Awakening

John 17:23

“I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Jesus is about to be arrested. He prayed for himself, for his disciples and now he begins to pray for those who will come to believe in him after his resurrection through the testimony of the disciples. Essentially he’s praying for us.

His prayer is focused on UNITY. On Relationship. Jesus has experienced such a Unity with the Father such an intimate love with the Father that He had to share that unity, that love and that relationship with us.

He is in us. We are in him.

As he is praying he asks his Father… ‘May they be brought to complete unity.’ Both with Him in relationship but also with each other!
The purpose of this unity is that the world (the people around us every day) may see this unity, a unity that perhaps doesn’t make sense in the natural.
This un-natural unity is to declare to the world that God Loves Us!

Ephesians 2:3 Paul speaking of God says:

 “His intent was that now THROUGH THE CHURCH, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.”

Here Paul says that when the Church is united… Gentiles and Jews, people who in the natural shouldn’t be getting on but when they are living in unity the wisdom of God, the GLORY of God SHOULD be and WILL be made known to the world.

Essentially the world should be baffled at such love and such unity.

The idea is that a group of believers from different backgrounds and circumstances living in unity and loving one another, SHOULD & WILL convince and declare to the World the love and truth of JESUS!

This in-fact is the purpose of the church.

WOW…

I love the Awakening Conference for this reason.

Joining with hundreds of Young Adults from different circumstances and backgrounds as we come together in unity is a truly incredible thing. Each year I am in awe as we worship together, pray together and grow together!

Just maybe this unity, this love that we experience WILL declare to the world the GLORY and LOVE and the TRUTH of JESUS.

See you at AWAKENING!

Nathan May
Change, C3 Auckland

1 Thessalonians 2:19
For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?

The thought of Jesus coming back is incredibly exciting but also totally freaky
What will I be doing when he returns, if I am still alive?
When I do meet Him face to face what will my hope be in?
Where will my joy be placed?

Paul asks the Thessalonians a strong rhetorical question
What is our Hope?
What is our Joy?
What is the crown we will be wearing and glorying in when Jesus rocks up?
Is it not you?

I think my religious side would say, oh you Lord are my joy!  You oh Lord are my hope!!?

Which scriptually is totally true and is the foundation and cornerstone of our faith, hope and love in this world and the life to come. JESUS.

However it is easy to get stuck in lip service to God, saying He is our hope and our joy but at the same time missing the point.

Is not Paul saying that the people that are all around us and the people we are yet to meet are our joy and hope?

People are the crown we will wear

People that we lead to Jesus are our hope

People that we serve are our joy

Jesus who is God (Colossians 1:15) showed us as he walked the planet that we were His joy

For the joy set before Him he endured the cross

What suffering are we willing to walk through for other people so they would experience the radical grace of Jesus?

Do we consider this a joy?

I know I don't always do this and people sometimes are the biggest burden not joy

So perhaps my heart needs to be regenerated and refreshed and refilled with the spirit of Christ that empowered Him even as God humbled himself to die the death of a criminal for us and count it Joy! 

What?? 

How great is this love???

Fill me Lord with this heart for others!

The Holy Spirit has been given to us for others...

If God can hope in us surely we can hope in each other?

If God can die for us surely we can smile and open the door for someone?

If God can reach out to the blind man, the beggar, the broken, the helpless, the rich, the religious, the bleeding, the possessed, the hungry, the prodigal, the old, the young, the sinner then we can reach out to one another and count it as a joy.

When Jesus looks me in the eyes what will he find?

When Jesus raises His eyes to see the top of my head what crown will he find?

I pray I am wearing those that God has called me to reach, serve and encourage as my hope, as my joy and my glory.

Look to Jesus, then follow His heartbeat and it will lead you to the person next to you today, it will lead you to those your heart burns for, trust His spirit, He is leading you...

Thanks for reading, be blessed for you are blessed.

