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Starting with God

Starting with God

by Rev Chris Johnson

Season 1

Starting with God 1 - Encounter

We begin a new series focusing on re‑setting our relationship with God. In the introduction, Chris uses the image of a jigsaw puzzle—yet not one where Jesus is the final piece we simply drop into place. Instead, Jesus is the central piece around which the whole picture is re-formed. The ‘hole’ we sense in our lives isn’t a Jesus‑sized gap we can fit Him into; it’s a reminder that our entire lives need to be re‑shaped around Him.

Starting with God 2 - Wrestling

“Starting with God” Episode two, looking at the story from Genesis where Jacob wrestles with God. Until this point Jacob has tried to fit God into his own worldview, mold God into what he thinks God should be. It’s only when God reaches deep and humbles Jacob that he sees the error of his ways and learns to surrender. How often do we act the same?

Starting with God 3 - Intimacy

This week we are looking at intimacy with God. At the foot of Mount Sinai God spoke to His people who he had guided out of slavery in Egypt. They were so afraid that none of them wanted to go up the mountain and seek true intimacy with Him, they rejected God’s true purpose for them because of fear. We now, through Jesus, receive that same invitation to experience the fullness of God. Will we accept or will we – like the Israelites – be content with holding God at arm’s length?

Starting with God 4 - Worthless Idols

Starting With God by looking at all of those things that we construct for ourselves to replace God or to divert our attention away from Him. The Bible has a word for those things: idols. Idols can even be things that make us think that God approves of what we’re doing when we know deep down that He doesn’t. We are invited to cast away all of those things and to focus and trust in God alone for all of our needs and strength. It’s very easy to say it. But can we actually do it?

Starting with God 5 - Wrong choices

This week Chris continues looking at his series in Starting with God, this week looking at the choices we make. There is a difference between fate and destiny. Fate (which is not real, by the way) gives you no choices in life, you're restricted to the train tracks laid out in front of you. Destiny is different, where God gives us the choice to follow His way which leads to life or the other ways which.... don't. But whichever path we choose God always gives us the opportunity to turn towards His way.

Starting with God 6 - Dead Ends

The writer of Ecclesiastes examines the whole of existence in his book and comes to the conclusion that “everything is meaningless”. But with one proviso: “everything is meaningless” without God. Chris looks at the dead ends that can occur in our lives if we try to exist without God directing us and how He gently but firmly brings us back to the path to life if we allow Him to.

Starting with God 7 - Exile

When we make a decision, conscious or unconscious, to not follow God wholeheartedly we can be sent into exile from Him. Not a physical exile like those experienced in the Old Testament but a spiritual exile where it feels like our connection with God is frayed or even totally broken. In the next in our series of Starting With God Chris looks at the symptoms of that spiritual exile and reminds us that the door to God is never closed: we are always given the opportunity to return.

Season 2

Starting with God 8 - The Cross

In first century Judea a cross was not generally something talked about in polite conversation, let alone boasted about. Yet through Jesus' victory Paul says that he (and by extension we) can boast in the achievement of the cross. As we continue our starting with God series Chris examines Jesus' victory, the turning of a symbol of terror and oppression into a symbol of hope and how we can still see God's glory through the cross.

Starting with God 9 - Back to Creation

How much can we learn about God from Creation alone? Paul says in his letter to the Romans that by admiring God’s handiwork in nature His eternal power and divine nature are revealed to us, but only when we converse and meet with the God revealed in Jesus do we begin to understand His true nature. Chris speaks on how we should move from simply admiring the world that God has created to being in true relationship with Him, only then will He be fully revealed to us... Watch the full video here...https://youtu.be/DQizW3LDF1M?si=kIrxg7z_XDgsLsWH Why not buy Chris's book Starting with God - An invitation to Encounter God. https://amzn.eu/d/08B7ztdf

Starting with God 10 - Holiness

Chris continues his series in Starting With God by this week looking at God’s holiness. There are some passages in the Bible that can be very difficult to understand, some that we may even choose to ignore or turn a blind eye to. But we should not be turning away from the things that we “don’t like”. God defines holiness, even if we don’t understand why things happen, we need to trust that His plan is perfect and put our hope in Jesus who intimately reveals God’s character to us, so we can trust Him. Buy the book here...https://amzn.eu/d/07uOKXNG

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