Archive for December, 2008

What is Forgiveness?

by Hugh on December 19, 2008 in Faith with No comments

Forgiveness isn’t easy, it’s not free or even cheap, it shouldn’t be assumed, or taken for granted, it’s not about forgetting, or ignoring, or pretending things don’t matter, that they don’t hurt.

Forgiveness is hard, it’s costly, it’s a choice… what does it look like Biblically?

Matthew 18…

The master is within his rights to enslave the servant, that servant is within his rights to throw the other servant into prison because both are creditors (owed money). The master chooses to give up that right and forgives his servant – it is not free, the master bears the debt of the servant himself. That servant chooses not to give up his rights against the other servant, he chooses not to forgive.

Luke 15…

This is what the elder brother in the parable should have done; this is what a true elder brother should have done. He would have said, “Father, my younger brother has been a fool, and now his life is in ruins. But I will go and look for him and bring him home. And if the inheritance is gone – as I suspect – I’ll bring him back into the family at my expense.”

……Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn’t mercy, but forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting forgiveness.

Tim Keller, The Prodigal God (pg. 82-83)

Hebrews 9:22

“…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

God’s forgiveness of us is not free, there is a heavy cost, the greatest debt to pay, the greatest sacrifice made, His Son.

Grace from Glen

by Hugh on December 18, 2008 in Faith, Random with 1 Comment

The first time I met Glen Scrivener he encouraged me with the gospel. He still does it, though I haven’t seen him in person for a while…

I remember speaking with a Christian man about his extra-marital affair from years earlier. As he spoke about the pain of those memories I said to him You realise that in the midst of the very worst of that, Jesus was rejoicing over you as a Bridegroom rejoices over His bride. He paused for a long time and said “That makes it a hundred times worse!” I said Yes it does. A thousand times worse. We think that we manage to sin away in a corner somewhere. No, no, no. Just read 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 to see that we are very much united to Christ in our sin!

We stink of pig in the Father’s arms. That’s a thousand times worse than stinking in the sty. But it’s a milliontimes better too.

The above from a post on the Prodigal Son, and the follow up post – Sinning really isn’t the worst thing

If you’ve never read is blog, you should.

If you live near Eastbourne, go and meet the man.

What do you do when life gets crap?

by Hugh on December 18, 2008 in Faith, Life with No comments

Sin.
Get angry with other people.
Be part of the Church.
Live out Psalm 62.

I’ve found that 1 and 2 are really easy to do, but just make things a whole lot worse.

3 and 4 are harder, but liberating and life-giving. Surrounding yourself with God’s people and trusting him, is the solution to life’s crap… even though it seems easier to do things your own way (1 and 2).

Don’t Waste your Sexuality

by Hugh on December 17, 2008 in Faith with No comments

Chappo on Personal Evangelism

by Hugh on December 13, 2008 in Faith with 1 Comment

The other month John Chapman came to Sussex, Crowborough to be precise… he did a couple of talks on how pastors go about doing personal evangelism under the title “Still Fishing?”.

He’s pretty old, but he’s still got the passion, and still got the balls just to say it as it is… so they were pretty good talks, download below:

Chappo – part 1

Chappo – part 2

Is it ungodly?

by Hugh on December 5, 2008 in Life with No comments

…to be angry and stressed and frustrated and annoyed and seriously p’ed off?

Is it ungodly to release some of these feelings into a leather bag filled with old socks or something like that?

I’m not sure, seems a pretty fun way to do it… or should we be solely reliant on praying away our anger… discuss.

Anyway, myself, housemate and mate from over the road clubbed together and invested in a punch bag, it’s a good laugh, good exercise, good for releasing some stress and it’s better for all concerned than punching a real person!

Kids Talks

by Hugh on December 4, 2008 in Faith, Talks with 1 Comment

I did a couple of kids talks last month, which to my surprise I quite enjoyed…

The first one was at church and about Reformation Day and Martin Luther:

I started off by asking the kids what special day happens on the 31st October… of course they all said Halloween… I told them they were wrong – it’s Reformation Day.

Got a kid dressed up in a beret and a beer mug to look like Martin Luther and made a little gag about farting and burping. Told the story of Luther, and that he got cross with the church… cue entrance of big door to which my volunteer dressed as Luther nailed a big sheet of paper titled ’95 Theses’.

