S05E006, Stuck In The Middle With You, Andy B 2 Minute Video
Have you ever heard the phrase ‘meet God in the middle’?
On the one hand it is simply ridiculous that ewe can ever meet God half way – since He is omnipresent. If He is everywhere, then there can be no middle!
But, I do think it is good to consider what it is that God is asking of us. After all, if we simply sat back and said ‘Ok God, I’ll wait for you to move’ we’d have missed the point of the entire scripture. We’d also miss the reason why Jesus became Man, died on a cross, and died – so that we could have a relationship with God.
This would not have been possible without what Jesus did when He descended to hell and defeated even death – the one certainty every one of must face.
To be a Christian; to be a disciple of Jesus – is to embrace change and to seek to honour all that Jesus spoke in that wonderful template for how to pray we often far too easily simply, lazily, recite as the Lord’s Prayer without considering it’s true meaning and power of those precious words spoken by Jesus Himself. And that is that we are to bring heaven on earth, by literally being heaven on earth – by being and showing the light of Jesus in all that we do - whether that is how we drive, speak about others, refuse to engage in gossip or laughing at rude jokes. It is reflected by whether use a friend’s copy of software rather than buying it ourselves, or not returning items of food we forgot to pay for in a supermarket.
A disciple of Jesus is not simply one who is destined for heaven. A disciple of Jesus needs to work out what God is asking us to do as we journey to heaven. And that journey requires movement on our part – towards Jesus, and towards people who also need Jesus, just as much as we do.
I’ve seen many churches who almost revel in praying about anything – in order to not have to do anything. And I say that as one who has been in full-time church ministry!
Yes, let’s pray. Absolutely. Prayer changes everything! Truly!!! But, let’s not use prayer as a means of preventing having to actually do something. Jesus prayed before doing…not instead of doing.
We need to meet God in the middle, by asking God what it is He wants us to actually do.
The life of a Christian is one of doing, not just being. Yes, let’s take time simply ‘being’ in the presence of God. But, let’s also ensure we are being the people God desires us to be and bringing His heaven on earth.
Just a thought...
Andy B
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Transcript
0:06
So another Andy B 2 Minute Video. And I was thinking about being Stuck In The Middle, and where is the middle? And how do you define the middle?
0:14
If you take a straight line, and you measure it, you can split it in half, and you can find the middle, that's fairly straightforward. You take 10, divide by two, you got five, that's the middle. There are ways of looking at the middle. But I'm thinking about the middle in terms of how do we work out where we do stuff, and let God do the rest. Where is that point? That break point?
0:37
I'm using the middle because it's often said, we do our part, and God does His part. And, you know, 50 / 50. We kind of think in those ways. And sometimes it might be 1% on our effort and 99% by God. And, actually, sometimes I think we do an awful lot more. God desires of that. He pushes us. He, He pulls us towards Him.
0:55
So, I've been thinking, how much is it that we do? How much should we do when God's asking us to, to obey Him? And not just to be, but to do? What does doing 50% look like, metaphorically speaking? What does 'meeting God in the middle' actually looked like in real terms?
1:15
As I think about the energy crisis here in the UK, there's lots of very frightened people. I look ahead and think I have no idea how we're going to do it. I know God will be with us, but I still don't know the answer. So, as a family, we're meeting God in the middle. We're looking at our finances, and we're saying, where can we cut back? Now there's basically no way we can cut back. But there are places that we can maybe spend a little bit less. And there are places where we can pray more. And there are certainly things that we can not waste so much. Electric is a is a good one of that. So, we're not going to use a tumble dryer unless we absolutely must. We've got pretty good drying abilities in the house. The sun is on a window that comes through all day. So we can meet God in the middle of by doing our part. This is very functional.
1:59
We've just bought another slow cooker so we can do a cheap soup for lunch, and we can do a slow cooked meal for the night time as well and we can cook both side by side. It's cheaper than using an oven and everything else.
2:12
Meeting God in the middle means we do stuff, we have to go to God. We have to do something. We don't just sit back and say 'Oh, go on then God you sort it'. That's not the Christian walk.
2:22
So, where is God asking you to meet Him in the middle by doing something for Him? Maybe it's looking at your own finances and saying 'How can I best use this for God's kingdom?'
2:31
Don't be afraid to go to God and say, 'Lord, what is it you asked me to do? Where do I do stuff? And where do you want me to take a break? And where do want me to say okay, now it's over to you, Lord.
2:42
Just a thought.