One light

I stare out at the dark street.

It’s empty.

The prayer room feels safe.

As I look through the window I see one light.

Its street light, the only one I can see.

It covers the street with a flood of yellow light.

The warmth and security of the prayer room is helping my body mind and soul to experience a deep peace.

But.

Just five yards away there is a world wrapped in the velveteen eclipse of night.

Darkness.

But.

There is one light.

It penetrates the darkness with its yellow glow.

Enabling eyes to see in the midst of the dark.

It’s been nice to pray with some people in the sanctuary.

Seriously nice.

Sometimes prayer is hard.

But tonight?

We have been touched by the sheer majesty of a Holy God.

Now though.

I’m just staring out onto the street and my eye has caught the one light in a dark street.

My being begins to feel the pain of the dark.

My mind wanders towards the work we have ahead at Sanctuary West London.

I think of those already drawn to the Sanctuary before we have even opened.

People trying desperately to find light in some really dark situations.

I think of a lady called Grace. Who Dawn and I visited last Christmas in her pay and sleep room. She had no food and no presents for her two little children, they all slept in one room no bigger than a few square feet. I remember all too well the look in her eyes as we dropped of food and toys for her and her kids. Eyes full of shame for the work she was doing, eyes full of sadness for the situation she was in. eyes crying out for the love of a saviour. I think of M, who I will accompany to court next week, who feels so alone right now. I think of Paul who is so lonely he has considered ending it all lately. I think of Kieron who sleeps in a local park in Ealing who was so thrilled because we give him some clothes. I think of Michael who has severe anger issues and doesn’t know where to turn.

The prayer room feels so safe.

The darkness doesn’t.

As safe as I feel, and as much as I know that the prayer centre here in Ealing is a new light in a dark place, I know we can’t just wallow in His presence in the relative security of the prayer room. I see there will be many rescue missions ahead. I see there have to be many trips into the darkness. I see there will be many people drawn to the light of Jesus that will shine like the strongest sun.

And.

We have to be ready. We have prepared the building which is amazingly fitted now to our needs as a centre of prayer and justice.

But.

That’s not the thing really.

The thing is the work.

The thing is the mission.

It’s the vital hard work of prayer. Prayer as a rhythm, prayer as intercession, prayer as spiritual warfare, prayer as an education, prayer as a mission.

With the ultimate goal of carrying people into the kingdom and into a developing relationship with Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

We are set.

Our mission is clear.

We pray that the people who are in darkness will be caught staring at the light.

The light of encounter.

The light of compassion.

The light of grace and mercy.

The light of hope found in Jesus.

Yeah.

We are set.

West London Development update

This update brings you up to date with the development of the prayer centre at Ealing West London.

The building at Ealing has been undergoing a major change over the last six months. It is almost finished now. It looks brilliant and now has a hospitality area, Four prayer rooms, improved kitchen and toilet facilities, a newly created mezzanine admin space and some fantastic new multi media facilities. The builders will be handing the building over to us next Wednesday. The furniture arrives a week on Friday.

There have been some amazing strides taken in terms of relationship establishments. Some very exciting developments have surfaced in terms of working with others to help incredibly needy people. The volunteer team has expanded already especially in our shop where we have amazing new volunteers many of whom have not been involved in any church anywhere.

The prayer rhythm has been developing in Costa lately but will commence daily at 10am and 12 noon every day shortly.

Prayer appointments have started to increase. And the signposting has begun as people have began to head for the sanctuary to find help.

The shop is doing fantastic being developed by our new West London Hub coordinator Nicky Joyce who is doing a fantastic job. Nicky will work closely with myself and Dawn at Ealing and on top of overseeing the charity shop will be responsible for developing admin and prayer room bookings systems (and other stuff!!)

The West London Development will welcome Sylvia Overton into the team this month as she takes responsibility for the development of Hayes. Sylvia will be commissioned as a Salvation Army in the next few weeks and we look forward to welcoming her into the team.

There are many volunteering roles in the West London Development project and anyone is welcome to join us.

We are hoping to open the prayer centre to commence our work on August 5th. Then watch out for an official opening sometime in September.

Its an exciting time just now. Keep praying for us as we launch this exciting project especially pray that our volunteer team for both the shop and the prayer centre increases even more.

Thank you for your support.

Gaz

Recovering from injustice

8am.

