The danger is we can bring this approach to life to church and to God. We come to church to receive, sings some songs that make ourselves feel better. We come for friendships and an environment that is safe.

We need to understand what happened to us when we came to Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:4-5 tells us that God chose us. We did not choose him. This is so that we cannot boast about our own salvation.

John 3:5-6 shows that it is only by a massive work of the Holy Spirit that we are saved. It was the Holy Spirit that breathed life into us. Again, evidence that it was not something we could achieve on our own.

We should be consumed by God, not consumers of God.

We must be wary of creating Christian “celebrities”. We label people as “super Christians”. We want to be like them. Like a consumer! We need to want to be like Jesus, no-one else.

Here’s the challenge: Being a Christian should look like something! We need to stand out for the right reasons. Have you grown as a Christian recently? Why not? Are you consuming too much?

This talk can be downloaded from the Gateway Church Swindon website: http://www.gatewaychurchswindon.org.uk/audio/

When we come to church on a Sunday we bring lots of baggage with us: Happiness, sadness, excitement, disappointment, etc. But Whatever is going on, like David in this Psalm we must not forget about God. We must keep reminding ourselves who he is.

We need to learnt to speak and preach to ourselves more often. The world says “the first sign of madness is talking to yourself”, Martin Lloyd-Jones says “letting yourself speak to you is the first sign of madness”.

We must learn to speak to ourselves more often about who God is and just how amazing and vast he is. This is a choice we have to make everyday and it is amazing how quickly our focus can drift from God if we don’t so this regularly.

This is the key to our relationship to God. This is worship.

Worship is not just singing songs on a Sunday morning, it is everything we do in life. The whole act of orientating ourselves towards God is worship. We don’t have to come to church and “wait for the worship to grab me”. Just coming together is joining our lives, wherever we are at, in worship to God.

In Psalm 103 David starts focussed on himself but by the end the focus has shifted to the universe. By talking to himself he has got his head out of himself and onto the vastness of God. We must learn to do the same.

Different translations use different words for “debt” here but ultimately it means our sins. We are all in debt to God because of the sins we have committed again him and against others. Simply rebelling against God and going our own way incurs this debt. The price for this debt is death and eternal separation from God.

However, God has provided a way for us to be released form this debt. But it is not due to anything we do, it is through Jesus dying on the cross and paying it off for us.

This prayer is for believers, it is not meant as a salvation prayer therefore it shows that we don’t get cleaned of our debts once, as soon as we confess our sins we go out and start racking them up once again. Jesus is showing us through this prayer that we need to daily confess our sins and be forgiven. It’s not something God intended us to do once.

Jesus performed many miracles in his time on the Earth but forgiveness is the greatest of them all. Jesus showed in Mark 2 by forgiving the crippled man rather than healing him (although he did heal him on a few minutes later) that it is far more important that we are forgiven than to be healed physically. It is far better to crawl into heaven than to walk into hell.

But we are also to remember that forgiveness is something we give as well as receive. We are called not to hold grudges against anyone but to forgive them as we have been forgiven. Sometimes we can find forgiving others as a very difficult thing to do but it is important to do as unforgiveness can eat away at us over time.

This talk and all the others from this series can be downloaded from the Gateway Church Swindon website: http://www.gatewaychurchswindon.org.uk/audio/

Mark has been preaching through the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6 for a few weeks now. I have to say that it has been one of the best series he has preached. I’ve missed a couple but every one I have heard has been excellent. I love the way each preach focuses on a different line of the prayer.

So this week we move onto to verse 11:

Give us today our daily bread

In today’s society, and in particular in the modern western world, we have become used to being able to pop down the shops to get bread. It is no longer common to wake up each morning and wonder where the food is going to come from. But Jesus clearly tells us to pray this. Why?

1) It’s about trust

Just because resource is easy to come by these days does not mean we should take it for granted. Praying this prayer daily helps remind us that everything from the air we breath to the home we live in and the food we eat is a gift from God.

We need to be careful not to forget this otherwise we may fall into the trap of thinking what we have is of our own doing and take pride in that and forget that only though God do we have what we have.

