Who are we? (Part 2)

Hey guys! A few weeks ago Andrew posted his testimony and mentioned that I'll be doing mine soon - so here I am! If you haven't read Andrew's yet but you'd like to, you can find it here.

So, Hello! My name's Hannah. I'm seventeen and this is my story.

I was raised by a non-Christian family. This meant that the only information that I got about God was the prayers I did in assembly and from my Grandfather. When I was about four, I went to my first Church. Even though my Mother had been baptised, she'd lost faith and had never encouraged me to go to Church. I loved every minute of it. I loved singing songs about "some guy" called Jesus, and sitting on massive comfy sofas in Sunday school to hear stories about Jesus. I wanted to go back, so I did. I went to Church for about a year when my family received some devastating news. 

My Nanny had primary liver cancer and secondary bowel cancer. She wasn't going to get through it.

Through the time of her having cancer, she started coming to Church. She became a Christian and even started to read me stories from the Bible. On January 19th 2002, I was rushed down to my Grandparents house and waited upstairs while the grownups mourned. That night I prayed my first prayer to myself; Please, don't let her die.

I think it was after I'd learned what had happened, and after I realised that my prayer didn't 'come true', I started to blame God for things. Something wrong? Gods fault. Friends not talking to me? Gods fault. I did this all through primary school and most of secondary. Not a great start, eh?

When I was 13, I got into a pretty rubbish relationship and was stuck in it for just over a year. That year was one of the hardest years of my entire life, and my partner just didn't understand what I was going through and why. After a year we said enough was enough and broke up. I thought that this was God sending me a sign, that things were going to get better, but they didn't.

Skip forward six months - I'm sitting in school hating everyone and everything. My parents have just got a divorce. Dad's moved in with his new girlfriend. I have more homework than there are hours in the day and everywhere I turn, people are coping with stuff I'm not.

It's fair to say that life at this point was pretty rubbish. However, it was at this point I met my lovely boyfriend  & best friend Andrew. Andrew and I used to hang out all the time and talk about everything. For once in my life, I felt like I was being myself with someone I could trust. One day, Andrew invited me to his baptism.

"I've been to one of those things before. It's (and I quote) the thing where they hold you under the water and bring you up really fast!"

*face palm* I know, I was an idiot. anyway, Andrew got baptised and he was stupidly happy. And I mean like, over the top sunshine and rainbows, all the time. So naturally I asked him why he was so happy, and he started telling me about God.

At first I was all "great I've managed to get mixed in with a mentalist Christian like you see in films". However, what he was saying made sense. It was like something in my brain was plugged back in and finally I could see what I needed. I needed God! And so one day after school, Andrew came down to the cricket field with me, and I became a Christian.

However, after two weeks I started to feel like I'd been cheated. I wasn't happy, I still had problems and things definitely weren't getting any easier. I'd been to Andrew's youth group, cried, run out and hadn't gone again. Being Christian was not as easy as people made it out to be. I looked at other Christians and was jealous of their relationship with God. Why didn't I have that? I prayed about it for a year. Then something happened.

In the December of 2012, Andrew asked me to go to this festival called Soul Survivor. "Why not?" I told myself, and so I found myself going to that same Youth I had cried in and going away to spend a week with them on a field. I'll be honest with you, I'd painted a picture of me standing in a field, in the rain, crying, surrounded my thousands of insane people.

Instead, I found myself standing in a MASSIVE tent, listening to songs about the same guy I'd heard stories about as a kid, laughing until my ribs hurt and meeting with God and the Spirit - and it was freaking awesome!!!!!

I'd never experienced anything like it in my whole life. I cried and laughed, and laughed with crying in between. I'd met people and made awesome friends and had THE BEST MILKSHAKE ON THE PLANET. And that was just day 1.

On day 1, all my prayers from over a year were answered. The speaker Mike Pilavachi asked those who weren't Christian to get up and be saved. I watched hundreds of people get up and feel God's grace. Then Mike said something that changed my life forever. "If you're unsure, confused, feel you have no relationship with God - get up". Before I could even finish my blink, I had grabbed Andrew, blubbed something about being saved and dragged him to the front.