I'm thinking.

For the first time in a long time my thoughts are centred on an injustice.

An injustice that wounded me deeply.

It was just a couple of years ago.

I won't relay the details.

Injustice.

I think about that word.

I try to simplify it in my head.

I shave it down the this. Injustice is unfairness that brings undeserved outcomes. Its seems to me to be a human thing.

And.

When you become a victim of that?

How do you recover?

Injustice is a powerful and dark force.

So powerful.

It can hurt you. Steal from you. Change you. It can kill you.

And when it touches you?

It puts you in a place that is difficult to escape from.

Its a place a bit like a prison.

I was touched badly by it.

Recently.

But.

I'm recovering.

It's possible.

Injustice is caused by selfishness, human selfishness or by indifferent decision making by other humans.

I think of the times in the past I've been unfair to others, because that's the truth. In those times I failed to see the bigger picture, like how it would affect people and situations around the person.

And that's what happened to me and to Dawn. Our ministry, our relationship, our family, our friends were all affected in some way.

Injustice is powerful.

I think of the first step I took to recovering my life.
I went to the cross.

I knelt there and spoke to Jesus about it.

I listened to his heart.

He gave me the next step right there.

I look at the cross. The injustice of it all.

And.

The next step just hits me.

Forgiveness.

One of the hardest things to do in the known human world.

Forgiveness.

I sit there.

I sit there full of bitterness, pain, carrying a sack full of the fallout from neglect, misuse, abuse, all the stuff that has not been corrected by law or fellow humans. A sack of confusion and hurt.

This sack of pain had been causing me to defend myself from those who I knew had treated me unfairly.

Forgiveness allows me to just leave the sack of pain right there at the cross.

There is no other way.

Forgiveness seems to open up the wounds and prepare them for healing.

In my heart I long for healing.

The alternative is destruction.

Injustice can cause a person to rear up and bring out the devastating weapons of revenge and pay back.

Those thoughts were powerful .

But its not the way forward.

Those weapons destroy.

So I rise from the seat of forgiveness and decide to go forward.

I think of the key to moving forward.

Its staying close to God.

And sticking to this command from Jeremiah.

This is what the Lord says. Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigners, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.  (Jeremiah 22:3-5)

And there lies an amazing exchange.

You begin to rise from the ashes of injustice and you're better equipped to defend others who have been unfairly treated. Not out of revenge. But out of closeness with God.

10am.

I feel ready to go to work.

To seek justice for the oppressed for those treated unfairly.

And.

I hear the voice of God for whatever reason asking me to blog this today.

Maybe.

Maybe someone's out there right now reading this, suffering from the fallout of injustice.

Listen.

Injustice is powerful .

But it doesn't have to beat you.

The power of injustice is but a pin prick compared to the infinite power of God who chooses this kind of fast, to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke. To set the oppressed free and break every yoke. (Jeremiah 58:6)

Be free.

Its real.

Its in our grasp.

Perfectly Poured

10am.

Praying.

In Costa Coffee.

Praying in the midst of life.

There is something very surreal but special about it.

I  notice a Costa poster
It says Passion perfectly poured.'
Talking about their coffee.

That statement seeps into the prayers.

Starts to shape them.

I picture the cross.

All that Jesus endured for us.

Passion perfectly Poured.

And.

Something surfaces in my spirit.

Something simple.

Very.

Very.

Simple. 

As I watch the people around me.

As I see the blistering pace of rhe street outside.

My eyes and my heart lock in on our purpose.

If we dont recieve Gods passion perfectly poured.

If we don't get that?

How will they know?

How will they see?

How will they recieve?

It Dawned on me like honey off a shiny spoon.

when we recieve Gods passion.

We will reflect that passion.

To those who desperately need to recieve Gods passion perfectly poured.

So.

Hey.

Are you feeling His passion?

Are you recieving it perfectly poured?

Are you reflecting His astonishing passionate love to the world?

Cos.

It so needs it.

it really does.

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Glitchy

Last week I took possession of a new innovation in mobile technology.

The Jolla phone

A phone made and launched by a group of ex Nokia employees who decided to challenge the more established operating systems and create something more open source, and something fresh.

It has a completely new operating system called Sailfish.

Its a bit glitchy.

Its lacks the vastness of apps available to more established systems.

For now!

Jolla invites you to join its journey.

