And finally, the updates are here - all 4 of them...

Ok. so sorry for the delay, but here is the backlog of Alpha-ness you have missed over the last month, including a special from Tim last Tuesday - wohoo!!! (Sorry, have not read this back, so hope it all makes sense - apologies for any typos!)

Week 1: Rest of the introduction to the Cross:

Pg 20 – Jesus lived for us:

Not only is it amazing that God came down to Earth for us, but the way in which He chose to do it was awesome – not with a royal fan fair into the nearest palace, but into a dirty stable, born to a young, poor couple.

Jesus was completely human – if he wasn’t, it would be cheating! If we do not believe that he was completely human, we deny him the true glory he deserves. Jesus simply took advantage of the same spirit of God that is available to us, should we wish to accept it!

This understanding that Jesus is 100% human empowers us – think of Psalm 23 (valley of death) – we know that we will come out the other side of death because Jesus has been there before us and done just that.

Pg 21 – Jesus died for us:

This Cross is IT, the be all and end all – we could lay down everything in front of it, but we can’t, or at least we don’t. Jesus has paid the debt that we can’t afford, but we won’t admit that debt in the first place.

Note: ‘Human nature’ is an interesting turn of phrase, it is used as an excuse, and has negative connotations. Our humanity is not what it was designed to be. REAL humanity is how God intended us to be, how He created us to be.

Jesus rose for us:

We didn’t (and still don’t) understand that the world is not ours to do with as we please. We did not realise/choose to understand that the world and everything in it is God’s.

Vineyard parable: A man leaves his employees in charge of his vineyard and they decide that they want to keep it and run it as they choose. The employer sends messengers to tell the employees how to run the vineyard, but the employees kill the messengers because they think they are in charge.

The employer then sent his son, thinking that surely the employees would respect his son, and know how important his son was to him. They killed him too. The employer tried to deal with the issue remotely, but id you want something done, you have to do it yourself – the employer WILL come back to sort out the employees and claim what is his.

Pg 22 - Power and strength:

Jesus conquered evil by love and submission to God’s will. It wouldn’t have made sense for Jesus to conquer evil with power and strength (all guns blazing), because those are the tools of the evil that he wanted to destroy! So Jesus did the opposite – he LOVED, and laid down all his power. Also, if he had chosen the violent powerful route, we would have submitted for the wrong reasons – out of fear instead of love.

Jesus’ courage:

We never talk about this! He WAS human and so even if he knew he would come out ok on the other side, he still had to suffer the excruciating pain of the Cross.

Repentance:

This is a change of heart and mind – Jesus is still interceding on our behalf today – constantly – he is always between us and God. Repentance signifies a ‘turning back’ to God – a gradual U-turn – there is always forward motion. This explains why a lot of Jesus’ language is organic – it signifies growth, steady progress, movement.

Week 2: Reading 1 of the Cross p27 – Nicodemus (‘N’)

Qu 1. N probably thought Jesus was a bit crazy! – because he did some crazy things, but also evidently had some kind of power of God too. N wanted to suss Jesus out for himself. He recognised that Jesus could provide him with some answers which had been evading him. He wanted to meet Jesus himself, instead of just sending a messenger. N was high up in the religious pecking order, so going to Jesus (who was generally being undermined by N’s co-workers) shows a certain humility in N’s nature.

Qu 2. Rebirth of both spirit and through water is vital. The word/concept of ‘birth’ had strong significance In the Jewish religion. Birth was tied into Jews’ identity – being Jewish meant being born of Abraham’s family – tribe was very important.

Jesus, in saying ‘flesh gives birth to flesh’, throws everything that N believed in the bin! Being right with God is not a birth right – N was, on paper, as good as you could get (like Paul in our earlier study). BUT Jesus is saying that nothing else matters except the rebirth of the spirit – this is a great leveller, because it doesn’t matter what you are born into.

This spiritual rebirth still requires a personal response. Life is a constant journey, along which we will have to continually repent and renew ourselves in God. In repenting, we are not only asking God to forgive us, but also to help us change so that we will not make the same mistakes again.

Qu 4. People condemn themselves by not accepting God’s gift of forgiveness – God is offering it to us on a plate, arms outstretched to welcome us home – will you run to Him?

