Christianityworks Official Podcast

My hunch is that the whole Christmas thing began well before that starry night in Bethlehem. A long time before. Question is – how come God came up with it?

God is a supernatural God – God goes ahead of us – God knows all things – God is all powerful – God is all loving and God pours out gifts through His people into other people's lives. And that's the powerful truth we're going to share in today!

God's heart is to make His home in us and to fill us with His joy and His peace and His grace and His power, and I believe that with every fibre of my being. In fact, I know it. And the other thing I know is that He wants to do that for you. Today. Right now.

So often we look in the mirror and realise, that we're simply not worthy to come before the throne of grace. And yet, because of Jesus, nothing more needs to be done for you and me to walk boldly before God into His throne room and say 'Father, I love You; I want to be in Your presence.' Nothing more needs to be done!

The plan of God is to pour His abundant love; everything He is and everything He has and all His peace and His joy; His plan is to pour that out upon your life. And that … that's why He's sent the Holy Spirit.

At some point, we all end up at the end of our rope. Sometimes it's our own fault. Sometimes it's not.  At those times – we feel that we need to do something – it's like the last roll of the dice …

Sometimes, we head off in our own direction - and then we discover, at some point, that we've strayed so far away from God's plans for our lives. We've all done it. You have, I have. And yet the amazing thing is that God always, always provides us with a way back home. Always.

Sometimes, to be honest, life can feel really dry. You look out across the landscape of your life and all you can see is dry bones. You know there's more out there, but right now you just can't see how it'll ever feel "alive" again.

Have you ever thought to yourself – "Well, things are a bit of a mess. I've made a hash of this or that and before I go to God with this, I'd better sort it out"? Well, we all do that sometimes. But it turns out that God's having a party – and it's come as you are.

Sowing and reaping. There is such a long gap, often between those too, have you noticed how long it takes to reap that harvest? And sometimes, frankly, we get sick of the wait. It's a bit like a farmer becoming impatient and walking off the land, the week before his crop springs out of the ground.

When you think about it, sowing seed and then reaping a harvest is all about multiplication. You sow one seed, you reap a hundred. But the extent, the quantum of the multiplication factor, has an awful lot to do with the way that we sow the seed in the first place.

Everybody wants to reap a harvest in life. You do, I do. But sometimes, our lives feel a whole bunch more like a drought than a harvest. So exactly what is my drought about? What exactly is your drought about? Why is God letting this, this drought happen, to you and to me?

Let's face it – we all want to get the most out of life. We want to reap a harvest. And in fact, that's exactly what God wants for our lives, too. He promises us an abundant harvest. And yet so often, life feels more like a drought than anything else.  In those times, we're left asking ourselves … So, where's my harvest?

We parents try to do all the things we can to help our children to grow up. We advise. We admonish. We even end up preaching at them sometimes. But it's not what we say, it's what we do, how we live – what they see our life to be, that has the greatest impact in shaping them as they grow up.

You know something – that old saying that blood is thicker than water, it's true. There's a special bond between members of a family. Our family really does matter.  And that – that's why it's time to start looking at what it means to build a godly family.

Peace is one of those things – well, who doesn't want peace in their lives. Freedom from conflict. But imagine, imagine what a blessing it must be, to have peace at home.  A family that thrives on peace instead of being lost in conflict.

Of course, families are and always were, God's idea. Yet so often these days, families seem to be, well, let's be honest, just a tad dysfunctional. And as we each grapple with the realities of family life, all too often, we look around at all those apparently normal, balanced, near-perfect families out there and wonder to ourselves – what's wrong with my family? What's going on here?

Over the last few weeks on the program, we've been discovering how it is that God speaks to us today and how we can get about hearing Him when He does speak. The question is – when it's something big or important – how can we make sure that we've heard Him right? Because the last thing we want to do, is to get it wrong, right?

God is a God who speaks to us. It's something He's been doing for centuries. Millennia in fact. And sometimes, sometimes he speaks to us in ways that we just don't expect. Right out of the blue. Question is – are we listening?