They allow you to join an online community and speak into the phones development .

I was sold.

I'm not a run of the mill type of person.

So a new journey despite the glitches and lack of apps excites me.

In fact .

I'm writing this post on my Jolla Phone.

I'm sitting across the road from the Salvation Army Hall in Ealing, London. I'm watching  builders at work on the hall. 

Transformation is happening in front of my eyes.

The start of a new journey.

A new adventure.

A new future for the Salvation Army in West London

Like my Jolla phone though.

Its just a start.

The phone has a few glitches. It lacks apps. It is not in any way like the more established systems.

But.

It has a whole new world of discovery stretching before it.

Just the way I like my Christianity.

In fact its the same for the West London Development Project.

A whole new world stretches before it.

Its a bit glitchy.

We may not have the applications the more established Salvation Army has, but we do have Jesus.

And what I love most about Jesus is his invitation.

His invite to a journey to discover a whole new world.

A world that stretches further than the eye can see.

Infinitely further.

Yeah there are glitches. Yeah there has to be frequent updates. Yeah there will be frustration.

But the joys far outweigh them.

Just think.

A whole new world.

He invites us through his astonishing grace.

Make sure you accept the invitation.

Its a journey no one should miss.

Zed

Zed was waiting outside the door of sanctuary that morning. I was in early. I'd had my coffee, Costa, straight black, extra hot. And I was looking forward to work. I love this part of my work. Setting up new churches.

I  love it.

And that morning heralded the start of a new day, praying, building relationships, doing business stuff, looking for the golden trail of Gods pathway.

And.

It started with an encounter with Zed.

Zed is a really great guy, 

I met him one night on the street here in London. He has some mental illness. He definitely hasn't washed that frequently, and he is one of those people who searches relentlessly for someone to talk to.

And.

He's a joy.

I was pleased to see him this morning. He just wanted a cup of tea and a chat. He talked about nothing in particular.

I listened.

He talked.

We had a cup of tea together.

He left.

He said said see me on Sunday morning.

A brief encounter.

To anyone looking in it doesn't seem like a significant thing. There is nothing exciting in that story you might say?

In itself you may be right.

A week later I had to take a coat back to The Salvation Army Shop. The zip was broken on a jacket they had sold me. I didn't have the receipt. The person serving me was not happy. They gave me a stern lecture about keeping receipts and kept me standing there while they decided what to do. As I was standing there a guy came in, a well known guy in SA brass band circles.  He had a CD that was not working properly and he had brought it back.  He didn't have a receipt either.  The person smiled at him and changed his CD straight away. I asked in a kindly way why this had happened?  The person said that I needed to understand that SP&S was the biggest brass band supplier in the UK.  They changed my coat in the end. I said bless you today.

I left.

I ended up going for a coffee on Piccadilly Circus.

I reflected on the Salvation Army.

I thought about priorities.

And.

My mind switched back to my brief encounter with Zed.

It makes my heart race in a good way.

When I think that I sat with someone who is desperately lonely. Listened to him,  prayed with him. Gave him a drink and some food. Isn't that a simple but precious thing? Isn't that a major mark of the Salvation Army? Isn't it its lifeblood? To embrace the broken and those who have nothing?

Isn't it?

I'd love for us to be known as a big supplier of Love to the lost any day over the biggest suppliers to the brass band world?

Would You?

Prayer Life

It was freezing.

The day had actually been a hot one, a golden day in Brussels. But by midnight it was cold.

Very cold. I had put a T shirt and shorts on because of the heat. By midnight I wished I had put something much warmer on.The match was a bit of a farce given the earlier events.The terrible events that had preceded the kick off.

I had so looked forward to the European cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. I’d left Liverpool on a coach the day before the game and had enjoyed the night before in Brussels with about 30000 other Scousers, singing, messing around, I couldn't wait for the match. I got into the Heysel stadium in Brussels, about two hours before the kick off.

The atmosphere was strange.

You could feel a kind of heaviness.

Almost evil.

Before long? All hell broke loose. Fighting and rioting ended with 600 people injured and 39 People dead.

I was sitting in the stands away from the trouble.

I was 23 years of age.

As I watched a wall in the stadium collapse, I was horrified. It took an age to come to terms with what I saw.That was on the 29^th may 1985. By the time the match had started and finished, it was about midnight. It was freezing.

