Look above

When times are good,
when times are bad,
when times are joyous
and when times are sad.

When crisis comes,
and crisis goes,
when you meet great people,
and when great people go,

God is Great,
God is Good,
God Knows best,
God is in control.

Sometimes I have times where I really wonder what God is up to, when is He going to act and change things that I don't like in my life or in the world...the answer is that He will. He will in His own time and in His own way. One day we shall look back and laugh at our doubts and wonder why we ever doubted. One day we'll be in Heaven, where history doesn't matter any more because our history is full of sin and mistakes and where we can enjoy everything as God created us to do so. To enjoy Him, to enjoy our brothers & sisters, to enjoy a perfect new world...forever.

God Bless everyone tonight.

A Waste Of Life

The sad news of the passing of Amy Winehouse yesterday was greeted with the usual comments when this happens to gifted celebrities - what a waste.

Sometimes I think that it is easy for people to think if you are not big and famous then you must have no gifts at all and if you did the things Winehouse did you would not be wasting anything.

I disagree, I believe God made us all with a specific personality and a specific purpose in mind that only WE can achieve. This makes us all unique. Any life that ends like Winehouses' did is a waste.

YOU ARE SPECIAL. YOU HAVE A PURPOSE. YOU ARE LOVED & CHERISHED BY GOD.

Romans 12:1-8


¹ Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God— this is your spiritual act of worship.
    ² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is— his good, pleasing and perfect will.
    ³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
    ⁴ Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,
    ⁵ so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
    ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.
    ⁷ If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach;
    ⁸ if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

The Fundamentals of Fundamentalism

My friend posted a marvellous article on examples of poor journalism from media outlets, especially the BBC, recently and I sadly I write about another piece of pathetic journalism today.

It concerned the shocking and disgusting events in Norway where the BBC described suspect Anders Behring Breivik as holding right wing views and subtly mentioning his twitter feed had him down as a 'Christian'. This would most likely be in his religious views as it also mentions his political views were 'Conservative' which would be situated next to the religious views entry.


I have several severe problems with this:-

1. I know many people with 'Christian' in their religious views box who do not actually follow Christ. Often for those people it is just what they have grown up with in their family or culture.
2. This had led to people describing him as a 'Christian fundamentalist'. How is he a fundamentalist when he doesn't even follow the fundamentals??? i.e. DO NOT MURDER, one of the Ten Commandments!

It is a terrible injustice to Christianity to be implicated in something that would sicken every true disciple of Christ to the core. It is hardly a surprise given the BBC's recent behaviour, giving Atheists the roles in making and presenting Christian documentaries and generally running down Christianity on Sunday Mornings 'Big Questions' and on their website articles. Surely it is obvious that Facebook cannot be taken seriously as a guide of someones relationship with God and their religious beliefs. You can post anything on there and everyone should know that actions speak louder than words.

But I suppose if Satan isn't kicking God isn't working so I look forward to what God does through this and we really must pray for all the victims of this evil attack in Norway.

Dreams, Floaty Dreams

Dreams, the minds way of keeping active whilst the rest of us are kaput. Part of one of the greatest speeches in history by Martin Luther King in 1963. Sung about for one of Westlifes many Number One's!


So we all know what I'm talking about when I mention dreams. The fact is that all of us have had dreams and most of us have visions of where we would like to be in the future. 


We can have many different types of dreams, sometimes we dream outrageous dreams...our perfect reality and imagine what it would be like for it to come true. Sometimes we dream of the worst happening and dread the possibility, no matter how small, of it happening. I think worst of all is when we take our outrageous dreams and make them more realistic to suit what we think is possible.


This world has many people who have never achieved what they hoped and try to bring down others dreams as a response. Or maybe things have just never worked out for you. Don't ever give up, this could just be the tough trail to happier times. The trees look so beautiful when it is sunny because of all the rain they endured beforehand.


This is what Jesus said:-

Mark 9:23

²³ 'If you can'? said Jesus. Everything is possible for him who believes.


God made you, He formed you in the womb (Psalm 139:13-14), He has great plans for you (Jer 29:11) and He LOVES you (John 3:16). Jesus, who is God, said we can do ANYTHING if we just trust in Him.


And there is the sticking point for many, trusting in Him.


I know I find it hard, last week I was praying and I felt God telling to stop trying to do things on my own but to be weak and let Him be strong. 


We cannot make our wildest dreams happen by our own doing, we need to give them to God and let Him make them happen. Trusting Him.


Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.


I saw this quote today and really loved it and it fits it nicely with this blog post:-


Steven Furtick: "If the size of your vision isn't intimidating to you, it's probably insulting to God"


So whether your dream is revival, world peace, world justice, a new job, reconciliation or even just 
peace...don't give it up...give it to God! He is faithful and will never let you down :)

News of the World

If you haven't been following the News recently you would not be aware of the phone hacking scandal currently engulfing NewsCorp & Rupert Murdoch. 

The Newspaper business is a high pressure business where controversy certainly equals cash and News of the World and other reporters have been shown to have gone too far in their attempts to find their news, hacking celebrities or civilians involved in big new stories (such as Milly Dowler and victims of the 7/7 bombings families) phones.

I think this is part of a bigger problem with our news industry, the problem being the strong tendencies towards BAD NEWS. Just look at the BBC News homepage and count up the bad news stories against the good. I would imagine a strong majority of the news stories are bad news for most people or some people.

Sadly, this world is full of bad news. The human race has been corrupted by its sinful actions. Too many selfish and greedy decisions are being made leading to pain for many people.

In reality we are all imperfect and none of us are deserving of anything, let alone Heaven! This is the worst news of all.

