The stage is set

"Finding Jesus at the bottom of your pint" was a possible title discussed for this post on our way home after CU last night. We'd moved onto Free For All two, and after looking at our God last time, we were this time looking at "The Arena of the Gospel".

It's a no-brainer to say that our "arena", or the place the gospel happens - so to speak - is the world on which we stand. The place we live, breath, eat, drink, work, play - God's created world. But on closer inspection, this piece of information demands more investigation.


Colossians 1:16 says this: "For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him." The "him"? Jesus.


Jesus is everything our beliefs hinge on - he's the focal point of the Bible, and the only way we can be brought back into a perfect relationship with our creator. Interesting then, that another aspect of what we need to know about Jesus is that creation is not only down to him (in Genesis we see God addressing himself as "we", in reference to the Trinity), but FOR him.


What does this mean? It means the stage we've been given for our lives is the perfect setting for us to live and speak for Jesus. God meticulously arranged our world so it was just right for us to inhabit. He placed us in perfect harmony with himself, and when we messed this up he sent his Son INTO THE WORLD to die for us. He isn't an aloof God, who does these kind of things in the private confines of heaven - this is a God who loves his creation, and yearns for his created beings to make the most of the creation we've been given.


Nothing we see in this world started from outside God's power. And so, when we do anything, the challenge for us is to do it in a way where we remember God's hand in it. Practically, that means me praising God for the tasty caramel latte I've enjoyed whilst writing this post!


And so we come to the proposed title mentioned earlier. Once we begin to live in this world with eyes keen to see God at work, we'll be more in tune to share our worldview with others, so that they might be able to see things a little as we do. That's not to say we should be cheesy Christians and start conversations with "Isn't it wonderful that God created pizza?", but as we enjoy God-made things with our Christian friends, the more we remember God, the more ready we'll be to talk about our creator when times are appropriate.