Fast forward to 2005.

Dawn and I were asked to return to the stadium where I had sat freezing and dumbfounded 20 years before.

In between those years I had experienced an encounter with Jesus that had completely changed the course of my life. I had become a Salvation Army Officer and sent back to my beloved home city for my first appointment where we planted Liverpool Boiler Room. We had built an amazing relationship with a lady called Sue Sinclair, an amazing woman of God. She leads a prayer movement of people who have prayed for the city of Liverpool and wider including many international cities and situations speaking into the prophetic flow of life for many years. She was leading a group of people over to Brussels to pray and to ask for forgiveness for our cities’ part in the disaster I had witnessed all those years before. Sue had asked us if we would go especially because I had been there at the stadium that night.

I felt a bit reluctant.

It had been an ordeal for a young guy of 23 all those years ago. I had come to terms with it. God had done some amazing healing work in my life by then. He had healed me from much of the hurt and mess that had been left by my earlier Godless life. However I wasn’t sure what it would feel like to go back to that stadium.

I really wasn't sure.

Yet somehow I felt compelled to go.

No matter how I felt.

I was overwhelmed with the need to go, like something was pushing me to go.

I agreed to go.

It turned out to be a watershed event for me. One which not only put closure on something that had landed badly into my life that night, but one that unexpectedly yet profoundly taught me the seriously vital nature of prayer. It began a new journey for me as God showed me the true power of prayer, how it opens doors, how it can change things.

What I am about to share with you sounds so ideal. It sounds like one of those Christian miraculous stories that can either make you feel the awesomeness of God or cringe!

And I want to say that on my prayer journey, it doesn't always happen like this.

God answers prayer in infinitely variable ways.

But.

I believe God had to show me this to help me to see the reason why he has used me to study and experience prayer, teach on it and carry it out as the basis of my ministry in the years since 2005.

Dawn and I travelled to London from Liverpool and boarded the Euro Star at Waterloo station and headed under the English Channel towards Brussels.

It took a couple of hours from the centre of London to the Centre of Brussels. We holed up for the night in a beautiful Brussels hotel. We had arranged to meet the rest of the team from Liverpool who had flown over from John Lennon Airport the following day.  The arrangement entailed us meeting at a café near to the Heysel Stadium which is located a few miles from the City Centre. I had it in my head that this was a highly organised trip. I was wrong. It was a group of people fuelled by the passion of faith. When we met these amazing people in the café they were discussing their strategy. The complexity of the strategy amounted to lets stand outside the stadium and pray. I quickly realised there was no agenda, no plan, just prayer. As we approached the stadium which had been rebuilt since I was last there on that tragic night, and was now a space age arena, breathtaking in its stature, it also became apparent that there was a football match on. It turned out to be a world cup qualifier between Belgium and Serbia. There was police, stewards, camera crews and other officials milling about, mixed in with the thousands of people arriving to watch the match. We were kind of discouraged as we couldn’t get near the stadium as there was an outer fence that you had to show a ticket to someone to get through. So we formed a circle amongst the crowds on the street corner and we prayed passionately that we could somehow get nearer the stadium as we felt God had brought us this far for a purpose. We just weren't sure what that was other than prayer. As we were praying the leader of the group, Sue, stopped a guy who was just walking down the street with his hands in his pockets dressed in a dark grey suit, she seemed to talk to him for ages. She came back with the guy and she was excited. As it turned out, amongst thousands of people, Sue had spoken to the Stadium manager, the guy who ran the whole operation at Heysel. She had told him that we were from Liverpool and had come to pray about the Heysel disaster in 1985. She excitedly told us that the guy had agreed that we could pray in the stadium! He took us to the players entrance of the stadium and asked us to wait. He came back with a steward who he instructed to take us wherever we wanted to go in the stadium. So this bunch of prayer people from Liverpool were escorted into the players entrance, down the tunnel, out onto the pitch at Heysel! We walked around the running track to the corner of the stadium where the wall had collapsed on that horrendous night. We were standing right on the very spot. There was a plaque in memorium to the people who had lost their lives at the game that night. We began to pray, sitting behind us in the stands were about three thousand stewards getting their instructions for the night. As we prayed a lady with us began to sing. As she sang a beautiful song of praise, what I can only describe as an atmosphere of electric spiritual presence descended on us. As she sang and we cried together and asked for forgiveness from God for the part the supporters of the team from our city had played that fateful night, you could see the stewards one by one taking their hats off and bowing their heads which was an amazing sight.