But this where the Greatest News of all comes in! The News may not report this, it may not sell papers but it is the very thing that changed my life for good forever and millions more and is still changing lives today.

This is it, Christ took the rap for our sin and we don't have to if we just ask God for forgiveness and repent of our sin. We don't have to meet some great list of tasks, we don't have to memorise the whole Bible and we definitely don't have to be perfect. We just have to be forgiven :)

John 3:16 - 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.

Also, God doesn't need to hack our phones to find out anything about us! He knows our hearts, He formed us in the womb...He even knows how many hairs are on our heads :)

Psalm 7:9
O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.

Psalm 139:13-14

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Luke 12:7
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Why Harry Potter is so special

Late Thursday night thousands upon thousands if fans queued up to be the first people to see the final movie in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two. 
As of 2011, the Harry Potter film franchise is the highest grossing film franchise of all time, with the seven films released grossing $6.3 billion worldwide. The new film, being the last and probably the best one (I don't know for sure as I am not seeing it until Tuesday but it is the best book in my opinion) will be expected to add significantly to that figure.


I just wanted to write about a possible reason why so many (including me!) have fallen in love with the Harry Potter series. I'll just come out with it...Harry Potter is special and we all want to be like him. Harry was the one who stopped Voldemort as a baby. He is the 'chosen one', the only one to finish him off for good. This is who he is throughout the entire set of books.


The whole human race wants to be special, we all want to be held above others and revered for great accomplishments. Some achieve these aims through their chosen fields...Andres Iniesta will always be remembered in Spain for scoring the goal that won them their first World Cup. Martin Luther King will always be remembered for his outstanding civil rights work. Einstein will be remembered for his genius. Whoever finds the cure for AID's will sure to be remembered forever.


Those who never achieve such heights begin to think that they were never meant to be special, that they are nothing that Benjamin Franklin was right when he said "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."


But really, we're special already. Why? Because we are special the One who created life, who created everything, who our lives are about knowing LOVES us and MADE us exactly who we are. We are so special to God that He was prepared to die a agonising, lonely & excruciating death that we could join Him in Heaven FOREVER.


Those who achieve great things often feel empty at the end of it. Now that they achieved their goal there is nothing else left in their lives. They weren't special for long, time moves on and newspapers find new headlines and people find new heroes. 


We will always be special to God, He will never forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) and we can have a special relationship with Him forever :-) Just ask Him and He will give freely to all who ask....

More Quotes from Scientists regarding origin of life...

And yet they still claim there is no chance an Intelligent Designer created the earth? 

Dr. George Whitesides (Organic Chemist, Harvard University, highest Hirsch-index rating of any living chemist):

How? I have no idea. Based on all the chemistry I know it seems astonishingly improbable.

Dr. Chrisopher Mckay (Astrophysicist, NASA):

The origin of life remains a scientific mystery… we do not know how life originated on earth.

Dr. Werner Arber (Molecular Biologist, Nobel Prize-Medicine, 1978):

Although a biologist, I must confess that I do not know how life came about… How such already quite complex structures may have come together remains a mystery to me.

Dr. Harold P. Klein (1921-2001), Astrobiologist, NASA):

The simplest bacterium is so damn complicated from the point of view of a chemist that it is almost impossible to imagine how it happened.

Dr. Christian DeDuve (Cytologist, Biochemist, Nobel Prize-Medicine, 1974):

How this momentous event happened is still highly conjectural, though no longer purely speculative. (Wordnet Online Dictionary: Conjecture: (A) Noun – a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating…usually with little hard evidence. (Synonym – speculation) (B)Verb-to believe on uncertain or tentative grounds (synonym – speculate)

Professor Richard Dawkins (Biologist, High Priest of Atheism in the 21^st Century):

(A) Nobody knows how it happened. (Climbing Mt. Improbable) (B) “I told you I don’t know…nor does anyone else.” (From the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed)

Etc, Etc, Etc… It is critical to note that the daunting challenges scientists face in discovering a naturalistic origin of life is not due to their ignorance about the chemistry of the simplest living organisms, it is in fact exactly the opposite. The more scientists learn about the seemingly endless layers of complexity in the simplest living cells the more vexing the puzzle becomes.

Source: http://christian-apologetics.org/2011/rabbi-moshe-averick-the-theist-holds-the-intellectual-high-ground/

Misconceptions - Who created God?

"“Who created the creator?”  presents us with the philosophical dilemma of the infinitely regressing series of creators. Ultimately, both Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (and perhaps Jerry Coyne also), base their denial of a Creator on the assumption that there is no answer to this question and we are therefore stuck with a naturalistic beginning. In other words, even though they admit that everything I have said up until now might be perfectly sensible or at least worthy of consideration, this particular philosophical question leaves us with no choice but to accept, that despite the utter improbability of a natural emergence of life it happened at least once because here we are. In the final analysis, the atheist denial of God is based not on science, but on philosophy. In fact, there is a rather elementary and obvious solution to the dilemma of who created the creator."


"Simply put, the philosophical dilemma of the infinitely regressing chain of creators is only applicable to a material being, not a transcendent being that exists in neither time nor space."


Source:  http://christian-apologetics.org/2011/rabbi-moshe-averick-the-theist-holds-the-intellectual-high-ground/

I'd like to refer to the Kalam Argument (William Lane Craig's version)

The Kalam Cosmological Argument:

• Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
• The universe began to exist.
• Therefore, the universe has a cause.  

Something has to have caused the existence of the world! Something has to have always been there, something has to have not been created but have been there eternally and ignited the existence of everything we know and see around us.

I would suggest that a Creator God is the most sensible of any possibility for an eternal being. Having met this God personally and seen Him change my life, and the lives of people around me. I would suggest He is definitely the eternal being that put the Universe into existence.