Sometimes following Jesus can feel a little bit like standing on the edge of a cliff. The only genuine way to go is to carry on walking forward but to do so risks falling off the edge. To not carry on walking risks being stuck in the same place where nothing will ever change. I guess what I am really trying to say is that to follow Jesus requires trust, or as Brennan Manning once called it ‘ruthless trust’.

As a kid, I was really into the Indiana Jones films. I watched everything to do with Indiana Jones and, at one point, I might even have wanted to become an archeologist until I realised they didn’t all have whips and guns. In the third film of the trilogy ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ Jones is standing on the edge of a massive drop. There is literally nowhere else to go other than forward but logically that would mean he would plunge to an almost certain death. Indiana Jones throws some dust and what it reveals is that there is an unseen path across the chasm. He puts his first foot forward, trusting the unseen path and emerges on the other side. It was literally the only way he could continue along the journey of the last crusade.

Life is so often like this. Psalm 119:105 tells us that “[God’s] word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path,” whenever I read these words I always get the impression that God shines a light just for the place where our next footstep will land. He rarely shines it any further. Recently, it became very clear to both my family and myself that I needed to give myself full-time to building the CVM Cymru ministry across Wales. However, to do this I would clearly need to trust God to provide for us as a family. As we pondered this decision, other factors came into play which meant it was more and more obvious that to step forward into this was the only way for us to move forward, but to say the path was not clear would be an understatement. At the time of writing this, I have indeed taken those first few steps and it is amazing to see the ways that God is shining His light for every step and proving to me that when we trust in Him he will never let down us down.

So, may I encourage you to trust God, even if that feels utterly counterintuitive. None of us ever choose to get frozen to the spot, frightened to move forward and unable to go back. But, let’s be honest, so many of us have found ourselves in that very place at some point in our lives.

God is the God of his word, he never lies, he never changes his mind or loses interest in us. Jesus is deeply, deeply committed to leading us into his Kingdom forever and every step we make is as important to him as it is to us and we can trust him implicitly.

I will sign off with this amazing promise that God has for everyone of us:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

So, if you are standing on the edge of the proverbial cliff today, feel the fear but face it anyway, trust God and his promises for you. If you need to throw out some dust so that God can reveal part of the path to you, do it, but then step forward confidently. 

Too many of us are letting life hit us, when if we truly walk with the Lord, we can positively hit life and live it to the full.

It really does not feel like it was that long ago that we were making plans for Christmas 2018, but that was last year. My wife and I had just moved across to North Wales, our son was just in the throes of getting used to his first term in school. We had lots of expectation, lots of hope, lots and lots to look forward to.

In my mind’s eye, I can still vividly see all the bright Christmassy lights that decorated the town of Llandudno, especially the pier. It was mesmerising and it was entirely unusual to us as a family to be approaching the Christmas season and, at the same time, to be hanging out near the sea.

I think, more than I had done for quite a while, I approached last Christmas with a sense of anticipation and excitement. The main reason for that excitement was because we knew Christmas was going to feel very different.

I have that same sense of anticipation and excitement this year too.

I recently read a quote from one of my personal spiritual heroes, Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones (all the greats come from Wales):

“The doctrine of the incarnation asserts that our Lord took unto Himself a full human nature. It was not merely partial, it was complete. He did not merely take a body to Himself. He took on Him complete human nature, body and soul, including spirit, that He was truly man… We stand before this mystery of godliness, God in the flesh! The strangest, the most amazing thing that has ever happened. It is so supreme that I expect it to be unusual in every respect, and I find the Scriptures tell me that it was. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, He was born of a virgin named Mary. Man was entirely excluded; It was entirely the work of God.“

Sometimes I think we can get too caught up in the festivities of the season. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the colourful lights, great food, doing the school carol concerts and all that stuff. In fact, seeing my son dressed up in a cow onesie last year will live long in the memory. But what we must never allow to happen is to lose sight of the real reason for the season. 

That Jesus Christ, Son of God, God Himself, would come to live with humanity. That He would not only be God living among us, but that He would also be entirely human Himself. That He would do this because it was the only way any of us could be rescued, forgiven, healed and set free from Satan’s vice-like grip on our lives. 

Well, that takes my anticipation and excitement to an entirely different level.