There was an amazing outcome for us that night, a feeling that God had done something amazing in the healing of our city.

But.

There was something incredible happening in my heart.

God had showed me in dramatic form just what the power of prayer can do.

It opens doors.

It clears paths.

We shouldn't have really been allowed to even get near the stadium. But God had miraculously opened the doors.

And?

That night?

I knew.

That prayer was the key to our ministry.

That we were to make prayer the length, the depth, the width and the breadth of our mission.

Prayer, faith and risk taking go hand in hand.

I saw it.

That night.

I dropped to my knees and committed the rest of my life to championing the cause of prayer, firstly in my own walk with God then secondly to devote my ministry to making prayer a mission.

It’s not always been as dramatic and as clear as that night.   

       

But.

I saw enough that night to know God has every situation in his hands.

And.

It was inscribed on my soul that night that if we are not praying, if the church treats prayer as an ecclesiastical add-on or a liturgical ritual or in the worst case scenario as something we just do, then forget any mission happening.

Forget it.

Prayer opens doors.

Why?

Because we are engaging in the essence of our relationship with Jesus. He is the mission, the cause, the purpose the Alpha and the omega.

And.

If we are not at least talking and listening with him relentlessly? Then last person out hand the key in.

This Easter allow God to lay an Easter morning in your soul.

Let that awakening involve a shake-up of our prayer lives.

Take your relationship to levels you never thought possible.

God opened doors at Heysel that night physically to show me what he can do for me, but even more importantly what he Can do for those souls that haven’t had an Easter morning, those souls that are broken or even worse lost.

Prayer seriously opens closed, locked, blocked hearts.

I pray we will understand that more and more as Christ rises in our souls.

Happy Easter.

Gaz

Winning the war

Watching the team i've followed since birth, Liverpool FC, is never dull. I've followed them all over the world during my life time. This year is gearing up to be a special year. A year we could win our nineteenth league title.
Last Sunday I watched them beat Manchester City 3-2. It was torture watching it.

Following the game our Captain, Steven Gerrard, Gave a past match interview in which when asked whether Liverpool were now in pole position to win the league reminded the reporter that we have won nothing yet.

In my head dropped this cliché.

"We won the battle today but we haven't won the war."

There have been times in the last few years particularly that i've lost battles. I've won a few too.

I'm talking about life.

The enemy wants my soul.

I know that for sure.

So every day on my christian journey I encounter battles.

I admit.

Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.

But.

They are just battles.

The war?

Well that's a different matter.

Easter is a good time to be reminded that the war has been won already.

Even this week I lost a battle.

But.

I reached out for the victory through repentance and found salvation.

I read Psalm 41.

Go on have a read today.

You see David in the same battle for his soul.

David sometimes lost battles.

But he knew there was a victory in the war.

Which brings me to today.

Are you in one of those battles just now?

Do you feel like your losing?

Two things to consider.

Repentance is vital.

Building spiritual protection around your soul through engaging with God no matter what is also advisable.

We may lose a few battles?

But through Jesus we will win the war.

Blessings today.
 

Citadelica

I stood looking at the front of the Salvation Army Hall.

It was dusk.

The frontage, a bit retro, a bit intimidating,  loomed large, casting an evening shadow about half way across the road.

The Citadel.

Citadel?

A word that sounds so utterly regal.

A word that speaks of safety inside.

A protective retreat for the forces.

A protective shield for our communities.

Of course the word citadel, comes from the Latin word civis, meaning citizen. Many say the citadel is the strongest part of the town and the last line of defence in a city system. 

Citadel.

So many Salvation Army Corps call themselves a citadel. 

Loads of them have it in their names.

And.

As I stood in the dim light of dusk looking up at a real time Citadel.

I wonder.

Inside the spaces of my wondering I feel a question surface.

Are we?

A citadel?

Am I a citadel?

A last line of defence for our communities?

The strongest part of town?

Cos.

The Citadel ain't really the building.

Is it.

In fact?

It's us.

We are it.

The citadel.

And in the dusk.

I ask myself am I really the strongest part of town?

Would I defend my community to the last?

Yeah.

I wonder.

We are not talking about doing Salvation Army for Salvation Army's sake.

