The Star

Visitors last week who belong to a sect which focuses on matching current world events to Biblical prophecy. Their attitude was fatalistic, as they believe that God has a pre-ordained plan and all we can do is try to read the signs of the times and distance ourselves from the world. 

Their focus  is on digging into Scripture in order to identify its correlation to world events; mine is to dig into Scripture in order to deepen my relationship with Jesus. I don’t want to get hung up on the scenery and staging and miss the star. 

I recently took a cookbook out of the local library which is full of recipes to combat the onset of dementia. (No signs of it so far ... but dealing with it in loved ones makes me aware.) The writers prefaced the recipes by going into great detail about each food and vitamin which either nurtures or shrinks our brains’ cognitive capacity. I nearly fell down the rabbit hole of thinking I needed to learn it all to apply it to every meal I prepare from now on.

For me, that would drain the joy out of cooking and eating.

I stepped back and picked out a few recipes which appealed. We have just eaten a very delicious spicy lentil soup, followed by a Moroccan couscous. I can just about cope with learning four or five new dishes and adding them to my repertoire, hoping that they, along with a greater intake of fish, fresh fruit and veg ... and that daily glass of red wine and bit of dark chocolate ... will keep the little grey cells connected.

Food is for enjoying; life is for living; Jesus came so that we could have life to the full. Joy to the world, the angels sang. The Lord has come!

Intrinsic Value - GOLD!

A man, learning to pan for gold in the Scottish borders, reached into a stream and pulled out a rather boring looking rock. He was about to throw it back in but then thought better of it and asked his teacher if it were anything special.

It was a gold nugget worth around £10,000.  Hidden within some red mineral encasement. It took the trained eye of an expert to recognise it for what it was.

Every day we meet new people. Some we are tempted to dismiss, to discard them from our lives because we fail to recognise the gold hidden deep inside. 

Every day we meet up with friends, acquaintances and even family, and can often be quick to note the dirt but slow to mention the gold. Shame on us.

I’ve heard Godly prophecy described as the act of ‘calling out the gold’ in an individual. Christians are meant to be encouragers. We are meant to look at the ordinary and discern the extraordinary. We are meant to live close to our living Lord so that he can open our eyes to see the beauty in everyone we meet. 

A prophetic word should lift someone up and help them to see themselves as God sees them. It should motivate others to go for it, to stretch that little bit higher, run that little bit faster, bend that little bit lower, to achieve great things for Jesus. 

I’d love to live in a matrix of encouragement, where the Christian community sought to perceive only that of intrinsic worth in one another and never, ever, tried to pull someone down. With the help of the Holy Spirit, I want to live each day seeking to see the gold in others. Don’t you?