (you'll notice I haven't mentioned names either) I'm going to skip that part of my story out.
  Eventually I had my interview to be on the Latin Link Cuba Step team. It was a really great conversation and God helped me to just be really honest about things. I was then told that I was, pretty much, on the team! The way Step teams usually work is that individuals apply to LL, sometimes for a specific country and sometimes not, and then LL put the teams together. This means that, usually, the teams don't know each other. I was understandably wary about spending three weeks in another country with a team of people I'd never met before but had faith that God must be doing something special, taking into account all the trauma I'd gone through not being on the CU team! I was really excited to find out who was on my team and excited that finally things had come together. I was able to look back on those weeks and weeks of uncertainty and see how God had drawn me closer to Him in that time, to develop my faith in Him more and to show me what it really meant to "wait upon the Lord."
  Things continued to develop easily and naturally. I spent five days speaking only in Spanish to try and encourage people to sponsor me to raise the funds for going, walking around with a small whiteboard all the time so that I could write down what I was saying for people (... pretty much everyone haha) who didn't speak Spanish. I didn't get much money donated from friends but the money steadily kept coming in from people at my home church, family friends, friends of my Mum's, colleagues of my step-dad's, friends of my step-dad's parents... in fact, pretty much all of the money I needed came from donations, I didn't need to do much active fundraising at all! It was God who told me to go to Cuba and so He was faithful to provide what I needed to get there.
  In June, I went down to Reading for team orientation where I would be meeting my team for the first time. It was a wonderful weekend and as soon as I met the team I knew that these were the people I was meant to be with. We had so much fun and it only made me more excited for going to Cuba.
  Before I knew it, I was sitting at the departure gate in Edinburgh Airport at the start of my journey. Through all the confusion and uncertainty God had been working His sovereign power and after all the waiting, here I was: on my way to Cuba, finally.

A friend gave me a verse during my time of waiting which really sums up what I went through and learnt:

"God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it?" Numbers 23:19 (ESV)

God isn't just some supernatural being who stays up in His heaven and let's us get on with things. When we surrender our lives to Him, He is faithful to do amazing things with it and use it for His glory. He never leaves us for one second, never slumbers nor sleeps, always taking care and loving us as our perfect Heavenly Father. Even when something is happening in your life and you don't understand why, surrender it to God and He will use it. Becoming a christian doesn't mean that bad things won't happen, but it does mean we can know that God has a purpose in everything that He does and lets happen and that He will be with us every step of the way, providing us with all we need; material, spiritual or emotional.
  As a child of God I am able to look into my future with no worries. Whatever happens, I belong to God and all will work to good for me. To live is Christ and to die is gain.
  If you haven't accepted Jesus as your saviour and surrendered your life to Him, this is the kind of relationship you could have. This is the relationship you were created to have. God is waiting for you with outstretched arms, longing for you to come to Him. Through Jesus Christ you can have life ABUNDANT! You can be free to live your life without being a prisoner to sin, free to be the person God created you to be. Only then will you have the peace that passes all understanding and joy that stands against all of life's trials.

Praying for you always, may you find peace in Christ Jesus,
Amy
 

What kind of heart do you have?

It sounds like a title for one of those flowchart quizzes you see all the time in magazines and hopefully, unlike afore mentioned quizzes, by the end of reading this blog you will have a fuller idea of what's going on in your heart and what you can do to change it... if you want to. Unlike magazines, the Bible is filled with the Truth and when we read it, it truthfully reflects the image of ourselves back at us. Like a mirror, it doesn't matter how much you don't like the reflection, the mirror tells you the truth and if you don't like it, it's up to you to make the decision to change. God doesn't beat about the bush; His word tells us it as it is without messing around. It tells us the truth. The author of the book of Hebrews says it like this:
"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."
 With that in mind, let's get a move on and look at what's on the menu today.

The Parable of the Sower

You may recognise it, you might even know the story. While travelling through various cities in villages, a huge crowd starts to form and Jesus tells them the story of a farmer who goes out one day to sow some seed. The seed falls on various types of ground. One portion of seed fell along the path, onto hard ground, and was walked on and carried of by the birds. Another, fell on rocky ground and so the roots couldn't grow properly and the plants withered in the hot sun because they had no moisture. Some seed fell among thorns and weeds which, as soon as  the plant started to grow, choked and killed the plant. The last portion of seed fell into good soil, and produced a bountiful harvest.

