Chapter by chapter

There are two prominent people in the New Testament outside of Jesus - Peter and Paul. Peter was a disciple of Jesus from the beginning, Paul received a revelation of Jesus after Jesus’ death. Both were Jews. Both wrote parts of the New Testament. Both were in charge of churches. Peter was a fisherman, and hence had an extremely small amount of education. Paul was a High Official, very educated, respected and zealous. Paul had everything that a Jew could possibly ask for in terms of status (Phil 2), whereas Peter was lacking in status amongst a Jewish crowd. 

But both had very different callings.

One was called to Jews. The other to gentiles (non-Jews).

Who would you pick? What makes the most sense? 

Well, I’m not gonna spell it out - but God had totally different plans. 

God chose Peter to go the Jews, and Paul to go to the Gentiles, and in so doing gave a practical example of baptism into new life.

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Paul’s standing in the Jewish council only had meaning according to the Jewish people, their customs, their laws. Outside of this - all of his status, his heritage, his work - meant nothing. In order to carry out the calling that God had for Paul, he had to give up his life. It’s like, a PhD professor going into a remote park of the Amazon forest to a tribe. In university he’s respected, clever, sought after - in the jungle he’s just another mouth to feed. He’s lost his respect, his status and his lifetime achievement is counted as nothing.

God effectively said ‘Everything you’ve worked for, everything you were, everything you thought you were - is nothing. We’re starting again. A clean slate. And we’ll build you up from there’. 

This is what happens when we God enters our lives. We start again. Our past is taken away, our names that we attach to ourselves are gone - and we’re left with one title - Child of God. 

Whether the past was perceived as great, good, horrendous, a mess or mediochre - the same happens to everyone - we are a new creation in Jesus Christ.

The old has gone, the new has come.

Only for the King

Jx

Get a sofa. Get a lamp (one of those old ones with the frilly lamp-shade). Get a coffee table. Get a few magazines/newspapers. Get a small generator. Get a coffee maker. 

Set all up in the middle of town. 

Invite people to sit with you and talk to them.

Tell them about Jesus in a natural way - because you love them, and Jesus is ace.

Get their number or contact details if the opportunity arises.

Smile.

Pray.

Love.

———————————-

Pega uma sofa. Pega uma lampada (com uma pantalha - o tipo com as coisas de babadas). Pega uma mesinha. Pega as revistas/jornais. Pega um gerador. Pega uma maquina de cafe.

Arruma tudo isso no centro da cidade.

Convite pessoas la sentir contigo.

Diga elas sobre Jesus - porque vc ama elas e Jesus é massa.

Pega o numero delas ou detalhes - se a oportunidade vem.

Dá um sorriso.

Ora.

Ama.

Only for the King/Só pra o Rei

Jx

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. - Matthew 5:48

So why bother trying? If we need to be perfect, and we can’t be, what’s the point in starting? I mean, seriously - Right now I’m thinking I need to be holier. I’m not lying - I feel like I’ve been a pretty crap christian the last few days. You know the deal - not reading the bible a huge amount, not praying a huge amount, not ‘feeling’ like God’s anywhere near. I sat down to write this post and all I could think of was ‘Man, I’m really unholy right now’.

Welcome to reality, and the Gospel.

The reality is this: you suck, I suck, our disposition sucks (*some people say humanity sucks - but it doesn’t - humanity is our gift from God because only US are made in his image, humanity is an image of God and should be treated as such **and no it’s not ANTHROPOMORPHISING God, if anything it’s God GOD-IFYING/redeeming us).

I can never be Holy myself. You can never be Holy by yourself. No-one can ever be Holy by themselves (we in the West find this very hard to understand because we believe we all start off with some base-level morality and that everyone lives a good life until they do something bad which hurts someone else - Innocent until proven Guilty).

Thankfully, God knows this - of course he does, he created us. So what does he do? - HE makes US Holy.

You shall be holy, for I am holy. 1 Peter 1:16

…not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace… 2 Timothy 1:9

We can’t do nothing to make ourselves Holy. It’s God. It’s ALL God.

So even the question ‘How can I be more holy?’ is flawed from the start - it’s me-centred, and not God-centred - grace-centred.

The Command to be Holy, is a command to realise that we can’t be holy ourselves.

We need God.

Only for the King

Jx

I went to a brazilian stag-do the other day. Well, I say I ‘went’ - it was at my house. You know that wedding I mentioned the other day (http://jasonmarrett.tumblr.com/post/9545373120/my-first-day-going-solo) it was for that guy. To be fair, I was meant to be meeting Ana that night and kept trying to text her to organise where/when to meet. But thankfully it never happened, the experience was an interesting one.

Started off pretty normal - picanha (a barbecued steak that unfortunately we don’t do in England, if I was to stay in Brazil this meat might have something to do with it), fizzy drinks (banned from drinking at the missionary house), and pastors talking about viagra - I did say ‘pretty’ normal. To be fair his argument was fairly sound - if we use tablets for headaches and pain, why don’t we use other tablets when our manhood’s not up to scratch at a particular moment? - Food for thought.

Then after lots of man chat and some jokes about spoons, man-handling, and rather perverse gestures - they got out the make-up. The team - I guess there was a ‘best-man’ around somewhere, but there was only about 10 of us there and I don’t yet know much about Brazilian weddings (reminder to self: take notes for future reference) - covered him in obscene pictures of various genitalia in permanent marker, used rouge, lipstick to turn him into the most bestial man-hooker I’ve seen this side of the Atlantic, and antiqued him with some flour. And they say the youth of this generation have no respect for their elders… well here they do have respect, only, the elders are just as bad (read: worse) than their younger counterparts.

The groom was by now well untruly humiliated. Many photos were taken to remember the event by. I just hope they don’t get put on facebook. But straight after this - came the ‘talk’.

It looked like this is a normal part of christian stag-do’s in Brazil. The pastors that were there went from laughing hysterically after drawing inverted crosses on his forehead - to a hugely matter-of-fact tone, almost sombre - about the responsibilities of marriage. They spoke about when thing’s get hard, when things are easy. They spoke about when him and his fiance first got together and what he was feeling then, they asked him if he was really ready for this whole business. The groom cried. In front of 10 guys, some of which he only barely knew, he was crying.

This crying wasn’t a bawling. It wasn’t a ‘stop pestering me with hard questions’ crying. It didn’t even seem to be a ‘I’m tired and emotional’ crying. I can’t really place what type of crying it was. But none of the guys there were surprised by it, none of them were concerned - it was as if they respected it.

The last stag-do I went to was for a very very close friend of mine - I actually can’t quite express how much of an inspiration, confidence-builder, brother he’s been - so I won’t. But near the end of the night when the whole stag-do group was at the pub - it seemed a good idea to talk frankly about his future marriage. Everyone in the group gave an encouraging word and advice, and blessings for this man’s future marriage. And even this stag-do was after we made the poor man dress as Britney Spears and sing/dance for his first pint with an X-factor instrument set.

In both these moments there was something kinda happening. Don’t ask me what it was - whatever it actually was struck a chord with everyone present.

To me, it’s kinda like the gospel. We first need to realise we are nothing - allow the gospel to humiliate us - laugh at our own sense of self-worth - laugh at our attempts to ‘earn’ righteousness. And then, when we see that we are totally depraved (one for the Calvinists there) - we allow Jesus to edify us - we let him pick us up, wash us clean - heal us on the inside - whack a crown on our heads and present us as holy and blameless before the God of the universe…

Humiliate. Then Edify.

Only for the King

Jx