I was saved in front of TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE.

Having social anxiety and just general anxiety, THAT WAS THE WORST THING I COULD HAVE EVER DONE EVER IN MY LIFE.

But it wasn't the worst - it was THE BEST!! I felt like I was happy. For once in my life i was being taught that it's not just the awesome good people who get Jesus - its the depressed and the hurt. It was damaged beyond repair people who get him too! And I'm one of them!!

I spent the rest of the week getting healed by Gods presence, and realising that I was never on my own. It was an amazing experience, and if you ever get the chance to go to Soul Survivor - GO.

After Soul Survivor, I started taking Christian Union seriously. This was about teaching young people that God is for everyone not just the people who are raised in the Church.

I absolutely love running Christian union, and I hope you guys enjoy coming.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! If you've got any questions for us - you can reach us at christianunion.blog@gmail.com

Speak soon! : D

~ Cats and pizza (Hannah)

Even sinners love people.

Luke 6:32-35.

'If you love only the people who love you, why should you recieve a blessing? Even sinners love those who love them!'
And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you recieve a blessing? Even sinners do that!'
And if you only lend to those whom you hope to get it back, why should you recieve a blessing? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount!'

I was reading my bible the other day and these few verses really jumped out at me. As I read these verses I asked myslef;
'What makes me different from sinners?'
The music I listen to?
The clothes I wear?
Weather or not I put a nativity scene up as part of my Christmas decorations?

What I feel Jesus is trying to get across in this verse is that as Christians, on the surface at least, we are no different from sinners.
Are you nice to the people who are nice to you?
So are sinners.
Do you love the people who love you?
So do sinners.
Do you give back what you owe to people, and expect people to give back what they owe you?
So do sinners.

As Christians we need to stand out from others. We need to be friends with the friendless and helpers to the helpless. It's important that we remember that before w were saved we were sinners too. Just because we are Christians doesn't make us better than people who aren't, It means we have a saviour who is holy enough to forgive us.

What do you that sets you apart from sinners?

If you have any questions please feel free to email us at christianunion.blog@gmail.com.

Who are we? (Part 1)

You guys may be unaware that Christ and You Christian Union is run by two people. In this blog post I'll be talking about how I became a Christian and what my life was like before I came to know God. When a Christian does this, it's called a testimony.

Testimony time!


I am very blessed to have Christian parents who are heavily involved in the work that goes on the Church. The first time I ever went to Church was when I was 8 days old. Ever since then I have gone to church every Sunday (once in the morning, then sunday school in the afternoon and once again in the evening). Even though I was brought up in the Church every day when I went to school I was surrounded by people who were not Christians and some who literally resented the idea of God for one reason or another.
Looking back I can see that my peers were probably the biggest reason for me putting off becoming a Christian.
When I think back to the time I spent in Church growing up it's filled not with listening to amazing sermons, powerful worship and dynamic fellowship. Instead it's filled with trying to get to the next level on the super Mario game I was playing on my game boy advance. I literally spent the first 13 maybe 14 years of my life playing on my game boy rather than actually listening to the preacher. *facepalm*
When I think about it I don't know what's worse, going to church and considering yourself a Christian but all the time your there you just play video games or not going to church at all. I suppose my
upbringing in the Church did help a lot with me becoming a Christian, but it upsets me that I missed 14 years of two sermons a week and I'll never get a chance to learn from them again.

Anyway, when I was in year 10 of school (aged 14 years old) a friend of mine started up a Christian Union in my school. I went along, not because I wanted to learn more about Jesus, but because I wanted to be a good friend (and I had nothing else to do on a Wednesday lunchtime). One of the only talks I remember her doing was a talk on the rapture. We we're shown a video of a cartoon version of the rapture happening and one person who thought they were a Christian got left behind on earth. This literally scared me. I didn't want to be like the person in the video who thought they were Christian and was left behind because they were living a lie.
Skip forward a few months and nothing had changed, it's not like I was a bad person, I just didn't want to be a Christian.
In the same year all this was happening I got invited to go to a local night of worship for the youth of
the local area. Reluctantly I went.
I can't remember what the talk was that night, nor can I remember what songs we sang for worship.
But I can remember in that little Church I became a Christian, and my life hasn't been the same since.
About 2 years ago I started leading worship on the piano in the Church I've gone to since I was 8 days old and as of earlier this year I play the piano, guitar and sing every sunday in Church. I love leading worship and I hope to do it until I get to old to stand up on my own.
Last year I got baptized in water and it was the most surreal experience of my life, made even better by getting to invite people to church who wouldn't have gone to church other wise.