No.

We are talking about defending our community  in Spiritual terms.

Battling to establish peace and justice.

By pushing back the dark forces of this world with a depth of love that can only come from the heart of Jesus. Stopping at nothing to turn our attention on the needs and the cries of the broken. Stocking up our armoury with the weapons of love acceptance and compassion, sharpening our approach with the communion of  Gods incessant love. Advancing the war with open arms and an open door.

Yeah.

Sounds like a citadel to me.

The strongest part of town.

The last line of defence.

So a call from God to the Salvation Army asks this.

Will you be a citadel?

Will you?

Can you?

Are you?

Dusk turns into night.

I walk on.

I know I've heard  from God.

He is astonishing. 

West London Development project Update 2

This last few weeks a lot has happened regarding our third planting of a prayer center here in Ealing West London.

Here is the update.

Fasten your seat belts!

I've now completed a 46 page document outlining the blueprint and business plan for planting the new center for prayer and mission in West London. The aim of this is to allow us to open some doors for further funding. and its looking good.

Last week I met with the architect who is working on the design of the prayer center and the plan is looking fab!

And!

At last!

Work has begun on the transformation of the tired old building in Leeland Road, Ealing, London.

And hopefully it will be completed in a few months time.

The prayer rhythm has been established and its such a blessing to have people popping in nearly every day now to pray at 10am each day. Sometimes its just Dawn and myself, but increasingly that is a rare thing!

Its so brilliant to see that very needy people are starting to be drawn on a daily basis to the building even though it is closed, asking for help and information. Fantastic new connections have been made over the last month, with the other churches in Ealing, with social agencies, with street workers, all of which want to work with us and us with them.

The Charity shop in Ealing has a new manager as Nicky Joyce has come to work full time as West London Project Hun Coordinator. Nicky is doing a fabulous job to revamp the approach of the charity shop and that should be opening soon complete with a prayer hatch of its own!

Hayes will receive a new leader into our team in July and is an important part of the West London project.

God is showing up in unexpected and astonishing ways.

We have decided with our DHQ to keep the word Sanctuary in our name as a project and so it will be simply known as Sanctuary West London.

Really exciting.

Last week Dawn and I visited the scene of our first plant, my home city, Liverpool where we  visited Liverpool Valley Corps on official SA business and then in the evening were blessed to attend a Boiler Room reunion where we met with many people who we have had the pleasure of working with and ministering to. Then in the same week we had a visit from a group of young people with there leaders from the Sanctuary 21 project which Dawn and I planted and established over the last five years. it was great to be blessed in this way and to see many people who have been touched by God through our ministry progressing brilliantly in their faith.

And as we look back we see the amazing hand of God at work in knitting together new expressions of Salvation Army that have seen lives reached and touched, not to mention changed forever.

And we trust him for the future as we have to work hard to turn around a desperate situation for the Salvation Army along the Uxbridge Road corridor in West London.

But with God?

There is everything to play for!

Who we are (A check list)

I looked inside myself this morning.

Checking my life out.

I wrote down a list of the values that would mark out the person I would love to be.

It had things like reliable, calm, happy, positive, peaceful and constructive written on it.

I'm getting there slowly.

I know I've come a long way since the days when I was almost a completely different person,  lost in the storm of life not knowing where I was headed.

I have direction now.

Even in storms.

God has set a top notch compass inside of my mindset that helps me find the narrow way.

That compass is Jesus.

But sometimes the mad side of Gary surfaces and I get myself off course a little.

So I wrote another list.

On this list I wrote the things that I do that I don't want in my life.

It's really a good thing to draw up an honest list of the person you would want to be because that's really the person you are.

It's also good to write a list of the person you are right now and compare.

It gives us things to work on.

It gives us areas to bring before God and get a better perspective on the way to deal with those things we don't want to be.

Better still, and this is the purpose of this random blog post,  there are some great checklists in scripture that highlight the person God wants us to be.

And.

Here is one of the clearest and most amazing ones.

I leave this with you today,  whoever this is for today, to have a little ponder on this list and maybe check where our lives are right now.

And.

Write your lists.

And.

Keep Working hard to become the person we could be in relationship with Jesus,  the ultimate compass for our life's journey.

Here's the scripture. 

Romans 12:9-21 NIV

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.   Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.   Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”    Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Blessings on your life today.