  You can read the story from:

Matthew 13:1 http://www.esvbible.org/Matthew+13/ 

Mark 4:1 http://www.esvbible.org/Mark+4/ or

Luke 8:4 http://www.esvbible.org/Luke+8/

Perhaps like you right now (unless you read the passage/s for yourself and know what it means, 10 brownie points and a Blue Peter badge for you!), the disciples were pretty confused and weren't really sure what Jesus was getting at and so asked him what the parable meant.

 Before we go on any further, some of you may be wondering what a parable is. It is the word used to describe a story which has a deeper, moral and spiritual meaning and Jesus used these because they allowed him to relate to the people in a way they could understand. In context of this parable, we may not be so hot on middle eastern farming, the people Jesus was talking to totally understood. However, it also meant that these people had to look for the deeper meaning behind the story for themselves; those who were just following the crowd and joined in following Jesus to be like everyone else wouldn't bother looking for the meaning because their hearts weren't in it, but those who really listened to Jesus and trusted in Him wanted to know what the lesson behind the story was- they had a hunger and desire to understand what Jesus was saying to them.

 So, now onto the meaning of the parable. The seed in the story is the word of God, the Truth, the good news that can bring salvation to our souls. Some of you may have figured out from the title that the different pieces of ground represent different states of hearts; Heart #1, Heart #2, Heart #3 and Heart #4. So, without further ado let's have a look.

Heart #1 - The Hard Heart

This is the seed that falls along the path. In the fields that Jesus was talking about there were paths that ran throughout the field so that the farmer could sow his seed by hand, these paths were created solely by people walking over the same area time and time again until the ground became hard and a noticible path had been formed. So, farmer is walkin' along sowin' the seed and some of it falls on this path, this hard soil. For the plant to start growing, the seed needs to sink down into the soil so that its roots can grow. You can imagine why this seed wasn't very successful, it just sits on top of the ground, unable to go anywhere or do anything useful, until the birds come along and eat it.

 This heart has been trampled on, life has just walked all over it until it builds a barrier, a hard exterior to keep anyone from hurting it again. Unfortunately, this keeps a lot of good things from coming in too, so God's word just sits there on the surface going nowhere. That's when Satan, the birds in the parable, comes and removes it before it has the chance.

 Do you find yourself hearing about Jesus and just can't let yourself believe it? It's just a story, a fairytale; you're not even going to consider it because it just can't be true, it's ridiculous. You've been given the chance to accept Jesus but your heart just won't let you. Then in comes Satan and takes it away so you can't believe and be saved and that opportunity is gone. You didn't want it, and so it was taken away. Fair enough, right?

But what if it is true...

 

Heart #2 - The Shallow Heart

This is the seed that falls on the rocky ground. Now, before we go any further I need to explain what this is: this is not soil with lots of rocks and stones sitting in it. In these fields there were areas of shallow soil with solid rock beneath the surface and that is what Jesus means by rocky ground. So the seed falls on this soil and it all looks great, it sinks down and starts to grow and on the surface things are looking good. However after a while, the plants roots can't develop properly because of the rock so close. Unable to soak up any moisture, the plant dies in the hot sun.

 This heart accepts the Good News with joy and on the surface it looks like salvation has taken place, the plant starts to grow. However, very soon a problem arises. The shallowness of this heart means that faith is given nothing to help it grow, it has no root within itself, and so when hard times come along and the faith is tried, it just dies out. Following Jesus and having faith is just too hard. No harvest is coming from that dead plant, and so no spiritual fruit is going to come from a faith that is dead. There's no salvation there for that soul.

 

Heart #3 - The Worldly Heart

So, heart #3 is the soil with the thorns. Here, again, the seed is able to sink into the soil and the plant begins to grow. Unfortunately, plants and weeds can't exist in the same space. Either the ground has to be weeded so the plant can grow or the weeds will soak up all the water that the plant needs and the plant will die.

 What we have here is a heart that is divided. Like heart #2, God's Word has been received joyfully and again, it looks like there has been a real salvation experience. The problem is that this heart doesn't think Jesus is enough, and it gets caught up in the cares of the world and materialism and trying to make itself happy. These things don't coincide with faith in God and so that faith becomes choked and dies. No salvation.