Note: v11 – the snake bit: In Numbers, God sends lots of poisonous smakes which start killing the Israelites, who simply weren’t getting it! Moses spoke to God and God said ‘make a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole and everyone who looks to it will be cured’. Parallel with Jesus – in v11, Jesus will be lifted up on a cross and all who look at him will be healed. This is why the Hippocratic symbol is a snake wrapped round a pole! – Cool huh?

Week 3: The Cross Reading 2: New Sight

Qu 1. Jesus was the Light of the World. Then in v5, we are told that Jesus will only be the Light of the World whilst he is on the earth. The plan was that when he ascended to heaven, we would be the light of the world, with Jesus in us.

Light vs darkness: until someone turns on the light, you can’t see where you are going. Also, when it’s light one can act – Jesus was an action man – he got involved. We can get involved in God’s plan for us when we let the light come in so we can see where we’re headed.

Qu 2. The Pharisees were wary of Jesus – they wanted to suss out whether he played by their rules. By healing on the Sabbath, he clearly wasn’t going to stick to their rules. Then they realised he may be a threat – that’s when they decided he had to go.

Cynicism and scepticism seem to be instinctive to us humans – however amazing God is, and however many times he shows us how amazing he is, we still need more convincing! Here, people just couldn’t believe that the man had been healed, to the extent that they thought he was a different person!

Qu 3. The best way to talk about God to others is to recount personal experience and speak about God from our personal experience of him and how he has changed us. That is the strongest, most powerful way of being a witness.

Note: ‘Jesus didn’t come to start Christianity, he came to lead people back to his father’. There is a distinction between following Christ and following ‘church rules’ – this is the modern equivalent of what the Pharisees did.

Note: Why didn’t Jesus just heal the man with a wave of his magic wand? Most, if not all the healings in the Bible require some sort of action on the part of the healee. In other words, a faith response is required – Christ wants us to step out in faith. If the blind man had not had that faith, he may well not have gone to that specific place to wash off the mud, and then may not have been healed…God wants us to respond actively to Him, and to demonstrate our faith in Him, His son and His Holy Spirit.

Week 4 – School trip to church to hear Tim’s talk:
Strength

Does God have a bigger plan for my life?

If you try to look at life fit into the perfect shape of what you think God’s plan is for you – spending X amount of time at work/with family/at church, factoring in everything and ticking off the check list, then this can be frustrating when we fall short of what we think we should be achieving. Instead, God has given us each bit of a jigsaw and told us to fit them together however we want, whichever way works best for us so we can serve him the best way we can.

God’s heart is involved in his plans for us, not just his head. These plans aren’t set in stone, they are changeable. So what ARE God’s plans?

1. BIG PICTURE
The master plan for us personally: God is full of love – he, Jesus and the Holy Spirit had so much love that they wanted to share it with beings made in their likeness. God created us to share in his love, so we could have the same capacity to love as he did. So the plan for us is to be like Jesus, and to love in the same way.

If you go on a journey, you generally know where you are going to end up. You have your destination in mind. God’s destination for us is JESUS! But, God wanted us to love him through choice, not by programming us. So he made us with free will, so that we could love him wholly and completely. But in giving us free will, he knew that we would also therefore have to choice of turning away from him. God loved us so much that he wanted to be able to be with us anyway, so Jesus was prepared to come down and save us from ourselves on the cross. So we can end up at our intended variation via Christ.

Really bad analogy – on the Road of Life, God started us off on track, on the straight path from start to the finish line, being Christ. But, because we had free will, we decided to go off course, we didn’t listen to God’s sat nav system - we hit a few speed bumps and road works but luckily for us Jesus provided a diversion to get us back on track, and end up at the finish line – wohoo!

2. BIG PURPOSE
Master plan for changing the world: to change a world that is in self destruct mode. God has chosen us to be his body on earth. Think of the head and body – the head has lots of ideas, but it can’t put them into action without the body. We are God’s body here on Earth. The Bible calls God’s people the ‘Elect’ – this is generally connected to an election – a choice. Once we choose to be a Christian, God chooses us to represent Him on Earth.

3. INDIVIDUAL PLANS
God has specific/unique plans for each of us. God knows about us, he knows us and put us together to have the right combo of everything so that we may serve Him in the unique way that only we can. God has made us for something specific. When we find that purpose, it all clicks! It feels right. This is true of everyone, non-christians and Christians alike!