Crestwood Church Blog

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Phil 6:6

Three quotes on prayer:

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden. Corrie Ten Boom

Work as if you were to live a hundred years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow. Benjamin Franklin

Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other's hearts in prayer. Charles Finney

How much do you pray a day? An hour, 30 minutes, five minutes, sometimes, never…

Pray is like an artery, it is the vital link to the heart if we remove the link we die.

Paul urges the church in Philippi to pray, not once in a blue moon, but all the time. In another version of the bible it says “pray without ceasing”. It doesn't mean you should never work, eat or watch TV, but be alert to prayer. If we believe that God is a a prayer answering God, how must God feel when we don’t pray. God is interested in everything that we do there is nothing too small or too big that He is not interested in. In fact if we believe what prayer is really about, we would never do anything without praying.

I don’t mean the basics about breathing or what we buy from Asda, but anything that needs guidance, council, direction etc. How often do we pray about our relationships, our work, our gifting, our service. When you are offended do you go to God, or do you react without his blessing. Don’t see prayer as an emergency escape plan, see it as everyday as breathing. It is not just for certain times or days but for every moment of each day. It is always sad to see prayer meetings neglected, or with low attendance, perhaps if we were more conditioned to pray individually that we would be more regular as a wider body. Practically we can’t get out to everything, but don’t let this stop you praying. If the time is not right for you, invite someone to your home so that you can pray together. It is not about where and when, it is about whether we do or don’t.

What Crestwood Church needs is to be a praying church, and not a prayer meeting church. If we prayed, really prayed, then prayer would become so real and so more purposeful that we would want to come and pray together more than anything else.

As Charles Finney quotes above, it’s here we build relationships and love for each other. It is also where kingdoms fall and the impossible is made possible. Be a praying church...

Labels: Attitude, Prayer

posted by Andy Hodson - Thursday, 25 September 2008, 14:55
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The seeds that fell among the thorns represent those who hear the message, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. And so they never grow into maturity. Luke 8:14

This week has been seen by many analysts as one of the worst weeks in the money market for decades, even back to 1929 and the Wall Street Crash. Lehman brothers the forth largest investment bank in the world which had been trading for over 150 years suddenly is missing from the lists in the financial times. The buzz words of today are credit crunch, inflation and crisis. God through his word realises the concerns and difficulties we have with money. Did you know2350 verses are on the subject of money, of Jesus’ 45 parables, 38 talk about how to handle our money, wealth and possession. Over 15% of Jesus teaching is on the subject. For Christians who teach that money is not worth mentioning they are delusional and not in touch with the Saviour. However when you take into account all the verses of the bible you are left with two lines of thought.

1– Putting your money first before God will ruin you spiritually and give you a false foundation to your life (see the parable of the rich farmer)

2— God is instructing us to be careful and good stewards with what he gives us.

In this verse Jesus is pointing out that if we let money consume us, they will rule our lives and we never grow in God and actually we will never fully know salvation.

This isn’t to say money and wealth will not be a part of our lives, of course it will be, but it is making sure that it doesn't become our god, our goal, our vision our all. That is where God should be, if we put God second or worse how can he help us through crisis, Matthew teaches, you cannot serve God and money, they are two different masters. One will last and one will ultimately crash.

Place your finances into the hands of the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10) let him guide you and trust him for your security. You choose, your way or God’s way? Don’t be surprised if you choose to ignore him, when life goes into recession and your spiritual life dies, but be surprised with what God can do with how little or much he has put into your hand. God’s interest is better than any Cayman account.

Labels: finance, money, Priority

posted by Andy Hodson - Friday, 19 September 2008, 09:35
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And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these Mark 12:30-31

As a church we have looked much about love over the past weeks. What really is love? Is it a sentiment, an ideal or is it something else.

The Bible says God is Love, he epitomizes it, without his presence there can be no love. Thank God for His presence on our planet. One question is often asked, “Why did God make man, why did he create our universe?” He didn’t need us, God is perfect in himself. He is complete and everything about Him is awesome all the time. God exists as trinity in absolute harmony. God had no neighbour, he had no one like himself. There was or is no one that can be his equal. The angels are messengers, they have no neighbourly relationship with God.

Perhaps this is why he made man? He made man in his image to be like him enough, that he could be our neighbour, he chose to shower love to us. Jesus writes in the above verses very strongly, “you must love God, you must love your neighbour.” (simple paraphrase) He speaks out of experience, he has done it in a human way and in a “God” way. He asks us to do the same. Love is more than words, love is more than feelings, love is action , love goes beyond any boundary and border. Beyond space, beyond time, beyond and into the spiritual realm. The Godhead have proved that.

The question remains, how could God love us? Mere mortals, lesser creatures to himself the Almighty, All powerful, Creator God. A question we will ask for eternity, and probably struggle for an answer. The fact remains, God loves you. The author of love, the one who is, loves you “I have loved you with an everlasting love” he says about the people of God. Love is in itself supernatural beyond the understanding of this world, beyond comprehension, love is God. In light of these things, let the Spirit of God within each of us, be loves source and let him be the one who acts on our behalf.

Surrender to him so we may love, his way. By ourselves we can’t fully love.

(thoughts from the heart, please don’t treat this all doctrinally)

Labels: Beyond, Love, Questions, Supernatural

posted by Andy Hodson - Wednesday, 17 September 2008, 09:18
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