The depth of your hunger determines the length of your reach

This was one of the things Sandra said at the weekend and its really caught my heart and made me go on a bit of a 'hunger check'.

I'm coming to the conclusion that whilst its fine to have a deep down appreciation of food and the importance of eating food to stay alive (!), the important thing is that your body is giving you the signals day by day that you need to eat. We then take the appropriate action in response to the right signals and put something (hopefully tasty) in our stomachs.

In the same way, in our lives with God I think we are pretty good at knowing ultimately that we need to spend time with God, to draw on his resource, & that apart from him we can do nothing. The problem can arise when we lose our 'daily hunger' for him. This can happen so easily as the stuff of our lives, the demands, the routines, the challenges and also the fun things we are invovled with crowd our minds and we find ourselves less focussed on God... and we become dulled in our senses to recognise the hunger signals.

If we are to accomplish anything significant in the purpose of God for this city, we need to renew our sensitivity to the cry within us:

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God. Psalm 42:1

I'll finish with the words from Isaiah that have kept coming back to us in recent months, encouraging us to maintain our fervour, our hunger, our passion to see Jesus glorified through his church:

Because I love Zion, because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent. I will not stop praying for her until her righteousness shines like the dawn, and her salvation blazes like a burning torch. The nations will see your righteousness. Kings will be blinded by your glory. And the Lord will give you a new name. The Lord will hold you in his hands for all to see—a splendid crown in the hands of God. Never again will you be called the Godforsaken City or the Desolate Land. Your new name will be the City of God's Delight and the Bride of God, for the Lord delights in you and will claim you as his own. Your children will care for you with joy, O Jerusalem, just as a young man cares for his bride. Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray to the Lord day and night for the fulfillment of his promises. Take no rest, all you who pray. Give the Lord no rest until he makes Jerusalem the object of praise throughout the earth. Isaiah 62:1-7 (NLT)

Making Jesus Known

Last Sunday in the discipleship forum, we looked at these 3 Scriptures:

"Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" Romans 2:4

"As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead." James 2:26

"Be careful how you live among your unbelieving neighbors. Even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will believe and give honor to God when he comes to judge the world."
1 Peter 2:12

As we enter into the summer months and people are out and about much more, days are longer and opportunities to interact with people are greater, the encouragement of God to us is to make the most of this time, believing that we will see impact in peoples' lives through putting our faith into action and demonstrating God's kindness to others through kindness and good deeds.

Today is a great opportunity - "one man's kind deed is another's miracle."

Hitting the mark

One of our core values as it were (see 'Devoted to...' article on Neighbours & Nations site) is that we are an apostolic people, devoted to the apostles' teaching.

At the Let's Keep Moving conference last weekend, the theme was 'Hitting the mark'. Those that were there were privileged to hear some outstanding teaching on the goals that we are to aim for as a people... that we are not just casually cruising along, but setting our sights on the things God has given us to do.

Paul in the Bible wrote, "forgetting what has gone before, and straining towards what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:13/14).

Let's make this same attitude our own... and I would highly recommend getting hold of the teaching from the weekend and listening through it again, or for the first time, and then again... being devoted to what God is saying to us through those he has joined us with to help and inspire us in our growth in God.

Let the inspiration begin

here begins the new Coventry Inspirations blog that will be a means for various Coventry saints to inspire one another with the things the Holy Spirit is stirring in them and speaking to his people for our encouragement and growth.

If you want to post, let me know and I'll get you signed up.