“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15 (NIV)
The circle of continuous breakthrough is based on the these words: repent and believe. So what does it mean to "repent and believe"?
Repentance is a change of heart and mind. Simply put, it is a process of transformation that takes place within someone. This is be broken down into three different parts: Observation, Reflection and Discussion.
Believing is active trust, or sure faith. Again there are three practical activities that are related to believing: Plan, Account and Act.
Put together, this is what it looks like:
The arrow going from left to right represents time. Where the line touches the circle, it represents an event, which subsequently leads to observation, reflection, discussion, planning, accountability, and acting. After this, the circle can either carry on following the line (after a breakthrough) or continue around the circle, until there is breakthrough.
So what does this look like in our everyday life then and how does it relate back to the Gospel?
I have been searching for this song for so long! Finally found it! It's called "We are an Ark" by David Fitzgerald. Link is below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWLi_nJ_s9A
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Lyrics:
My eyes have not seen
My ears have not heard
What you have prepared for me
I can't comprehend
What you have spent
And you gave your life for me
I am an ark of your glory (repeat)
We are an ark of your glory (repeat)
You make your home in me (repeat)
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This song is so powerful! I knew I had to find it again when I first heard it because I was hooked on the chorus "I am an ark of your glory." There's something so enchanting about this song, as it's a declaration that our bodies that God would live in us, just as He would be in the Old Testament, behind that veil because his glory was undiluted. They had to try rope around priests when they when behind for a face to face encounter with God the Father because they would just fall to the floor. That same glory behind the veil, we can have it too in us. The question is, how much do you want it? I know I want it bad!
I can't get this song out of my head, so I thought that I'd share it. It's called "Find My Own Flame" by United Pursuit Band. The link to the song is below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShlmvA4-bgM
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Lyrics:
I don't want to ride on somebody else's passion
I don't want to find that I'm just dry bones
I want to burn with unquenchable fire
Deep down inside see it coming alive
Help me find my own flame
Help me find my own fire
I want the real thing
I want Your burning desire
Do what only You can do
In my heart tonight,
There's no better time
There's no better time
There's no better time
There's no better time
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What I love about this song is that it's so simple. It's something I can relate to, knowing sometimes our faith can seem firmer than it is, because everyone else around us is hyped up. Every time I play this, I kinda see this as my prayer, that I can be stronger in my faith, and that my faith is the real thing.
Life shapes are just things I find helpful to apply to my everyday life. It's something that my church teaches, and something I find quite helpful. What I find particularly helpful, is using these shapes to talk to other Christians about my things in our lives. For me, it has become a lot easier to describe what I'm going through. Each of the shapes has a scriptural backing, and these are quite easy to find in the Bible. Over the next few posts, I plan to go through first five in more detail. This post is just supposed to give a short overview of them.
The first life shape is the circle for continuous breakthrough. I find that this is the shape that I use most often as the applications are limitless. The circle is a continuous cycle where one can look their current situation, and see how to get breakthrough in an area that one finds difficult.
The next life shape is the semi-circle of fruitful living. This shape is useful to understand the rhythm of life, and balance work and rest works in our lives.
The triangle of deeper relationships is the third life shape. As the name suggests, it looks at the deeper relationships we hold in life ie, the one with other Christians, the one with people who aren't Christians, and the one we hold with God/ Jesus/ Holy Spirit.
The square of multiplying life is all about starting new things. This shape looks at how Jesus called his first disciples from the start to being sent out, and how we can replicate this model. I mainly use this shape to look at cell groups (home groups) or cluster groups (bigger versions of cell groups), but it can be applied to other things, such as starting a new activity.
The last shape that I will describe is the pentagon of personal calling. This model is all about identity, and how you and I fit into the body of Christ. It also shows how the separate parts of the body work together. I often refer to this model as the five fold ministry, which will make more sense later.
We decided to start a blog about God, and about our passions. Over the last 18 months or so we've all just grown so much in faith and we just really feel that we should be writing it down, if nothing else so that we don't forget it!
So who are we? So there's Jon, he started the blog and then there's his girlfriend Emma, his best friend Pete and the lovely Beth. And Ed. Who is pretty cool. We will be posting teaching, worship songs, book and album reviews... we're not really sure what it looks like but here are some photos of us :) You can follow us here directly, or twitter if you prefer (@ourlifeisopen)