 

Heart #4 - The Genuine Heart

This is the heart that represents the good soil. The seed sinks down into the ground, the roots have plenty of breathing space and there is nothing else in that soil that is going to detract the plant's growth. The seed that falls on this ground produces grain, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold and some thirtyfold. That's a lotta grain.

 In this heart, the Truth is accepted wholeheartedly with joy, there is no hardness or unbelief to stop it. It is a steadfast faith that doesn't waver in face of trial or persecution and that gives up everything to follow Jesus, not allowing itself to be distracted or divided. This kind of faith makes itself evident in a person's life. It is impossible not to notice, and it makes things happen. This is what we call spiritual fruit- this is the harvest in the parable. No fruit means no faith, and no faith means no salvation. Without salvation, we're headed to a lost eternity.

 

 

If you're reading this blog, the chances are that you've also read my other ones and if you haven't I would be overjoyed if you gave them a look at. I've told you the Truth, it's up to you what you want to do with it: take it or leave it. Jesus is longing for you to accept Him, but because He loves you, he lets you make your own decision, even though it breaks His heart when you reject Him. He came down from Heaven to live as a man on earth so that He could die for your sins, so that you could be free and be saved from spending your eternity separated from God. In Hell. You don't have to go there, you have this choice... but if you choose not to take it then you'll have to take the punishment for your sins, because you chose not to accept Jesus' payment.

 

 There is a scary part to this parable. Two out of three unsaved hearts appear to have been saved. They think they're safe because they said a prayer at some point in their lives but the fact is they're not. Their faith is dead and they're doing nothing to change that.

  There is an easy way to diagnose a faith that's dead. If there is no faith, there is no fruit. I'm gonna show you a passage from the bible that talks about fruits of the flesh and fruits of the spirit to make this a bit clearer:

 

"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

(Galatians 5:19-24 ESV)

 

 

Have a look through that list and be honest with yourself, which fruits are you growing in your life? I'm speaking to people who would call themselves christian here. If you've read my first blog then you know what being a christian really is, but let's say you've read that and you'd still say you're a christian: you believe the bible, you go to church, you've prayed the prayer. Let me ask you this: are you bearing fruit for Jesus? Does your faith prove to you and to those around you that it's alive and growing? Do you put everything on the line for God: your popularity, your sense of humour, your social life, your lifestyle, your love life, your work life, the words you use, your reputation?

 

After being told that God lives inside of us after we ask Him into our lives a small child asked, "But isn't God bigger than us?" The Sunday school teacher answers, "Yes, of course."

"Doesn't that mean that He would show through?"

Is God showing through in Your life?

 

If I were to go around your friends, your family, your work colleagues, anyone you spend time around and gave them a list of the qualities listed in the passage from Galatians and asked them to tick the ones that you showed, which ones would they tick and what conclusion would that bring you to about your spiritual life? Are you spiritually alive or are you spiritually dead?

 

There are only four categories of heart and they are all listed in this blog. Do yourself a favour and be honest with yourself: which are you?

The next question you need to ask yourself is: what do I want to do about it?

 

Guys, I share these things with you because I love you and I need you to know the Truth so you can make a fair decision. That decision is up to you and I can't do anything about that, but I can't let you make that decision before you know the facts and that's what these blogs are all about.

 God is pursuing you. He loves you with a love that we aren't deep enough to understand, a love that meant a perfect and holy God, dying so that He could pay for your sins. He wants to spend eternity with you, it's not an offer you can turn down lightly.

 Praying for you guys, may you find God's peace.

  In Christ Jesus,

 Amy

 

P.S So sorry that I haven't written in so long! Will make it up to you with more coming soon hopefully :)

The Truth? Part 2

Okay, so today we're going to continue looking at Jesus, specifically looking at his death on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb. This should be a little shorter than yesterday's (and they all breathed a sigh of relief).

So, number 2...

Jesus really did die on the cross

You don't have to look very far before you see that the crucifixion of Jesus and the events leading up to it are all completely historically correct and it would be uneducated and immature to suggest otherwise. However, arguments have been made that Jesus, although he was crucified, was not really dead when they buried him and so his supposed "resurrection" was nothing more than Jesus waking up, rolling the stone away and walking out. So, let's tackle why this could not have been the case.

