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Thursday 1st February 2007
“God, it’s me, Neddy.”
Ned Flanders is the nerdy evangelical who lives next door to the Simpsons. He annoys Homer by being decent, good and kind. He is, perhaps, the best example of a Christian on primetime television.
In one episode, Homer and his friends set up a ten-pin bowling team and one of the games they play is against the ‘Holy Rollers’ – a team made up of Ned and other Christians.
Ned bowls, he knocks down only nine of the ten pins, Homer laughs at him, so Ned prays the prayer above and miraculously the last pin drops.
Amusing as it may sound, I have known Christians who think that this is how it should work. If we’re in a competition or a race or anything then God is on our side. If you continue the logic then it gets quite absurd. Did Chelsea win the premiership last season because they were Christians or more godly? If so, why didn’t they win everything? If a Christian goes into a casino, with the intention of taking the money from the heathen and giving it to worthy causes, will he or she be guaranteed to win? Of course not.
Being a Christian is not about having God on our side. It’s about us being on his side. If I play football then I’m on God’s side and must play in a way that honours him. If I’m competing for a promotion then I must do so in a Christ-like fashion.
If you’re ever in a situation where you are tempted to pray God onto your side, then decide now that you will, instead, pray and commit yourself to God’s side – whatever the result. |
Jeff Green, 31/01/2007 |
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| | | Margaret Dye (Guest) | 01/02/2007 08:37 | I love The Simpsons Jeff and I have loved everything you have said about them and God this week. These Devotionals have been fun and inpsiring but at the same time full of wisdom - showing great observation, understanding and appreciation of God and His ways .......and The Simpsons!
| | | | Sheree Burgess (Guest) | 01/02/2007 13:08 | yes, Ditto, I too have really enjoyed this week and am often driven to wonder where I am on the continuum somewhere between the Flanders and the Simpsons. Often closer to Marge than I would like to be I'm afraid!
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| Tue 27 Feb 2007 - Really? | | “"And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,'
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| Mon 26 Feb 07 - Murderer gets ‘Life’ | | I think it’s quite significant that the three largest contributors to the Bible were murderers. God’s grace is so powerful and wonderful that nobody is too hardened for God’s love to change their life, and for God to use them.
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| Mon 19 Feb 07 - Hope | | In his book “The Growing up pains of Adrian Plass”, he relates a conversation with one of his fellow late night TV panellists.
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| Fri 16 Feb - Crown Him | | I once went to a Church Service when (due to various permutations of repetition) after 40 minutes we were only just starting the third song. If we’d been singing the hymn I want us to think about today then in all honesty we’d probably still be there!
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| Thu 15 Feb - Strength for the Fight | | recently had the privilege of going skiing. It was my first time; in fact if truth be told, halfway through the first day I’d decided it would also be my last. This I felt would be lived out via one of two possibilities,
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| Wed 14 Feb - Love Songs | | I’ve heard it said that whilst hymns are all about thee, worship songs are all about me. Yet I think that if my Valentine’s message to Rosie spoke only of a list of facts about her and not how those truths impacted me, and made me feel – she might feel a
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| Mon 12 Feb - How can it be? | | As I write these devotionals, schools are closed due to snow, and as usual there’s the ubiquitous radio phone-in about how we can’t cope with bad weather
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| Thurs 8 Feb 07 - Friends and Forgiveness | | I knew I had not been a good person; I was pretty selfish in my pursuit of my own pleasure, never really thinking about anyone else. I used to laugh at the beggars in the market place, taunting them and saying they were sinners just to see them cringe.
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| Tues 6 Feb 07 - Sanity restored | | I think there was once a time when I lived a normal life. I grew up and did my lessons at the synagogue and had my bar mitzvah like any other boy, and I learned a trade and earned my wages and did all the usual things that a young man does.
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