As of last year my friend Hannah and I started Christian Union in our school and since then we have 9-10 regulars and 4 people have become Christians (which is awesome!!!!).
I know I speak for Hannah and I when I say we love doing Christian Union and we both want to continue to do Christian Union once we've left school.

That's it! (So far anyway).

If you have any questions feel free to email us at christianunion.blog@gmail.com.

Andrew :)

God so loved who now?

If someone asked you to think or name of a bible verse then chances are the first verse that would come to your head would be John 3:16.

This verse goes; For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 

This verse is told over and over all over the world. Bumper stickers, T-shirts, posters, phone cases. You name it, if you can wear it or hang it up then it's probably had this verse on it. But what does this verse actually mean? What do you think is the most important part of what is proably the most repeated verse in the world?
God so loved the world?
Will not perish?
Have eternal life?

'Whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life'. This part of the verse really stuck out for me. God didn't come to save just the good, he didn't come to save just the people who go to church every Sunday. He came to save whoever.
Murderes? saved.
White people? Saved.
Black people? Saved.
Hated by everyone? Saved.
Never been to church? Saved.

You only have to take the 'leap' of faith to God and he will come. It dosen't matter who you are, God still made you in his image and Jesus still loves you.

If you have any questions please feel free to email us at christianunion.blog@gmail.com.

Do you believe in God?

If I asked you 'Do you believe in God?' hopefully a lot of you would say yes. However, if I asked you 'Do you believe in God?' I'm guessing less of you would answer yes, and this isn't bad. We can often talk of God and Jesus and all the amazing things that they have done or can do for people, but when it comes to doing things for us, sometimes we're unsure about his ability to help.

There's a film called the miracle maker. It's all about Jesus and it's awesome!! The film follows Jesus through his life, but also follows a young girl. In Mark 5 21-43 we meet the girl and her father Jairus. 

Now Jairus' daughter really wants to listen to Jesus, and wants to follow him round Israel while he preaches, but she's really ill. Jairus and his wife are really worried about her so they don't let her go to see him. She tries to explain that Jesus is the Son of God but because Jairus is a synagogue leader, he just thinks that Jesus is some random man claiming to be God's son. 

One day Jairus goes home and sees his daughter, and knows that she's going to die. He's taken her to see every doctor in Israel and nothing has got better, so he's at his last resort. He runs to Jesus and says 23"My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live". So Jesus goes with him. As he leaves, there are hundreds and hundreds of people around him, and in this crowd there's an old woman. She's had internal bleeding for 12 years, which is a long time to be in so much pain!! She had spent all her money on treatments but every time she just got worse. She'd heard about Jesus so she pushed through the crowd and said 28"If I just touch his clothes, I will get healed." She reached out and touched his cloak and instantly, her bleeding stopped. As soon as she touches him, Jesus stops and asks "Who touched me?" Now I can imagine the disciples saying that Jesus is being silly. There are hundreds and hundreds of people around him and I'm pretty sure one of them has brushed past him, just as this woman has. But Jesus asks again and says that he felt the power leave him. Then the woman comes forward trembling with fear and tells Jesus what happened to her. And Jesus said 34'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.'

While Jesus is talking to the woman, someone that has come from Jairus' house tells Jairus that his daughter has died. Jairus doesn't see the point in Jesus going to the house to heal her anymore but Jesus overhears the men talking and says 36'Don't be afraid; just believe.' He carried on walking to Jairus' house and when he got there, he found that everyone was crying. And Jesus couldn't understand why they were crying and said to them 39'Why all this commotion? The child is not dead but asleep.' 