Argument #1: The soldiers in charge of the crucifixion were not new to this job. In fact, taking into consideration who it was that was being crucified that day, the soldiers chosen were probably the "best" crucifixioners (I may have made that word up...) out there and would have seen more crucifixions than you could wave a stick at. There is no way that they would risk a) the humiliation and b) the punishment (probably execution) of not making sure somebody they were in charge of crucifying was dead, especially when it was someone as famous as Jesus. This is why it is such a big deal when the centurion and those with him witnessed Jesus die (don't forget they also witnessed the 3 hours of darkness before he died and the earth-shattering earthquake that took place just after he died) and were so awe-struck that they declared "Truly this was the son of God!". They knew this was like no other crucifixion they had ever overseen before.

Argument #2: Because it was so important that Jesus really was dead, the soldiers took a spear and pierced Jesus' side and blood and water came out. From a medical perspective, this proves that the person is dead. (Note that this is one of the fulfilled prophecies I mentioned in the last blog). Also, in Mark's gospel he mentions that, when Joseph of Arimathea comes to ask Pilate for permission to bury Jesus, Pilate is so surprised that he is already dead (as I mentioned yesterday Jesus took a very unusually short period of time to die) that he sends for the supervising centurion to ask him if Jesus really is dead and the centurion confirms this. Permission is then given to Joseph for the corpse to be buried. This would never have been granted if Jesus were still alive.

 Hopefully you now recognise that the possibility of Jesus surviving the crucifixion experience really is tiny. In fact, at risk of being criticised, I would say that really it would have been impossible for that to have happened.

 Moving onto number 3...

Jesus really did rise from the dead

So now that we've, theoretically, declared Jesus as officially deceased after being crucified, let's look at the argument people have against him rising from the dead, that is, that the disciples came and stole Jesus' body from the tomb to make it look like he had risen when in fact he was still dead. Let's take a look at the arguments against this theory.

Argument #1: There were far too many guards at the tomb for the disciples to have rolled back the stone and smuggled the body out. The day after the crucifixion, the pharisees get together to go and talk to Pilate and tell him all about how, while he was alive, Jesus had said that three days after he died he would rise again. They therefore urge Pilate to secure the tomb in order that the disciples couldn't come and stage a resurrection. Pilate grants this request and tells them that they will be given a guard of soldiers and to make it as secure as they can. They then proceed to do this by setting the guard and sealing the stone. Let's look at this logically, the minimum amount of guards that would have been at the tomb is four (they would keep watch in three hour shifts during the night). However, neither the Romans or the religous leaders want to let this body disappear under any circumstance. Now, we know that the Romans were quite a clever bunch really and quite strategic; consider how they would have gone about guarding the tomb taking into account Jesus' 11 dedicated disciples- it would make sense to have at least the same amount of soldiers, and seeing as it's Romans we're talking about there is a possibility there were many, many more than that. If you look in the book of Acts when Peter is imprisoned, it tells us that 16 soldiers were guarding him, and he was only a disciple of Jesus! Also, all these events took place during the passover; Jerusalem would be absolutely chock-a-block with thousands of pilgrims, a lot of whom would be in support of Jesus = more potential tomb raiders. I imagine that, similarly to the soldiers supervising the crucifiction, these would be no inexperienced, fall-asleep-on-the-job kind of soldiers either; they were guarding the man who claimed to be King of the Jews- no way he's going to be getting out of that tomb if they can help it!

Argument #2: Not only would there be Roman soldiers, it is more than likely that- given that the pharisees probably trusted the Romans as much as they did the disciples- they would send some of their own men. Now that you're beginning to get an idea of the number of different people guarding the tomb, you're probably picturing how extremely difficult it would be to even get past these guys, nevermind shift a huge rock (estimated to be between 1.5 to 2 tonnes, the weight of a midsize car) which required levers to move and get the body out!