The big point was that in all of what was going on, Luther said that the most important thing about being a Christian is to be repentant (theses number 1)… so we learned what repentance is…

I got the whole church to stand up, everyone faced to the right, and marching on the spot….

“Repentance is… STOP (everyone stops marching) going our way, (turn to the left and start marching) START going God’s way”

The second one was at the local primary school and about Creation (Gen 1:1-5)…

I borrowed a noise meter from someone at church, and got some of the kids to have a competition, who could shout “let their be light” the loudest.

The point being that God’s is so powerful that his voice is off the scale, and his words actually speak creation into being!

Two big points:

Respect God… because He is powerful

Respect Creation… because God made it good

Article about Blogging

by Hugh on December 2, 2008 in Faith, Life with 3 Comments

So when I went up to London to collect my web award thingy I met a guy called Andy (who Karen described as dishy). Anyway, he runs a Christian magazine amongst other things called ‘Thoughts‘… he asked if I’d write an article about blogging for it which will be published in it next month… here’s what I wrote

Oh, and here’s my acceptance speech from the Award ceremony… yeh I sound pretty dumb.

[flashvideo filename=http://www.christianblogawards.com/videos/8_young_new.flv /]

Blogging Article

by Hugh on December 2, 2008 in Faith, Life with No comments

Blogging

Blogs are surely one of the fastest growing forms of media in the world, and blogging is an increasingly popular hobby. Cyberspace is now teeming with news reporters and cultural/social/political commentators, sharing their thoughts and opinions about anything and everything.

The word blog is short for web log, which is whatever you want it to be: an online diary/journal, links to your favourite sites on the Internet, comments on the latest news and events, or thoughts and reviews about recent book/film/music releases. When it comes to blogging, there’s massive potential for anyone to write about anything and share it with the world.

Why blog?

There are many reasons why people might blog let me share with you why I decided to blog, why I still blog, and how I try and use blogging to glorify God my kind of worship if you like.

When I started at University three years ago I started meeting lots of new people, doing exciting things and learning lots. I thought that I really should write some of it down, and being a bit of a computer geek the best place to have this diary had to be on a website!

My blog developed beyond just stuff about my life. I started blogging about God stuff too, I’d blog about things that God was teaching me or about difficult theological issues. I wasn’t coming up with all the answers, a lot of the time it was just more questions, but it was a helpful place to think through some big issues and it turned out that others found it helpful too and enjoyed reading along.

So how can you glorify God through blogging? Talking and writing about the good news of Jesus gives God glory! We can worship Him by writing words that will encourage and build up other Christians and will help those who are not yet Christians to understand more of who Jesus is. Those are simple things, and we may use simple words, but who knows how God might use our words?

What to blog?

Blog about what you know and like. Don’t fake an interest or knowledge about a subject just to put it on your blog, anyone can do that and it’s not going to be worth reading. Lots of people have been blogging about the American election recently, but there’s no point in me doing that, I know nothing about American politics!

I’ve found that blogging can be a good tool for evangelism. It’s not an excuse to not actually talk to people about Jesus but a lot of people will read what you write! I started importing my blog posts into Facebook and pretty soon this lead to conversations about Jesus with a friend, which wouldn’t have happened without those posts! So write about Jesus, write about things that you learn, stuff God teaches you, books or people that have encouraged you.

How to blog?

Find a blogging site to host your blog for you. Best places to try are either wordpress.com or blogger.com, it’s really easy to get set up. Then start writing! It’s really that easy.

Add pictures to your posts, they make it look more interesting to read. Remember to read what you’ve written before you post it! Don’t write something that you wouldn’t say in public the Internet offers a certain amount of anonymity, but don’t be ungodly in what you say. Add some links to your favourite websites and blogs, that’s often how you find good blogs to read

Where to read?

Now reading blogs can be quite time consuming, and while they can be very thoughtful and encouraging always remember that you’re better off reading a good book, and it’s no substitute for getting down to just read the Bible! Having said that here’s a couple of good blogs to whet your appetite and maybe they’ll give you the inspiration to start blogging yourself:

Emily Woods - http://unfurlingflower.blogspot.com/

Hugh Bourne (that’s me) – http://www.hughbourne.co.uk

Last month I won the Young Christian Blogger of 2008 award, Emily Woods won it in 2007, next year it could be you!