A Heart Untroubled

I was thinking today about the function of the earth wire in an electrical context.  Electricity flows through the live wire, but the earth is what grounds the system to prevent harm. The power of God is the electricity that flows to us, but we need to be grounded in order to avoid damaging others.  The bible tells us we should be grounded and settled and not move away from the hope of the Gospel (Col 1:23) and that we should be rooted and grounded in love. (Eph 3:17). If we are not rooted in these things, the power of God can still flow through us, but now we run the risk of hurting others.   This is not a new problem.  In Corinth, the church was full of people flowing in the gifts of the Spirit, but Paul tells them it doesn't matter if you speak in tongues, prophecy, knowledge, have faith, or give everything I have without love, it doesn't count!   We need to be grounded in God's love and in his word so that just like electricity, we can easily flow with his power, withou

This week I have been thinking about church.  Many churches are not meeting at the moment, and I've heard a lot of Christians talking about how wonderful online church is, but it's not! Yes, I am truly thankful for technology at this time, but watching your service online is not a substitute for meeting together.   Now I realised that under the current circumstances, it's not always permitted to meet, but just as a husband and wife are still married, even if the husband must be away for 3 months, so the church is made in its coming together, and we should be looking with expectancy and joy for such a time when we can meet again.  We should not be considering the techy version of our services to be the 'new normal'.  That will never be 'church'. Neither is simply meeting with your friends 'church'!    In this day and age, not just because of the pandemic, Christians have opted out of belonging to a local church. I often hear people trying to defend t

This week I have been talking with my husband about the latest book he is enjoying. (Getting your life back, by John Eldridge) and I have been thinking about the world we live in.   We are constantly plugged in - tablets, phones, laptops, computers, games consoles, television, podcasts, streaming, and even blogposts (which of course are not a bad thing!) We just never shut off.  We are 'on call' to our friends and family as much as our employer.  We get notifications from facebook, twitter, email, the news, the NHS, YouTube and the list goes on.   What initially was designed to save us the time of waiting for a letter in the mail, has degenerated our communications into a series of emoji's and 'likes', and yet we still don't have 'time'.   We can't even call a friend in need now, we simply hit the 'care' emoji to offer comfort. But in our verse this week, we see Jesus withdrawing from the world around him to seek time and space to connect onl