I remember the first time I was old enought to vote. I walked into the polling station and crossed the boxes of the candidates I had decided deserved my vote, folded the paper and put it into the big black box.
Every time I look back on that day, I shudder and apologies to God for taking my responsibility as a citizen of England and the UK so lightly. The total time spent researching the policies of each party and candidate: nil. The number of debates, TV news reports or newspaper articles read on the various key voting areas: none. The number of foolish and unwise votes cast by me: 2.
Thankfully, the Christian Institute is an excellent organisation which is committed to helping Christians in the area of government and politics. One of the most valuable and beneficial resources they produce is a briefing paper for General Elections. There 2010 briefing paper is now available online.
If, like me, you want to avoid casting a poorly thought through vote in this coming General Election, then I would encourage you to spend about 5 minutes reading this briefing paper to get a better understanding of each party and be better equipped to vote wisely.
Over the past few weeks our 11-14s youth group have been voting for a Tune Of The Term. This is where each week for three weeks we play a song by a Christian artist with the lyrics on screen and then the members get to vote for which is their favourite song. The perk for the members is that one person from the votes taken for each song gets to win that song on MP3 CD.
The song that the members picked as their Tune Of The Term was a song by Beckah Shae called Here in this moment. The chorus goes like this...
You are Love, you are life, you’re the air that I breathe, you’re my day and my night. You’re my joy, you’re my peace, you’re the wings for my flight and vision to my sight. You are truth, you are power, gave me faith to believe, brought me straight to my knees. Now I’m standing here in this moment with you, there’s nowhere I’d rather be.
I think it is such a great blessing to have great Christian music that is well written but also in a style that fits with our culture and produced to such a high standard.
Q: What connects the Brand New Heavies with Jesus? A: Apparently nothing.
Apparently Nothing was a single released in 1999 by the funk acid jazz group, The Brand New Heavies.
"What has this got to do with Jesus?" I hear you ask. Let's take a look at Romans 8:37-39...
In all these things [various hardships] we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39
Well known and often quoted as favourite verses in the Bible, this bit of Romans take us plumeting through the very fabric of our universe in search of anything that can keep us from the love of God in Jesus. Starting with the sheer absolute certainty of life and death we descend rapidly into the heavenly realms of angels and forces of evil. From there we traverse the space-time continuum as we consider the areas of time, phyical laws and geographical expanses. Last of all, we're left only with a quick run through every species of animal, every type of plant, every object and created thing there has ever or will ever be.
What can keep us from the love of God in Jesus Christ?
You are Love, you are life,