Where my heart is at currently..

Hey friends! Long time no speak. I hope we’re all well considering everything that’s going on. I just wanted to encourage you that with everything that’s going on we serve a prince of peace, justice and LOVE. Gods heart is for the people and so is mine!

I can’t lie to you, my head has been in a million places at once during this lockdown period. Particularly with the presence of social injustice becoming more apparent to me. The resurfacing of the Black Lives Matter Movement, the humanitarian problem in Yemen and so much more got me pondering on which role I play. often, because so many of these issues are not necessarily close to us, we tend to de-attach ourselves from it BUT this is so completely wrong. As followers of Christ, it is our responsibility to take on the burdens of others just as he took up our burdens, we need to "take up our crosses daily" Luke 9:23. I'm not saying we need to ALL change the world and be the next Martin Luther King, but what I am saying is that we all have a part to play and that is to love. Love takes different capacities, but I want to particularly discuss the importance of serving and humility.

This realisation has made me particularly thankful for this lockdown period, as inevitably I’ve been put into a position where I have to think! Upon thinking and reflecting, I realised how selfish I am. Like I knew we were all inherently selfish and only really have our interests at heart but it never occurred to me to personalise this and TRULY do something about this. It’s so crazy how I always tend to have this “ them” vs “us” mentality. Which is so un-christ-like!!! Let me say for example when the whole issue of Coronavirus become apparent in January/ February I didn’t pay ANY mind to it. Like maybe I said “ oh wow that’s so sad” BUT I shrugged it off as not my problem.. till it becomes my problem!! Till it became ALL of our problems. In a way, I feel SO guilty, that it had to take something like this to put life into perspective. Only now am I realising to be a Christian ( a follower of Christ) my HEART needs to BREAK for the things that break Gods heart!! OUR hearts need to break for what breaks Gods. We can’t claim to be His children if we’re disinterested in the interests of God. It’s a weird thought but it’s so so true. Meaning that because of our inherently selfish human nature we need to unlearn certain things that are our reality.

For me, I can identity 3 things that I need to change my outlook in life: 

• Deeming myself and my interests as more important than others 

• Loving others based on what they can do for me

• Serving others when I feel like it 

Today, we will be discussing the first point.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before BUT Paul is my absolute favourite person in the bible at the moment. He’s just genuinely such a COOL guy!! To me, his lifestyle really just epitomised Jesus Christ. His habits of self-surrender, gratitude and selflessness are truly an encouragement to us as Christians and it gives us hope that whilst we may have never seen Jesus in the flesh! We can still encapsulate his character by reading the word of God! Paul in Philippians presents us the perfect example of how to live life in the midst of a storm ( similar to us right now, Paul was “locked in prison” as we are in lockdown”). He seized this opportunity of imprisonment to thank the people in Phillipi for their gifts & he wanted to encourage them to stand firm and strong in their faith during the midst of persecution. He wanted to drill in the heart attitude of rejoicing at all times!! The main mechanism he used was to reinforce the importance of unity, humility and community. I love this whole heart attitude because it really does show Paul’s love for others.

1. Deeming myself and my interests as more important than others

"So I’m asking you, my friends, that you be joined together in perfect unity—with one heart, one passion, and united in one love. Walk together with one harmonious purpose and you will fill my heart with unbounded joy.3Be free from pride-filled opinions,for they will only harm your cherished unity. Don’t allow self-promotion to hide in your hearts, but in authentic humility put others first and view others as more important than yourselves.4Abandon every display of selfishness. Possess a greater concern for what matters to others instead of your own interests." Philippians 2:2-4

If I'm being completely honest with you, this bit of Philippians 2, is just filled with GEMS (if you have time go read it all, you won't regret it I promise!!!). Everything is so individually profound but I do want to dissect and hone into the parts that stuck out to me the most. The first one being the idea of "oneness", this to me encapsulates everything the body of Christ is meant to be. we are meant to unite with one heart, one passion and one love. That love is the LOVE of God - the unconditional agape, sacrificial type of love. The type of love that puts others first, the love that stands up for those that can't speak for themselves, the love that stands up for the rights of the destitute, the type of love that defends the rights of the poor and needy (Proverbs 31:8-9). the thing with love is that it starts with the heart! It's all well and good me saying let's learn to love as God does, but if our heart posture is incorrect our actions will subsequently only be inadequate. The tool for identifying our heart is to attempt to decipher where exactly we are prideful and replace this with humility.

Our perfect example of humility is Jesus Christ, Paul in Philippians 2:7, speaks on how Jesus "emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men." Essentially by emptying it means that Jesus took the form of a human, he didn't stop being God but he lowered himself by taking human flesh. If we look at the etymology of "emptied", it means "no reputation" which is the theological idea of kenosis. Which is derived from the Greek prefix 'kenoō' means to make empty i.e. Christ laid aside equality with or the form of God. The latter part of the verse, speaks of a "bondservant". Historically, there was a rule in the law of Moses about slaves, they could only be free from their bondage after 6 years, but if they wanted to stay for their life they could SERVE for the rest of their life. An important point to note out is that bondservants gave up their own will out of freewill. In simpler terms, a bondservant is just a life-long servant. To be a servant is to sacrifice, just as Jesus sacrificed self, this is the same way we should try to die to our selfish carnal flesh and adopt a new life of freedom. 

Meaning, if we are to be like Jesus and encapsulate his characteristics in its entirety, we can't afford to only adopt the mentality of a servant when we feel like it, it must be a constant thing, a lifelong thing and something we are willing to do forever. I don't say this to discourage us, but simply for us to take it one day at a time, being intentional in the way we treat others.

We need to have this "authentic humility" and "put others first and view others as more important than yourself". This isn't to say we deny ourselves completely, but it is to say that a re-evaluation needs to be done on how we deem other people! Over the next few days, I will be further dissecting this scripture and because I believe it's so paramount for us as Christians to be the light during this particularly DARK season and we can only adequately represent Gods heart if we can understand what his heart is saying. I don't know it all, and I'm still on this journey alongside you guys, but what I do know is that there is a part I can play today. That will matter to someone. That will matter to God. I do know, that whilst I may not have a lot I can still use what's in my hands.

Don't know where to start?

A good place to start is by donating to charities. I know for me, I'm still a student and I don't have a stable income as of yet so I can't donate nearly as much as I would like to, but there are ways around it. For example, volunteering your time with charities. I only started really during this lockdown period, but there are charities like "Grace Sustains Africa" who are doing AMAZING work in Mumbai in Sierra Leone to provide the small village with PPE equipment and water fountains (I've linked it if you want to donate💗) This is just one of the MANY ways that you could be helping someone this lockdown period. Even a PRAYER goes a long way, it's just the principle of humility and treating others as more important than ourselves. ITS SOOOOOOOO SOOOOO hard, but this is where the Holy Spirit comes in!!!! (scriptures for reference Romans 8 & Galatians 5)

Question of the day:

Is there someone that that I could serve with my time, my money or my prayer?

Todays Encouragement / Prayer

Whilst life may be harder than ever during this period, this just highlights the importance of community and unity. The importance to have one heart, one mind and one love. This is why we pray that the Holy Spirit provides us with the strength to just make that decision to serve someone in our world today. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I just pray that

God places one person in my heart that I can serve today. In the mighty name of Jesus, we prayed (and the church said). AMEN!

Think of a way to serve others, I promise you won't regret it!!!!

Remain ever blessed and stay tuned for RELAUNCH WEEK!!!!!