I was reminded only today I keep hearing stories of people not happy in the jobs and wanting to move on and that I have an excellent job which I prayed about a lot before getting. Every time someone asks me about my job it reminds me to thank God because it is only through him and his timing that I have the job I have. It was not my doing and I can’t ever allow myself to think that.

2) It’s about being content

God gives us everything we need but not always everything we want. We live in a culture where we are bombarded with advertising telling us we need more stuff. We need to learn to trust God for what we need and not be distracted by wants. We must go against culture and learn to be content. This prayer helps us focus on that.

3) It’s about our expectations

Jesus when being tempted in the desert used Deuteronomy 8 against Satan. That man does not live on bread alone. This daily bread is not meant to be only physical stuff but spiritual as well. We must ask God for the daily physical needs as well as our daily spiritual needs.

We need to not set our sights so low when praying to God. We must expect more. Even though God gives us just what we need he is also a generous father and gives us more out of grace and love.

This talk and all the others from this series can be downloaded from the Gateway Church Swindon website: http://www.gatewaychurchswindon.org.uk/audio/

However, once a week I have to sit down at Gateway Church Swindon and pay attention to a real person talking at the front of my church. I find this quite a difficult thing to do as my mind will wander.

Thankfully, I discovered fairly quickly that if I made notes during a sermon I would stay focussed and take on board everything that was being said.

So it was this way this morning. I was sat making my notes as usual. It dawned on me though that despite always making notes and highlighting things which I thought were particularly relevant to me, as soon as church finished I knew I would forget it all. I always have the intention of going back over my notes but I very rarely do.

So it was with some inspiration from God that I came up with this idea: Every week I am going to write a blog post on the day’s talk.

I was told once that no matter how many preaches I listen to, the most important one is the one given at my church on that Sunday. The reason being that that is the sermon that God wants me to hear. This coupled with the fact that I remember things better if I rewrite them in my own words (as hard as this is for me to do) is the motivation for doing what I am about to do.

There may just be some Sunday’s where I don’t get the time to do this or I may just get lazy but my hope is this will be the start of me listening and also remembering what it is that God wants to say to me.

Let the blogging begin…

My foodbank story all started at the beginning of this year. I met Kellie in January and we soon got together in February, I was homeless whereas Kellie was in emergency accommodation. Our benefits were getting delayed and we were struggling to feed ourselves. A friend mentioned to us that there was a company called the foodbank that could help us out, at first it seemed to be too good to be true. We went to the law centre in town and received a voucher entitling us to 3-5 days worth of food that we couldn’t afford to pay for ourselves.

So off we went to the foodbank one day and were given around six bags of food and met some wonderful people in the process. Over the coming months we visited a few more times, during this time the council finally found me a flat, as I was homeless however I had no furniture and hardly any belongings to move in with. Richard and his wife Sandra pointed me to the furniture project that was run by a member of their church and within a few months I had everything in place that i needed.

However during this time I had to make regular visits to the foodbank to just be able to feed myself and Kellie. Whilst we were choosing the furniture we were so touched by the generosity of the people helping that we decided to attend their church as a mark of thanks and respect.

The Sunday morning we attended something struck deep within us, seeing all the people there so friendly and passionate in what they believed in. It left a lasting impression on us and we started attending more and more often, soon after we were invited to join a small group from the church to learn and gain a wider understanding of God.

On 22^nd November 09 Kellie and I were baptised and in a way our story all started with a visit to the foodbank to receive help that we wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere else. In the long run we both know it was God’s plan for the both of us and we’re planning our wedding at the church early in 2010.

This is our story, I hope you enjoy it at much as we are!

For more information about Swindon Foodbank please look a their website at http://www.swindonfoodbank.co.uk

This is where my faith-based podcasts come in. I was first introduced to some preachers from around the world when I first started getting into God properly and haven’t stopped listening since.

I have dabbled with a number of different speakers over the years but below are the ones I listen to regularly and try and keep up to date with:

Andy Stanley (North Point Community Church)

http://www.northpoint.org/messages

Andy Stanley (along with the brilliant Louie Giglio) was the first preacher I listened to from another church. He heads up one of the largest churches in America and is a very gifted speaker. He is in his 40s and is very down to Earth in the way he speaks. I find the topics he covers excellent for new Christians and even though he is usually quite light on the doctrine I still find his talks excellent to listen to.

