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There are pleasurable and not so pleasurable aspects of a refill that many of us can experience in everyday life.
Pleasurable – it’s only in these past few months that Sue and I have experienced having something to eat in Nando’s. It seems a popular eating establishment and certainly many people seemed surprised when I said I’d never been there. So, we tried it, yes, it was good, we enjoyed it. I did though particularly like the fact that once you’d bought your Coke, Sprite or Fanta you got free refills and obviously I took great advantage of this offer. I meet with a close friend and leader in our church once a week for lunch and catch up, and last time we went they also had started this same offer of free refills.
The not so pleasurable refill is when the fuel gauge on my car is low and I know I have to refill the tank. I remember as a teenager working at a petrol station the year we went decimal and petrol was 33p a gallon – wow – so now £70 - £100 to refill the tank is scary.
God wants the concept of being refilled to be an ongoing and pleasurable experience. I’m sure many of you are aware of the Biblical concept of ‘be being filled’ with the Spirit as being a continuous and for me necessary daily process required to help us navigate through our lives. For me as a leader, sometimes even doing the right thing in what seems to be a simple situation can prove difficult. Again, Paul emphasises this by saying the things he should do he doesn’t and the things he shouldn’t do – he does. A quote that I found to be so helpful in my life and often use when preaching goes as follows, ‘There are two men inside each one of us and the one we feed most gets the strongest’ and this I’m sure is what Paul is meaning. So, ‘be being filled’ is a continual process we work at, as is ‘fan into flame the gift given to you’ or ‘work out your own salvation’.
Why run on empty when you can run on full? My wife Sue has this habit of running the fuel in her car as low as she can, a conversation can go something like this:
Me – ‘You need some petrol in your car love.’
Sue – ‘No, there’s another 10 miles left in the tank and Morrison’s is only one mile away.’
So, I go into lecture mode from the days when I was a motor mechanic, when you let the fuel get too low you tended to pick up rubbish and rust from the bottom of the tank. She just tells me I’m a dinosaur and that doesn’t happen anymore.
I’m the opposite and like to keep the tank topped up, (just in case that rust bit is still true). However, there are a couple of occasions when I’ve judged it wrong and found myself on a motorway almost empty – actually running on fumes and prayer and if we don’t constantly ‘be being filled’ that’s what we do – run on empty, sniffing fumes of spiritual blessing from the past hoping they can get us where we need to go. Incredibly the Bible is full of once great leaders who when they became complacent forgot the source of their blessing and success and lived on the past fumes.
Sampson, when woken up by Delilah with the shout, ‘The Philistines are here to take you’, said, ‘I will just do what I did before’ but unfortunately this time his tank was empty – I will do what I did before, smells like fumes of the past. Nebuchadnezzar when he surveyed all he had and credited himself with his success was now running on empty. King Saul who got to the point where because of his victories, position and power thought he could do what he liked, and as he carried out the sacrifices that he had no right to, was now running on fumes of the past.
So, this is why ‘be being filled’ is so essential and the good news is that God was offering this daily free refill long before Nando’s or any free refill establishment came into being. So, do what I did at my first Nando’s experience – take full advantage of it.
Ian Watson
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Hi everyone
It continues to be an interesting time being part of the Bridge Church with its many ministries and events that continue to touch people’s lives.
The excitement that was generated at our recent baptismal service where 38 people spontaneously responded to the challenge of Dave Harvey to follow the example of the Ethiopian eunuch who said, ‘Here is water, what is stopping me from being baptised?’ has certainly overflowed into the lives of people. It was also a great privilege to be at our Alpha Celebration Supper and hear some of the stories of people whose lives have been changed because they have met Jesus.
Much of this has been happening while I have been involved away from the Bridge in my role on the National Leadership Team of our movement Assemblies of God. In a sense it’s been a thrill to watch all of this take place, and I pass on great credit and appreciation to the ministry team and staff at the Bridge who continue to work hard helping people.
Much love to you all
Ian & Sue
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Be Quiet and Hear More
Over the last few months of the year at the Bridge Church, we are focusing more of our time simply waiting on God and listening to what he is saying to us. I have been encouraging everyone to do this as individuals, as a church and as leaders.
In my recent blog, I talked about standing still and seeing more, in this blog, I want to develop that concept further by focusing on our listening abilities.
During the recent Inspire conference that I was involved with we were encouraged at the end to go away and spend half an hour doing and saying nothing, to turn our phones off and not look at emails. This was quite a challenge and the half hour seemed like forever. On meeting up to discuss our time of quiet, one of the speakers described how he just lay down in the field and enjoyed the silence. However, he went on to explain that slowly the silence became deafening. Because he was quiet he could now hear a dog bark in the distance, a plane passing over him at 30,000 feet, some birds in the distance and someone talking in a garden. Why? Because when we are quiet we hear more, we hear the sounds that our usual noise would normally drown out.
So, two reminders for this week:
1) The longer we stand still the more we see.
2) The longer we are quiet the more we hear.
Maybe pick up on Samuels’s prayer, ‘Speak Lord your servant is listening.’
Also, lets take note of the well known saying, ‘We have two ears and one mouth, so try to use them in that proportion’.
Ian Watson |
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Sue and I have just returned from a couple of week’s holiday mainly in Thailand. In the area we stayed there was an abundance of beautiful coral. Each afternoon the sea went out quiet along way leaving just pools of water and the once submerged coral now prominent.
On quite a few of the afternoons we just watched from the beach as people walked out to the pools and were constantly looking down and pointing to things. Eventually, Sue and I decided to wander out and take a look ourselves. As we continued to walk and look I couldn’t see very much, then Sue would say look at that fish or those colours; the truth was I didn’t see much until I stood still. Then, to my amazement, the longer I stood still the more beautiful tropical fish I saw of all colours and sizes, and I soon realised the longer I stood still the more I saw.
It’s like this with our spiritual vision, sometimes we are so busy, too busy to stand still and in our continued movement we miss so much of what God wants to show us. It’s only as we stand still that God brings into our focus what he wants us to see.
God himself says to us, ‘Be still and know that I am God’.
Ian
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Pastor Ian's Blog - March 2010 |
Over the past month Dave Harvey has brought us some excellent ministry in our ‘A’ series where he helped us by looking at three subjects, ‘Access’ to God, giving us a greater understanding of ‘Adoption’ by the Father and looking into the meaning of the word ‘Amen’  In the month of March, we are going to be looking at the subject of faithfulness; this ministry will be shared by Gillian Saunders, Dave Harvey and myself. Also this month on 14th March, I would like to wish all you wonderful mums a happy mother’s day on which we will have our family services. We are also looking forward to having our friend from Texas, Ron Corzine, with us. Ron will be helping us with our leadership training and Sunday ministry. During January and February, I have continued to be quite busy with my role on the national leadership team of Assemblies of God. This has mainly involved helping a number of churches with ministry, leadership training and speaking at leadership forums. I do want you who are part of the Bridge Church to realise that in releasing me to do this, you are all involved in helping other churches and leaders. It’s important that we continue to be kingdom thinkers; I believe that God will continue to bless us because of this mentality. Finally, can I encourage those of the Bridge to think and pray towards what you feel you can give to our next building offering to be given on Sunday 28th March. So far nearly £1 million has been given meaning we have almost repaid two-thirds of what we owed. Regards to you all Ian
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