It all hangs on this

+jk

Passion is one of those words that brings with it heaps of connotations. When I say passion several ideas come to mind, fanatic fans, a young couple in love, a person fiddling with his hobby, the athlete practising for hours in the rain and the preacher sweating and spitting behind the pulpit.
What is passion though? Can you measure it by volume, time or anything else? Often we think of passion as the person in front of church that during the sermon says “amen” the loudest, during praise and worship jumps the highest or attends the most amounts of services.
Passion though in its purest form of definition comes from the Latin word that is translated “suffering” or “pain”, which is why the last hours of Jesus are described as “the passion of Christ”. Why is passion, as we know it, linked with suffering though?
“What will you go through?”
I believe passion is, “what you are willing to go through, to get to that which you are passionate about.” Passion is not about how loud you get or how high you jump. Those can be side effect of your passion but at the end of the day, passion is a deep resolve in one’s heart. It’s a person sold out for a cause and who is willing to go through anything. Or if we are to use the definition of the word, it’s a determination that no amount of temporary pain or suffering will stop me from pursuing and getting to the object of my passion.
Look at the example of Jesus in Hebrews 12:2-3 (NIV)
“2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Jesus was willing to endure such pain and suffering for the joy set before Him; for the passion before Him. This is why the cross shows our true value and is the perfect description of God’s love for humanity. So my first question when it comes to passion is “what will you go through?” If there is a limit to what you are willing to go through, there is a limit to your passion. Note: please don’t fall in the trap here and think suffering is only being taken hostage in some jungle where you are threatened with death if you don’t deny Jesus. Often it is harder to go through a mundane week at uni or work than the extreme situations, where everything is a high-pressure situation. I speak out of experience here.
“Then what?”
The second question I have for you is, what will happen once you catch, what you are passionate about? Then what?

So many people chase fame, fortune, relationships, a paycheck, a car, a ministry opportunity or something else but have you ever thought about life after the chase? Then what? So you get job, then what? So she finally gives in and starts to go out with you or even marry you, then what? The question, you must ask yourself, is what you’re pursuing above anything else, able to sustain you??? If the object of your passion can’t sustain you, you are wasting your time. All you have become is a man dancing around a golden calf.
Return the Passion.
Can I urge you, make Jesus your number one passion! How do you  get passionate about Him? You return the passion. He is so in love with you and He is so passionate about you! We love Him because He first loved us. If your passion has grown cold, then start your pursuit at the passion to have a passion for Him. He is found in the pursuit of Him. The beautiful thing is that when you seek Him, He is able to sustain you. You seek Him first and all the smaller passions in life will come as they take their rightful place in the greater plan God has for your life.

Bless you,
Thomas Hansen
Young Adults Pastor for Powerhouse Central, Hillsong

Why do we gather?

20For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." - Matthew 18:20 (NIV)

So this week has been pretty crazy. It started off with a tickle in my throat. Then 3 hours in a doctor’s waiting room only to leave with a surgical mask on my face and a box of tamiflu under my arm. For those who don’t follow the news in Australia – Tamiflu is the treatment for Swine flu.

I was basically told to quarantine myself for 5 days and the doctor informed me that Swine flu takes about 6 weeks to be treated and clear up.

All of this combined with the fact that it is only 7 days before my wedding really freaked me out.

In the past few weeks a number of people in Australia have died after suffering from Swine flu. My thoughts went to the darkest of places. I thought of having to cancel my wedding. Images of wedding photos in surgical masks flashed through my head. I even had thoughts of potentially dying and leaving my wife to be alone.

I turned to my pastor for prayer and when I said to him “I just hope I am better before the wedding” he replied “Don’t hope. BELIEVE!” Another friend of ours texted the whole team asking them to pray for me and a close friend came to visit me at home and prayed with me.

One day later and I am recovering a lot quicker than what the doctor said I would.

All of this really changed what I thought about the reasons as to why we gather together. When I first started thinking of this topic I initially went to the thought of big church gatherings where we experience a mind blowing move of the spirit of God but the fact is that I have been to some church’s around the world that comprise of 15 people and the meetings have been just as anointed and powerful and some conferences of 20000 people.

I believe the power in gathering together has a lot less to do with gathering together physically and a lot more to do with gathering together spiritually.

See when we gather together in agreement spiritually our faith rises.

