This morning I dusted off the new mountain bike that my wife bought me for my birthday. its a great present but because of the extremes of Australian weather of late I haven't had much opportunity to ride it. In one week it was consistently over 40 degrees (that's Celsius, 104F), it peaked at 47 C for my birthday (117 F). The next week it hasn't stopped raining.

So I resolved last night, no matter what the weather, I was riding my bike! You see I'm trying to regain my fitness so with good intentions and a liberal salting of guilt over my health I set out this morning to set a bench mark for improvement. Basically I set out to ride as far as I felt I could until I was too tired to return.

At the apex of my journey I felt like just giving up and taking the next shortcut home instead of pushing through the pain of the ride. Then all of a sudden a shortcut opened up to my left, it was a little side street that would cut right across the U bend of the cul-de-sac I was peddling down. It was literally Grace Street.

In the sermon on Sunday morning, the pastor likened the Christian faith to a knife edge that we walk between faith and works. He highlighted the perils of straying to far to either side as if both are cliff faces that we can fall over and hurt ourselves on. For my mind he was spot on.

I didn't take the turn down Grace Street this morning, but it did prompt my thoughts away from the pain in my legs and towards my relationship with God.

My observation of Christian living is that there are those who certainly cheapen God's grace by continuing in their sin. They see faith in Christ as a free ride to heaven as if they are on a tandem bike and Jesus is doing all the peddling. Grace is the shortcut to heaven and a means of living.

Others, and I include myself in this lot at times seem to think it's all about them. It's their effort that will get them to their destination, it's their peddling, their sweat and their muscles that move them into the Kingdom of God. It's almost like they are punishing themselves into the Kingdom.

James the brother of Jesus asked the question "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?" and concludes (rightly) that "faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead".

That's a hard thought to swallow sometimes. God's grace is a means to living faithfully. It draws us in, shows us how valuable we are in God's eyes and the lengths that God will go to in order for us to call him Father. But God's grace is not an end in itself, works are a part of faithful living, they are an outpouring of our obedience and response to God's love.

Ephesians 2:10 tell us "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

What we do for God has been planned by God to bring about His glory. Let's not rest to long or struggle to hard but find our place in Him.

Following up from my last post, On the market I want to reflect for a moment on what I believe God's motivations are for moving me on from one church to the next (wherever that is).

We were reading through James chapter one in my bible study last night and a passage that really hooked into people was:

 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

Mature and complete, not lacking anything, that really resonates with me. In my mind it links to a Scriptural principal that I live my life by. It is the lesson from the parable of the talents: "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!"

Our maturity and completeness is borne out of our faithfulness to God in the small things that he has given us. When we show faithful with that He gives us more. This is no "Prayer of Jabez" increase my borders nonsense but a call to Christ likeness.

I believe that over the past 10 years of my Christian life God has been calling me to ministry. This wasn't something I was able or prepared to do in the beginning. It started with a call and in faith I answered and that began a journey.

In just answering the call of God he began to add more to me. I found myself leading a bible study, leading the congregation in worship and other things that I will label small, not to belittle them but to put them in context.

Being faithful with those things came more responsibility, soon God opened the door to bible college so I could further learn and grow. Along with it came the role of Student Pastor at my church. The role stretched me, made me think differently and brought me to a higher place in my relationship with God.

From there God has placed more responsibility on me with a pastoral position and the position of Elder in his church.

At each turn God has taught me something, entrusted me with something and allowed my care of that something to stretch, grow and test me. After every instance of faithfully dealing with that something, he has given me more.

Leaving my current church is a real stretching time for my faith. I have been ministering in the same place for the past 8 years, the church that I was brought to faith in and with people I have known for up to a decade. But in many ways these circumstances make it difficult for me to reach a new level with my relationship with God.

It's not that I am complacent, or totally unchallenged, but God wants to finish a work in me, to make me more mature and complete and I can not do that where I am.

I want to challenge you, it doesn't matter if you are a pastor or not. Where are you in your relationship with God? Is your faith complete? What is the last thing he entrusted to you? Where you faithful or has your faith stagnated?

My observation is that when we fail at the task at hand most people just plain give up. They say "I've failed God" and cease to look for the opportunities he is bringing their way.

Is that you? You can continue to grow even after failure if you repent. When you admit your failure to God, I can almost guarantee that he will find another way for you to grow and mature in him.

I'm not sure why I haven't written about this before now. It's public knowledge but I have been uncharacteristically quiet about it. About three weeks ago I submitted to the prompting of God to move on from my current church and ministry and venture into new and unknown territories.

What that involved for me what to resign from all my current commitments, even the ones that I enjoy the most.

In secular work I'm always hesitant to move on from one job unless I have secured another. In reality that makes me less likely to pursue a new opportunity unless my dissatisfaction with my current job has reached a threshold that I can no loner tolerate. I fear that this would be the same in ministry. I'm not at all dissatisfied with what I'm doing so I am less likely to look for or take an opportunity that God brings my way because I am comfortable and a little complacent.

So all of that is behind me now, I have resigned and in faith I am expecting God to bring about a new opportunity to minister to his people with the gifts that he has given me.