And the people laughed.

You know when you say something, and you know that you're right, but no one believes you so you want to prove them wrong? I can imagine Jesus feeling like that. He goes into the house, takes the girls hand and says 41'Talitha Koum!' which means 'Little girl I say to you get up!'

Immediately, the girl stands up and starts walking, like nothing had ever happened.

Now the point of this was to show you guys that faith is important. It's all well and good to say that we believe in God, but to actually believe that He can raise people from the dead, or can heal people's suffering is soooooooo important. The old woman in the story didn't even need Jesus to acknowledge her existence. She would've been find if Jesus kept walking to Jairus' house, and when he does turn around he says that it was her faith that healed her. He doesn't say that He's this amazing man who can do all sorts of awesome things,  he tells her that her faith saved her. And your faith can heal you to. If you have a problem or a worry - pray about it. And sometimes it just feels like we're talking to ourselves, but like the woman in the story, if we have faith, we will be healed.


~catsandpizza

What can you do? Part 2

We read, in 1 samuel chapter 17 (Here) about a man called David and a big scary giant called Golaith. I'm not going to go into much detail about the story as it isnt necessary for this talk so I'll just give it a very brief recap.

So, David is a shepheard and he basically spends all of his time with his sheep. (I don't know if he has any other animals to look after but I like to think he has some hamsters also.) His life and work is his sheep. David is also a Christian. David has a few brothers who are in an army. Davids bothers were fighting an army who had this huge giant called Golaith. Golaith is, so far unbeatable. (Probably because all of the solidiers are afraid of him. I know I would be.)

One day it's Davids job to take some food to his brothers in battle. When he got there all he could see on the soldiers faces was fear. Everyone was afraid of Golaith. Golaith had been threatening the army for quite a while. David took it upon himself to fight this huge giant. All of the Soilders thought David was a bit of a fool for wanting to fight this unbeatable giant, they proably thought he was going to die. David, not being an army man, didnt have the same muscles or weight as the soildiers so none of the armour that he could use would fit him. He couldn't even use the swords the army used becuase they were too heavy for him.

Instead, David used a sling shot. He went down to a lake and picked up 5 stones/pebbles and went on his way to defeat Golaith.

To cut a long story short David took one stone/pebble and with his sling shot slung it right at Golaiths forehead. Golaith fell face first down to the earth, he was dead.

To see the long version of that story click the link I posted earlier.

Now that you roughly know about David and Golaith here are some little facts for you (please correct me if i'm wrong).

Golaith was 9.8 foot tall. Which dosent sound very giant to us but back in the olden days people would have been a lot shorter than we are today so to David he would have certinaly have been a giant.

Golaith weighed 57 kilograms. Again this dosent sound a lot but this was back in the olden days where people had to literally go out and kill a cow for a big mac.

A soilder would weigh 7 kilograms. So this means Goliath was roughly 8 times heavier than a soilder. Thats the same as one average male man verses 5 average size elephants!

We also have to take into thought that David wasn't the weight of a soilder he was much skinnier. Therefore David must have looked like a small dot compared to Golaith. 

Right, so we have David a small, unskilled worker who spent most of his time on his own against a giant who could proabably squish David with his little finger if he wanted to. How did David win? With God. 

David knew that God wouldn't leave him when he needed him most. 

All that David needed to kill Golaith was one stone/pebble and some faith in God. 

Those keen eyed readers out there might have noticed that David picked up 5 stones/pebbles to kill Goliath with. Was this becuase David thought that he couldn't kill him with 4 stones/pebbles? Was it becuase he doubted Gods ability to help in the first 4 times? No. The reason David picked up 5 stones/pebbles was because (wait for it..) 

Golaith had 4 other brothers. 

David thought that when he killed Golaith with one stone he might have to kill all his brothers too. So he picked up 5 stones, just to be sure. 

#plottwist.

As long as you keep a strong faith in God remember that you can overcome any Golaith in your life. 

I don't mean go out and kill the talest person you see. 

I mean if anything ever you come across something that you think is too big to get over or people who are 'better' than you cant get over, try bringing God into your problems. I can assure you you'll be amazed at what you can do.