John Piper (Desiring God)

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/

I would describe John Piper as being at the opposite end of the spectrum to Andy Stanley. I first came across him when when I was still new to the Christian world and found him to be a little heavy and hard to listen to. Coming back to him years later I find him amazing. He seems to know so much about God and the bible and this shows in his very comprehensive messages. He is currently preaching his way through the book of John and has been for well over a year now. Full of doctrine and a definite pick for anyone that wants to learn more about their bible and God.

Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church)

http://www.marshillchurch.org/

Where would a list of preachers be without Mark Driscoll. A man who is still very young for a preacher in his late 30s he has an approach to God and the bible that just rubs off on any of his listeners. He is the only person I know who can bring humour and deep conviction to a message with ease. He is very tough and holds nothing back in his messages but talks with such love that you can’t help but be gripped. He has recently started a series with the aim to preach through every chapter of the book of Luke in 3 years. A stunning speaker and highly recommended to everyone.

Matt Chandler (The Village Church)

http://www.thevillagechurch.net/

I have only been listening to Matt Chandler for a little while and found him to be a very good speaker in the Mark Driscoll mould. Sadly, late last year, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour and understandingly hasn’t been speaking for a while. My thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and young family.

Mark Thornett, Nigel Howarth and Colin Thornton (Gateway Church Swindon)

http://gatewaychurchswindon.org.uk/audio/

And how can I complete a list of preaches without mentioning my own church? While I don’t listen to the online recording often as I usually listen to it first-hand I do recommend it to anyone in the Swindon area if they are interested in finding a local church or just getting an idea of what our church is like.

View the entire series

Within a few months of attending I was asked if I would lead the projection team and take over the running of the IT requirements as the current tech-master was heading off to New Zealand. I felt like this would be a good thing to do so I said yes.

Over the years I have continued to say yes to things and in the end I was not only leading the projection team and heading up IT I was also in charge of the church website, producing the CDs and creating the podcast of the Sunday morning message (and any other recordings we did), running a monthly film night, fixing any computer problems that people had and leading an Alpha discussion group.

Then about three months ago I was asked I would take on the role of Alpha administrator which would mean taking control of all the things that was needed to be done to get the Alpha course going. I prayed about it for a while and didn’t feel like God was telling me not to do it so I said yes.

Then about two months later my kitchen ceiling started to leak.

Then I cracked.

But God was right there with me. The day before He had brought a bible verse to the mind of a very good friend of mine. They thought it was for me but it didn’t seem to fit. That was until I told them about my leaking ceiling. Here it is…

If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks. – Ecclesiastes 10:18

At first they thought that I am neither lazy nor is my house leaking so they ignored it but once I told them about my latest house disaster they decided to share it with me.

It really hit me. While to the outside world I was anything but lazy actually I was. I was so busy all the time that I never did the things that really mattered like being a good steward of the things that God has blessed me with like a home and a family.

That weekend I was going to visit my brother and my mum. I had originally planned to quickly pop up for the day as I needed to get back to do the 100 things that needed doing. In the end I stayed for the weekend.

In the pursuit of doing lots for God I have ended up being an incredibly bad witness. My family only ever saw someone who was always busy. How appealing must that have been to them: “Come and know God and say goodbye to your free time!”

It was time for a change.

I met up with one of the elders of my church, told them how I felt and said I needed to give up everything I was doing.

So I am now on a mission to give up everything I am doing by Christmas and then sit back and spend some time with my family, my house and, most importantly, God.

Already my house is clean and tidy and a much nicer place to live in. I feel less stressed and am on the way to having time for people instead of doing things all the time.

God knows what is best for us and while we may think we know what God wants from us (lots of service, to live by rules) actually all God really wants is for us to love and spend time with Him and each other. The more we do stuff the less time we have to do these things that really matter.

I am a member of Gateway Church Swindon and we have around three baptism services a year. We would love to do more but we can only baptise those that God brings our way. We even have a special baptism pool for the job!

Being baptised is a big decision though and not something we take lightly. We make sure everyone we baptised is cared for by a small group and fully understands the commitment they are making.

So if you are interested in getting baptised or just want to hear more about God why don’t you come along on a Sunday morning at 10.30 and talk to us?