Argument #3: So, assuming that the disciples somehow manage to sneak past the guards who, contrary to the their report, were most definitely awake, silently move the huge rock and run away with Jesus' body unnoticed, this must mean that the disciples had to lie to a whole lot of people AND stash the body somewhere (considering the body has never been found in the near 2000 years since he died, it must have been a pretty good hiding place). The majority of the disciples were killed for telling people about Jesus and his resurrection that had brought life to all men- is it not somewhat surprising that, if all of this were built on a lie, they didn't buckle under the pressure and save their own lives, especially considering that none of the disciples actually believed Jesus when he told them that he would die and rise again in three days? In addition to this, the Roman seal was on the stone covering the entrance; if you were caught breaking this seal the punishment was upside-down crucifixion. Would you risk it?

Argument #4: Let's consider the possibility that Jesus is still alive in your mind, despite the arguments above, and has woken up in the tomb and manages to get himself out. The first problem with this theory is that, even if he wasn't dead from being crucified, it is most certain that he would have died from the injuries (nevermind being well enough to walk about, shift a stone that potentially weighed 2 tonnes from the inside of the tomb and walk away!). Before Jesus was crucifed he was horrendously beaten and tortured, so much so that it is said that he barely looked human, and it wouldn't be out of the question to suggest that he could have died from these injuries alone. Add to this the nails that were put through his hands and feet (considering he had nails in his feet, I would think it impossible he would even be able to stand nevermind walk!) and then add onto that the spear wound in his side from the soldiers checking to see if he was dead and the blood lost from these injuries. It is highly unlikely (I would say it was impossible but I'm trying to be polite and understanding here) that, if he was alive when put into the tomb, he would have come out of it alive.

Argument #5: Jesus appeared to hundreds of people after he had risen. He proved to them he wasn't a ghost because he ate and drank with them, and proved it was him (other than his appearance duh) by showing them the scars from the nails on his hands and feet. Again, you could try and argue that the disciples just lied but, other than referring back to the same logic as argument #3, in all four gospels it is mentioned that women found the empty tomb first and were spoken to by the angel. In Jewish society, if the disciples were going to make such a story up, there is no way that they would say that women had found the empty tomb first or that they disbelieved the women when they came to tell the men. Also, it wasn't just the disciples who witnessed the resurrected Christ; before Jesus ascended back to Heaven he was on earth for forty days. Think of all the things you could do and all the places you could go in forty days! More than 500 people (that we know of) saw Jesus after his resurrection; if only the disciples claimed to have seen him resurrected, do you really think we would have Christianity 2000 years later? There's no way people would have believed if only the disciples had seen him! Even Thomas (one of the disciples who missed seeing Jesus at the same time as the others) didn't believe them, and he had spent three years with Jesus listening to him telling them he would rise again! If you're not satisfied with that and still think that it was down to bias, it wasn't only believers that Jesus appeared to: one of Jesus' own brothers called James, despite growing up with Jesus, didn't believe he was the son of God and is mentioned along with his other non-believing siblings all through the gospels. Jesus appeared to him after his resurrection and now, aswell as believing, he's even written one of the books in the Bible! If that's not good enough then what about Paul? He hated Jesus' "Christians" so much that he did all he could to get rid of them, including imprisoning them and sentencing them to death! If there was anyone who disbelieved the resurrection of Jesus, it was Paul! Jesus appeared to him in a blinding light while he was on his way to arrest more christians one day, and he became the world's very first missionary, writing about half of the New Testement in the Bible! That's one hefty turn around if you ask me. He even went on to die for his faith. He must have been completely and utterly convinced that what he experienced that day was Jesus speaking to him.

You are now left with two choices:

To ignore what you have just read and think up reasons for it not to be true, or

To realise that Jesus is the son of God who died to pay the price for your sin, and overcame death so that you may have eternal life because God loves you. I can't expect mere logical arguments to reach your heart, for logic speaks to the brain, but I pray earnestly that you recognise God's voice calling to you and that you realise who He is; not some distant, angry God just waiting to condemn you, but a Father who is waiting for you to come home to him with open arms, ready to forgive and bless you. You don't have to be certain any of this is true to ask God to forgive you, there is nothing wrong with uncertainty, but if you ask Him to come into your life and turn it around He will be more than happy to show you how real He is!