I have been a Christ-follower for a good number of years now.  I tell you this: I still find the Gospel story ‘unusual in every respect’. I have never got used to the act that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, placed that level of value on my soul and on the souls of every other person in history.

You may well have heard these verses many, many times before but let me share them with you one more time:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.“

John 3:16-17 (ESV)

My hope for every one of us during this Christmas season is this, that we may have clarity of sight that shows us just how much we all need Jesus Christ. When any of us looks back over the course of 2019 and we see all the difficulties and challenges we have had to face or when we think over the losses, the heartbreaks and the hurts, may we then understand that we can only break the enemy’s vice-like grip on our lives through the power of Jesus Christ’s incarnation. That very same incarnation that then led to His crucifixion and ultimately His resurrection and eternal victory over sin, death and all forms of condemnation.

The true wonder of Christmas is this: in Christ we have been utterly set free and that the new, spiritual, birth that we receive as a gift from Him will never be taken away from us. We will have new life for all eternity.

Now, I do acknowledge that we live in a very broken world, and even as Christians we do experience the same tough times as everyone else. But, this is the true Christmas message; there is another life after this one and God wants us to spend both this life and the one to come with Him.

May I humbly recommend that if you have never known this freedom in Christ, that you use this Christmas season to attend a local church, or find a Christian friend who can help you know Him personally. It will genuinely be the best Christmas gift you will ever have had or ever will have.

If you want any help with any of the above please do reach out to the CVM team

I quite like golf. I am not a good golfer, but I do quite like golf.

Mark Twain once said that “…golf was a good walk ruined”. I think he was wrong, though I do have to admit that in my case golf is a good walk made 2-3 times longer. 

Not that long ago, I went to the local driving range. I got my basket of balls and went to a booth as close to the centre of the range as I could–my thinking here is simply that I rarely hit the ball in a straight line so being in the centre gives me the best chance of actually hitting the range whether I hook it or slice it. They do say that it is not the winning that matters but the taking part, when it comes to golf that really has become my personal mantra.

In the booth next to me was an older gent. It did not take me long to realise that he was a good golfer. In the time it took me to spray the range with golf balls like I was using a machine gun, he maybe hit one or two balls that glided through the air and hit his intended flag points every time.

At first I was a bit annoyed with him, I just thought he was a bit smug, obviously had too much time on his hands or he had made a career out of board meetings on the fairways over many years. Not that this would always necessarily be a bad thing.

But then, he turned to me, smiled and said hello. He complimented me on the distance I was able to achieve and then said “…and you can hit those balls really fast”. That actually made me laugh, I clearly knew that it was not as much of a compliment as it might have sounded at first.

What happened from there was that this guy showed his heart. He actually wanted to help me become better, he wanted to show me ways in which I could get the ball to land where I intended it to land. The following is a brief summation of what he said:

“Before you ever hit the ball you need to prepare yourself for the outcome you want to see happen. Don’t get obsessed with just hitting the ball, but take in your surroundings. Understanding the environment is vital. Is it windy or overcast? Is the terrain flat or undulating? All these factors you already know about, but you are not being attentive to them. You focus too much on making sure you hit the ball fair and square. Golf is a game of finesse, feeling and intelligence. The success rate of your shots will only ever be as good as your understanding of your environment and your preparation before taking each shot”.

It reminded me of something that I read a couple of years ago about prayer. The writer made a big deal out of “there is a way things work”. In life, in sport, in prayer, in everything there is a way things work. I realise that in lots of ways in life, I am spraying golf balls all over the range. I tend to think that the harder I hit and the more of them I hit means the more successful I will be.

The problem with that is that I maybe hit one or two decent balls out of ten and the rest are totally wasted effort.

I told this guy that he had really helped me, not so much with golf but with life. I went on to say that I work for a Christian ministry and that in the same way as preparing for a shot in golf is vitally important, so it vitally important to prepare well in life and ministry. He was slightly blown away by our vision to lead a million men to Christ. He was even more blown away by the CVM Cymru vision to see the nation of Wales come back to Christ! But I think he was chuffed that he had helped me think a little bit clearer.

The conversation ended there, but I do think that I will be going back to the driving range again very soon.