I'm sory it was a long one.

email us at christainunion.blog@gmail.com with any questions you might have. 

:)

What can you do?

Ever had anybody ask you about what you can do?

Say you were meeting somebody new for the first time and they wanted to get to know you better. They might ask 'What can you do?' and you might answer with 'I can play an instrument!' or 'I'm really good at sport!'. 

However, there are two ways of asking this question.

The other way this question might be asked is in a sarcastic way. Like the person asking you the question thinks that your a nobody and that you can't do anything.

'What can you do?'

You, or someone you know might have already been asked this question in the negative way in the past. I know I have and it does actually make you feel like you can't do anything. Which isn't the case for anybody.

So, lets look at what the Bible has to say about people who are completely hopeless and who some people might look at and ask them 'What can you do?'.

In my opinion, the people in the Bible who are the best example for this are the disciples.

The disciples are Jesus' very close friends. Chosen specially by Jesus to stay with and travel with him almost all if the time. However the disciples aren't what you'd call particularly 'skilled' or 'talented' people. 

Some of the disciples were fishermen and if we take a look at the first few verses of John 21 (here) we see that the disciples are rubbish fishermen. And if we read Luke 24 verses 13-18 (here) we see that Jesus' special people, the people he kept close to him 24/7 the people who were mourning Jesus' death, didn't recognise Jesus.

How are Jesus' disciples looking to you now? Do they look like the sort of people who might get asked the question 'What can you do?'. But, with Jesus the disciples also did countless acts of awesome works that include feeding 5,000 people with just 5 loves and 3 fish and even healing people. 

How did the unskilled, uneducated disciples do this? 

With God.

This is why I think it was important to Jesus that his disciples weren't incredibly clever or incredibly talented. They were just like you and me. And if they can do amazing works for God then that means so can we. 

Joshua 1 verse 9 says 'Remember that I have commanded you to be determined and confident! Do not be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go.' 

Remember not to let what other people think of you become the way you think of yourself.

If you have any questions or queries feel free to email us at christianunion.blog@gmail.com.

Love

The Bible was originally written in Greek. Where as we have only one word for love with only one definition the Greeks have five separate words for love with five separate meanings.

The first is Eros. Eros according to Dictionary.com means a physical love or a sexual desire. This type of love would be used in the context of boyfriend/girlfriend, marriage context.

Next is Philia. Philia is the kind of love associated with friendships and the relationships we have with our friends. This type of love would be used in the context of friendships and people who are in our day-to-day lives and even people we pass on the street.

The next word is Agape. Agape is used in Greek as an official 'I love you' statement instead of the physical love that we see in Eros.

The last word for love that I am going to use is Storage. Storage love would be used in the context of affection between say, a mother and son. This word is almost exclusively used as a descriptor of relationships between family.

Now, compared to that us English speakers only have one word for love.

Love. According to Dictionary.com Love is 'A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

So it's important that in the Bible when the word love is used to think about the context of the word and what type of Greek 'love' it might be referring to.

With this in mind when we read verses in our Bibles like Romans 13:8 where it says 'Whoever loves others has fulfilled the law' God doesn't mean to physically love everyone but to care for people regardless of who they are. 

Probably the most well known verse in the bible is found in John 3:16 and it says 'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal live.' I don't read Greek so I don't know what type of love was used in this verse, but it could have been either Philla, Agape or Storage love.
This verse is used lots all around the world. But what does it mean? Well it's pretty simple. God sent Jesus to live on Earth and when Jesus was on the Earth he died on the cross. Something I think you all know very well. The reason Jesus died was so that all of our sins and all the things we do wrong can be forgotten about in the eyes of God. Also the cross acts as a 'bridge' to heaven as the verse says 'whoever believes in him will have eternal live'. This means that as long as we believe in God, become a Christian and read our Bibles we will not perish, but have eternal life in Heaven.
This verse doesn't just apply to the 'good' people either. In fact the verse even starts off with 'Whoever'. meaning anybody can have an eternal life in Heaven with God.

If you have any questions or queries email us at
christianunion.blog@gmail.com

:)