Belfrey
Youth are spending Tuesdays leading up to Christmas looking at the book of John
as we explore a series titled 'Just Jesus'. As a team, we've recognised that if
young people are going to be transformed by the life of Jesus, we need to
encourage a culture of picking up the Bible, reading it, discovering it,
understanding it and sharing it. This is why over the summer period we put out
a plea for people to sponsor Youth Bibles to be kept at our youth &
children's work centre, Basement Central. At a mere cost of £8.00 each we were
able to purchase 17 - and it's still not too late to sponsor one! Do email me
if you'd like to lee.kirkby@belfrey.org
Last night
at youth, I attempted to shed some light on why Jesus became a man. As I was
reading and preparing, I was encapsulated even more by this man Jesus. To be
fair, some do say he could have just been someone who lived 2000 years ago and
caused a bit of a fuss for the 33 years he lived on earth. But, when we read
the scriptures, discover and understand them, each book, chapter and verse is
pointing towards this man Jesus as being God. Here are a couple of things that
took my attention:
Jesus enters
his own creation...
In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light. Genesis 1:1-2
God spoke
and galaxies flung into being, stars lit up the night sky and planets started
orbiting their suns. God spoke and the waters and land were filled with plants,
creatures both great and small. God spoke again and so man and woman were
created, carefully designed so that we could think, speak and love. God is the
author of all creation. His voice was like the putting of pen to paper when he
created it all. But look, the author of all creation then comes as a human as
well (see John 1:14) "The Word became flesh." During the exodus God
made his dwelling place in the tabernacle tent which when translated means
'dwelling place'. God is literally pitching his tent among us now through this man
Jesus. God entered his own creation, as a mere humble human, faced with all the
inevitabilities of life including death. Jesus who calls himself "light of
the world" the same light that was present at the very beginning of time
(referred to in Genesis 1:2) was
prepared to come as one of us because he loves us so much. Our challenge is to
pitch God's dwelling where he is not yet known.
Jesus came
to bless all people...
"For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes
in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16
God not
only invites us to receive the gift of salvation, but to share it with others
too. Last night I used a candle analogy to demonstrate that we do not need to
be fearful of spreading the good news. In a darkened room take one candle of
any size and begin to light others from it. No matter how many more you light
from it, the original will never lose its brightness. Instead, what will happen
is the whole place will get lighter and lighter. In the same way, when we share
the news of Jesus his light will remain just as bright in us and will brighten other lives
too.
Last week I
had my hair cut. It was my day off. When asked by the polite barber what I did
for a living I took the easy option of saying that I was a youth worker. I was tired and it was wet and I just wanted to get back home to relax. He
then pursued to ask where I worked. I thought he really is interested. A little voice in
my head said "this is your chance to tell him about Jesus". I failed.
What was it? Was I embarrassed? Couldn't I be bothered? Didn't I take what Jesus
had done for me seriously enough? I want my family to know Jesus, my mum, dad and sister, but how will
they if I duck out of every opportunity I'm faced with?
Jesus came to
offer us the gift of eternity. John 1:12 says "Yet to all who received
him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of
God..." Jesus came as a gift with authority to make us his children. All
we need to do is either accept the tragedy of rejecting this gift, or be
blessed by receiving him. By accepting that Jesus died on the cross for us, we
all share the same DNA of Christ himself. It is that simple. So why not share Him with
others?