I left that golf range reminded once again that ALL of life is a gift, and God speaks to us in the most unlikely moments of our days. At CVM, we love the church, we are passionate about seeing the church grow. But what if there are times when God’s Cathedral looks more like a golf driving range than a one thousand year old ecclesiastical building?

Just a thought ..

A few days ago I was chatting with an amazing person about life, hopes and dreams. It was during the course of a meal that I was invited to by a Christian charity who were celebrating their 5th birthday as a ministry. 

The conversation could be best described as ‘life-giving’!

Now this guy was in his early 20s, and he spoke like a man who had all his life before him. He spoke of the things that he wanted to achieve in life, the ways in which he believed God wanted him to spend his time and his resources. He spoke of his girlfriend and the amazing stuff that she was involved in and how proud he was of her ambitions too. 

I sat there, as a bloke in my mid forties and listened. 

Over the summer months I have been giving my personal physical condition quite a bit of thought. It is not that I am badly out of shape, but I do spend a lot of time in my car and that has had a fair impact on my body over time. So, in real terms, it has played itself out in my life in the following ways: my belly is always before me, I have had some consistent back pain, my energy levels are not as high as they used to be and I have become more partial to studying the inside of my eyelids whilst watching television in the evenings with my wife.

Now I know, I know none of these symptoms are really that serious, or even that hard to correct. I can almost hear you say ‘GET A GRIP’ and you would be in your rights to say that to me. But I have been giving this some serious thought because I genuinely believe that part of being a good husband, a great dad, and all that I can be for God requires me to be in the best possible physical condition. The same need could be applied to my emotional and spiritual conditions too.

In fact, at CVM we are really quite serious about all this and have an entire code devoted to all that I am sharing here:

When I was younger I was such a morning person. I am not talking about when I was a child, I am probably only looking back to when I was in my 20s and 30s. It didn’t seem to matter what time I would go to bed, I always found it easy to get up and get going. 

Now it is entirely different!

There is very much a pioneering dynamic to the work of CVM Cymru. We are a small ministry here in Wales, and much of what needs to be done right now is simply raising awareness of the need for men’s outreach ministry amongst local churches. Sometimes we find ourselves falling into the trap of thinking that this is all about the next meeting, the next presentation, and even the next event.

We certainly do need all the above, after all even with us men it is fundamentally about building relationships, trust and working together. But, reaching the men of our nation can never be reduced to a numbers game—we will never win the nation for Christ simply by having enough meetings with church leaders, or presenting a plan to as many Christian men as we can. I am also pretty sure that, as important as curry is for our health, we can never organise enough curry nights to propel us into national revival.

Over the past few days there has been a lot of activity on social media regarding the new Gillette advert. If you have not seen it, I would recommend watching it on YouTube as it has some really direct messaging to men.

A few years ago I heard the Mosaic LA church leader, Erwin McManus, say “…we teach what we know, we reproduce what we are!”. Throughout my life I have seen, over and over again, just how true this statement is. When any of us live life full-on for God and let His Word shape our lives, we get a lot more attention and many more opportunities to introduce our mates to Jesus. So much of this is about credibility and authenticity.

So the next value that I live my life by and want to share with you is: “I will be a man of nobility, integrity and honour. In doing this, I will make Jesus known to everyone I meet!”Right, I have a slight confession to make—it hasn’t always been this way. For a number of years I lived a bit of a double life. Publically, I was a man of God, believing all the right things, even condemning all the wrong things. Privately, it didn’t really match up, and you know what I could tell my mates about Jesus but it had zero effect—because I wasn’t letting His Word shape my life in the first place. The conversations that I had with my not-yet believing mates were few and far between and, when they did happen, I was just telling them what I knew in my head and not reproducing what was in my heart.

One of my favourite movie genres is the whole superhero thing. I just love the message that these movies tend to send out. One of my all-time favourite movie quotes is “…with great power comes great responsibility!” I am probably never happier than settling down for an evening to watch ‘Man of Steel’ or the ‘Dark Knight’ franchise.

Now, the reason for this is very simple—something inside me is stirred by the theme of using our strength to make the world a better place.

I remember when I first read ‘The Code’, it was Code X that caught my attention: “I will use my strength to protect the weak and stand against the abuse of power”. In fact, this Code has made it into my personal list of values to live by. So, the sixth principle I want to share with you is:

I will use my strength to make the world a better place!