archives: january 2012...

editorial...

OK, confession time. Our New Year’s Resolution was to try and make sure our new web updates (including this magazine) actually happen when we planned them to happen. Oh bums. It’s now the 9th January and we’re only just getting the New Year edition live. Never mind.

I’m sure we’re not the only ones who’ve given up on their resolution after just 9 days. That’s not because we’re all a bunch of rubbish no hopers… just that maybe we make resolutions because we feel we ‘should’ be better – and that might just be the problem.

It’s a bit like following Jesus. Who out there feels they should pray more, that they should read their Bible more and that they should try and hear God more? Most of us probably! Then, when we do manage to make one of these changes, we often find it hard to maintain them for more than a few days or weeks. If our motivation to get to know Jesus better is because we feel we should, or because we think that it’s the right thing to do, then the chances are that we’ll find changing really hard.

If we want to grow in relationship with Jesus, then we genuinely have to fall in love with him. Again, and again. If we love him we’ll largely want to spend time with him; it won’t be a chore.  Jesus is a pretty amazing person. We are changed when we meet with him, not because we feel we should be better, but because meeting with him motivates us to be different.

But, Jesus loves us and wants to know us BEFORE we’ve made that change. Zaccheus, the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery and many more changed massively after they’d encountered Jesus. Sometimes he asked them to change (eg. ‘Go and sin no more’), but before that we know that he showed them love, respect, compassion and hope. He offers a different method of change, one that is still tough and dependant on our actions, but it’s one that has a totally different motivation. That motivation lies in us knowing we’re loved and responding to that fact, rather than feeling we should be or need to be different. It’s subtle, but grasping it might make a whole heap of difference!

So, we’ll try. Also, because we love you very much indeed, we’ll try very hard to make sure our web and magazine updates are all done on time… (sorry they sometimes aren’t).

We hope that your new year is working out ok. Feel free to drop us a line with any comments on the articles and suggestions for stuff you’d like us to cover in the future! Enjoy the read.

Cheers

editor@soulsurvivor.com