That’s why Church, big or small, will always be powerful! It is a gathering of people in spiritual agreement and celebration of the love of Jesus Christ. That’s why at we see more healings in a church environment. That’s why we see more salvation in a church environment.

I was hoping to get better quickly but when people gathered with me and we agreed over healing I actually believed it!

Sometimes it seems impossible that all the church’s denominations will ever get over their theological and doctrinal squabbles and work together for the greater good but every year, when young adults from all nations and denominations come and agree together and celebrate together at Awakening I actually believe it.

Awaken this Love.

JC.
By Joel Corrigan - speaker and leader from CHANGE community

The joys and frustrations of Witnessing:
‘Square pegs can’t fit in round holes’

by Tom Muller

Witnessing to those who we know in our lives about the good news of Jesus Christ, brings them a message of hope, light and salvation. It is an integral part of living a missional life for and with Jesus, as we heed His call to enter into culture, preach the gospel and make disciples. The joy of knowing God, and living by his gift of imputed righteousness transcends anything else and it is this joy that encourages us to share to those around us the gospel, the power of God for salvation.  But "witnessing" can sometimes feel like an ambiguous task. What exactly is it and what is the best way? Well unfortunately for all of us there are no secret formulas or special techniques, no matter what you may have lately researched on youtube. But perhaps this is where the beauty lies. Each individual deserves the opportunity to have the gospel effectively presented to them in a way that is relevant and appropriate for their current context and life situation. Now this does not mean that the gospel is compromised or changed in a way to meet the felt needs of those around us in a last ditch effort to entice their conversion, a prevailing problem in contemporary consumer driven religion. It just means that those we are witnessing to deserve the dignity of having us make the effort to not only understand their own world-view and where they are at in life but to effectively convey the message of Jesus in a way that they will understand. This involves time, lots and lots of time. In my experience preaching the gospel in a  'shoot from the hip' type of fashion has rarely seen many results. Time is needed to build relationships of trust and love, which in and of themselves express the Trinitarian nature of God and the purpose of the gospel, to be reconciled to a relationship with the Father. It is through such relationships that the gospel can be effectively appropriated and spelled out gradually both in dialogue and through our lives as believers. Time is needed to understand the intricacies of alternative belief systems in order to have these effective dialogues. For example, I regularly spend time with philosophical atheists (meaning they reject the possibility of God on philosophical grounds). I have many interesting conversations with them about my faith in Christ. Yet in doing so I must be aware that attempting to validate the gospel by appealing to the penal substitutionary atonement of our sins by the Son of God for our salvation is ineffective. Why? Because my atheist friends hold vastly different presuppositions than the presuppositions needed to find a statement like that compelling. Firstly, they do not believe in a God who is existent, who determines what is right and wrong and then who is compelled to hold us accountable for our rights and wrongs. Therefore secondly they do not believe in sin as something needing to be cosmically vindicated for. Hence thirdly the statement “God died for our sins” is in complete disagreement with the first two propositions and therefore is irrelevant in relation to the framework of their world-view. For someone to hip shoot a statement to them such as "Jesus died for your sins" is like fitting a square peg into a round hole, it just isn't compatible to their world-view, it means nothing to them. Expounding on this analogy, time is needed for both parties to understand what makes the round hole round, and how that differs from what makes the square peg square. Once this is achieved it is possible to journey together in understanding why each world-view is contrastingly different allowing those who are hearing the gospel the adventure of coming to understand its truth by allowing the opportunity for their round hole to become a square one, instead of tossing it into the wind. For me this would mean spending time in explaining not only that Jesus has died for our sins but why I believe God to be true, sin to be real, the historicity of Jesus credible and the effect of the gospel on my life as more than a mere illusion. Spending time and effort towards understanding the positions of doubting unbelievers who may very well want to accept Christ but can’t, due to numerous intellectual/cultural/experiential reasons, in the attempt to aid in the working out of these issues may be the most loving way in which to lead someone to Christ. Because it is not easy, it is not quick and it usually challenges our own faith to the core. And unfortunately the Church has for too long winced unlovingly away from the rationally doubtful, fearful of the probing objections that pierce the pseudo-protective sheath of dogma.