If you have any questions I would be amazingly happy to do my best to answer them for you, and if I can't I'll go away and find out about it for myself and get back to you. If you're reading this and you don't know me, feel free to add me on facebook (Amy Beth Ferry) or to follow me on Twitter (@ampedsilence). I love you all, and it pains my heart to think of anyone spending eternity in Hell. It's not nice to talk about but it's a real place and there are far too many souls in there already without you joining them. If you haven't already read my blog entitled Life? feel free to do so. Keep seeking, friends.

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13

 Love and prayers,
Amy

Here are some articles I looked at to write this blog:
http://sntjohnny.com/front/how-many-guards-at-the-tomb-of-jesus/485.html
http://www.ichthus.info/CaseForChrist/Resurrection/intro.html

The Truth?

Many of you may have read my blog entry entitled "Life?" in which I talked about sin and our need to be saved. You may have found it interesting, you may even have felt challenged by it or encourage by it. However, some of you may have read it and thought, "That's all very well, but I don't believe it". This is fair enough, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions. Today I'm going to discuss the core issue surrounding unbelief: Jesus Christ.
 You may be surprised by this. Perhaps you think it would make more sense for me to talk about or prove that the Bible really is the diving and living word of God, or to discuss suffering in the world, why science and christianity don't agree and so on and so forth. However, if I can prove to you that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that he died on a cross at Calvery and rose from the dead three days later, all of the issues I mentioned become irrelevent. It proves that the Bible is dependable and that it was written by God through more than 200 prophecies concerning Jesus, most of which were written hundreds, if not thousands, of years before Jesus was even born. By proving the Bible to be true that then scores out everything else as the Bible addresses it all.
  So then, there are three things that I am going to tell you about Jesus:
1) He is the son of God
2) He really did die on the cross and
3) He truly did rise from the dead, ultimately proving he is God.
 Depending on how long this gets I may have to split into three separate entries so I don't bore you! (Not that there is anything boring about Jesus).

Okay, number 1...

Jesus is the son of God

The first things I'm going to talk about in relation to this are all the prophecies that I mentioned up there. Now, we're not talking a few little guesses about Jesus scattered here and there, over 200 prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus. They weren't all written (physically) by the same authors, they weren't all written in the same time period, they don't all talk about the same things, NONE of them disagree- it's pretty mind-blowing stuff. We're talking about

• Promises of a Messiah (Saviour) for the world who would rescue it from sin
• Which men he would be descended from (concerning his earthly-adopted father, Joseph): Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the tribe of Judah, King David.
• Where he would be born: Bethlehem
• When he would be born
• That he would be born to a virgin
• That there would be a massacre of infants (this was done by King Herod in attempt to kill the baby born to be King of the Jews)
• That they would flee to Egypt
• Prophesying his ministry in Galilee
• That he would be a prophet
• That he would be a High Priest (in the sense of atoning for our sins, not earthly-literal)
• That he would be rejected by his people, the Jews
• Describing some of his characteristics
• How much money he would be sold for (Judas and his 30 pieces of silver)
• That he would be accused of things he didn't do by false witnesses
• That he would be silent when accused
• How he would be torchered
• How he would die
• That he would die alongside sinners
• That he would be mocked
• That people would gamble for his clothing
• That he would be given gall and vinegar to drink
• That his side would be pierced (this was to prove that he was really dead)
• That NOT ONE bone in his body would be broken (in crucifixion, normally it can take up to three days to die- Jesus died in approx. 6 hours- and the legs of the offenders would usually be broken to speed up the process)
• That he would be buried among the rich
• That he would rise from the dead after 3 days
• That he would be seen by hundreds of people and eat and have fellowship among them
• And that he would ascend back to Heaven to be with his father

Now that's a pretty hefty list, right? If you want to look at the exact references you can google the subject for yourself or here's a site I found: http://www.cai.org/bible-studies/prophecies-concerning-jesus-and-their-fulfilment and that's not even all of them!

