Do one or more of these behaviours keep showing up in your life:

• Dissatisfaction – no joy, negativity, counting your curses instead of your blessings; always wanting more but never having enough,
• Dis-ease – restlessness, lack of peace and contentment, always feeling like you are coming up short or not good enough,
• Distemper – anger, frustration, judgmental attitude towards others (even those close to you)?

If you see yourself experiencing one or more of these three behaviours it’s because you are whoring around with the gods of this world. Gods of popularity, fashion, academics, materialism, narcotics, alcohol or sex; the gods of wealth, and yes even health. These have become gods to us because we look to them to satisfy our hearts. We have pursued them with our energy, given them our life, and even sacrificed our children to them. And yet, they never come through. They always, always, let us down.

Consider the money god. It will never give you what you deeply need, make you who you really want to be, or take you where you truly want to go? All it will do is curse you with it’s absence.

The story of Hosea and his wife, Gomer, reveals two very important truths: all of us are prone to prostituting ourselves and the consequences are dire and God desires to be our true husband whose love is so fulfilling that we never prostitute ourselves again.

Do you want to be free from the gods who have enslaved you into prostitution?

In 2003 Rob Lacey published his book, The Street Bible, later renamed, The Word on the Street. You can get a condensed audio version via iTunes called The Essential Word on the Street.

Along the way, I stumbled across this overview. Credit was given as The 2 Minute Bible by Rob Lacey.

1st off,
nothing… but God
with a word,
God
starts it all up and
WHAP!
Stuff everywhere.

Heaven on earth.

The snake does some word twisting
Adam and eve fall for it
Awful twisted mess
Death strolls in

God
Sends them out of heaven on earth
They make babies
But the evil/good ratio goes through the roof
God
Turns the flood taps on
“waterworld!”

Only noah’s family and the animals survive
To see the rainbow
“Never again” quotes God

More babies
Then Abraham
and his miracle son Isaac,
Then Jacob named Israel
His son Joseph
Takes his family to Egypt

400 years on
Abraham’s family is slave labour for Pharoah
Then God waves them out of Egypt through the red sea into the dessert via 10 plagues
Moses downloads the contract –
The big ten rules
They break them all

Grumbling round the desert
for 40 years
Joshua gets them into a land with milk and honey on draught

king David sorts out the giant goliath between recording his great compilation “You Rescue Me” (Psalm 23)

Solomon comes out with some wise one-liners

then naff king after naff king
Messing up the people

The prophets – think couriers for God
can’t stop the rot

So God lets the Babylon army
Trash Jerusalem
And Abraham’s family are carted off
As slave labour
Again

Isaiah predicts a liberator

Daniel gets to sleep
with the lions

70 years on,
Abraham’s family goes back to do construction work in Jerusalem
But no shift in attitude:
More idol promises
wind God up.

So he stops
talking to them for 400 years.
dot
dot
dot

Enter Jesus the Liberator
good with hammer and nails
but he takes a career change at 30
and kicks off a 3 year
“heaven on earth” tour
with his mobile miracle clinic
and loads of stories
and questions
his team 12 love it
the religious suits don’t!

Dodgy trial
punishment beatings
public execution
-more hammers and nails
3 days later he’s back
having sorted out death
He’s launching the
Jesus Liberation movement

Paul Benson –
Jesus’ foreign rep.
Sending out loads of emails
updating people on what it means that
Jesus came to do

The ending is the beginning
Jonno’s general memo
on how things are going to get
wrapped up:

The snake dies
The Jesus liberation movement get limitless life
Heaven on earth, restored.
Absolutley!

Saved?: It’s common for Christians to ask people, “Have you been saved by Jesus Christ?” or they say, “Jesus will save you from your sins.” What I have noticed is that most people either don’t understand this jargon or they see words like “saved” and “sins” as outdated, irrelevant or even oppressive or insulting. They might be thinking, “I’m not so bad, I volunteer, donate, work hard, and take care of my family. Why are you trying to put all this guilt and shame on me?”

Consider this perspective. Do you have a deep wound in your life that you avoid because it still creates anguish and sorrow? Is there something that holds you back from really living? Do you struggle with depression or even just loneliness? Do you find yourself caught in habits that threaten everything you hold dear? Do you feel like you are adrift; that your life lacks direction or purpose? Do you wish you had more joy; that your marriage was stronger; that your relationships with your children were better?

In the original Bible language, the word “saved” also means “to heal.”

Would you like comfort for your wounds, to have them healed so you can grow past them? Do you want courage, strength, and discernment so you can break past the barriers that stand in your way? Do you desire a way out of depression and loneliness? Do you hunger for freedom from your habits that are crushing your life. Do you lay in bed at night crying for love, patience, compassion and discipline your marriage and family desperately need? Are you ready to turn away from the dead things in your life so they can be replaces with life in abundance?

Does any of this sound like something you’d like to have in your life?

If so, stick around because as we get to know each other I want to introduce you to a friend of mine.