My second point is that the whole of the Old Testement, although Jesus isn't there physically (apart from if you believe it was him in the furnace with Radshach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3) the whole of it points towards him. The first mention of a Saviour is right back at the very beginning in the garden of Eden! I can't name all of the pictures of Jesus in the OT but to mention some of them:

• The one door in the ark that Noah built is a picture of how Jesus is the ONLY way to have salvation
• The unblemished ram to sacrifice provided by God to Abraham instead of his son, Isaac whom God had promised to him, even in his and his wife's old age
• Moses is a picture of Jesus as he comes and saves the Hebrews from the Egyptian Pharoh
• The Passover feast, instigated in Egypt before the Hebrews leave. They sacrificed an unblemished lamb and painted the doorposts of their houses with the blood, and when the Lord sent his spirit through Egypt to kill all the first born (the 10th and final plague) he passed over the houses with the marked doorposts. This is a picture of how Jesus (the lamb) died in our place and that if we accept him as our saviour we will be given eternal life.
• The Bronze Snake in the desert (if you read Life? then you will recognise this story!) in which the Isrealites were dying from snake bites after disobeying God and God told Moses to make a snake on a pole made of bronze and that all who looked upon it would be saved (Jesus is the bronze snake).
• The different sacrifices the Isrealites had to make to atone for their sin, set down in the book of Leviticus mostly, point towards Jesus and his role as, not only the High Priest making the sacrifices, but also as the ultimate sacrifice would would be able to atone for ALL sin.
• Joshua leads the Isrealites into the land promised to them by God. This is a picture of what Jesus does for us spiritually.
• Boaz, in the book of Ruth, is pictured as a Redeemer when he redeems the property belonging to Naomi so that Ruth can be his bride. So Jesus has redeemed us by paying the ultimate price for sin, death, so that we can be his (The church is often called The Bride of Christ).
• King David life is a picture of all that Jesus would be, including his birth in Bethlehem.

I think I have given enough examples to make my point. Jesus is not some random guy who turns up and claims to be God and happens to be able to perform all these miracles. He is there from the beginning and, between pictures of him and prophecies about him, he is all over the Old Testemen

Now, speaking of miracles, Jesus did enough while he was here to prove he was the son of God, nevermind all the OT stuff! Again, you might choose not to believe it, but once I tell you all about how he definitely died and definitely rose again, we'll have all that sorted out.
 Some of you might have been fortunate enough to have gone along to Sunday School or be taught some of these stories in school etc but for those of you who don't know let's give you some examples of what Jesus did while he was here.
 He had authority of Nature: He turned water into wine without physically doing anything; he walked on water; he calmed a storm which had experienced fisherman, who knew the sea of Galilee like the back of their hands, terrified; he healed the blind, the deaf, the lame, the terminally ill and the lepers; he raised people from the dead; he fed crowds of thousands of people with only enough food for a few on at least two occassions, with baskets of food leftover!
 He had authority over spirits: On multiple occassions Jesus casts out demons, they fear him! He saved a little boy from a demon who was causing him to have epileptic fits and fall into fire and water; he heals two men with demons and allows them to enter into a herd of pigs which then rushed down into the sea and drowned.
 He had authority in speech: all through the gospels (The four books at the start of the New Testement which tesitfy to Jesus' life on earth) the religous leaders and teachers are trying to trick Jesus into saying something for which they could condemn him, they tried to "outsmart" him and failed every time. Everything Jesus said was completely perfect and agreed with the scriptures, when people heard him speak they recognised that he spoke with an authority no man before him had. When he healed a lame man one day, he heard the attitude of the pharisees that was in their hearts and answered them. When a woman with internal bleeding touched his cloak while he was passing by so that she may be healed, despite the fact they were in a great crowd he felt that power had gone out of him and spoke to the woman.
 These are only the things that are mentioned! At the end of the book of John he says: "Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I supposed that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." OOFT. That's a lot of things left out!
 In all Jesus did while he was here, he demonstrated that he was the son of God. Even in death: after Jesus gives his spirit up to death (death had no authority over him to take it itself) a Roman centurion recognises that he must have been the son of God.

You can debate the reliability of these historical accounts if you want but just know that, forgetting about how most of it was prophesied hundreds and thousands of years before he was born, four different people wrote accounts of Jesus' life, containing a lot of the same stories and not contradicting one another at all, despite the fact they were from people from different backgrounds writing at different times, some of them who had witnessed events for themselves and others who hadn't, in particular Luke who went about it like an investigation, interviewing witnesses and finding evidence.
  I think that's where we'll end if for today, and I'll move onto the next two areas in my next entry!

Continually praying for all who read this, may God bless you and have mercy upon you,
Amy :)