People will say…“Aren't you taking this Christianity stuff too far”? This life we’re called to live is a radical life. Just take a look at Peter and Andrew. Peter and Andrew were asked to “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of people” I for one am so glad they said yes to Jesus and changed the course of history from that simple “YES”. What are you saying to God when He’s asking you to drop everything maybe your Business, Career, Financial security, the Familiar, your Comfort, and overcome the expectations of family and others… to put His kingdom first? Your answer will either unlock the power and blessing of heaven on this generation or cause this generation to shrink into mediocrity…The choice is yours!

When I say the name Moses, what do you think of? Man of Faith?Great divider of the Red Sea. Great leader of Israel out of Egypt. Great lawgiver of the Old Testament. Extraordinary man of God? Moses was all of those things, indeed.

He is not someone we think of in any way as ordinary. But even Moses had some ordinary times in his life. Even for Moses, the great man of God, it was not he who was extraordinary, but it was the God he served, who did extraordinary things through Moses.

We are going to see the less than extraordinary way that Moses initially responded to God because of some of his fears, so we might have hope even in the midst of our own weaknesses and fears, and be able to overcome those fears and be used by God in an extraordinary way. And say YES to the Big ASK for the SPECIFIC TASK God is calling you to take up!

What may God be asking you to do? Many biblical heroes faced the 'big ask' in their lives and were challenged to make radical changes to their lives. Are we willing to accept these challenges to get us to where God wants us to be?

We can all identify in some way to the character of Peter. His aggressiveness made Peter a natural spokesman for the twelve. Often, however, he spoke before he thought, and his words led to embarrassment. A rough and tumble man whose emotions often got him into trouble, and yet he was clearly one of the favourites of Jesus Christ, who loved him for his big heart. In this passage we see the complete forgiveness, recommissioning and empowering. It seemed that Peter had burned his bridges, but Jesus lovingly rebuilt them and Restored Peter to service. The lowly fisherman became a might fisher of men – and one that changed and shaped the world forever. Peter was a former failure, but, with Jesus, failure is not the end.

Encounters 4 - Thomas

Passage Luke 19:1-10 Zaachaeus although short in stature planned ahead and was resourceful. He could have easily given up but he ran ahead to ensure that he had his encounter with Jesus Christ. We see a true picture of The Good Shepherd looking for His lost sheep. Don’t allow others to distract us from our Encounter with Jesus Christ. If Zaachaeus had of listened to the crowd he would have missed the opportunity of meeting with Jesus Christ.

The challenge to all of us is that we need to share the message of hope to those we meet on a daily basis. Are we ensuring that the people we meet have an encounter with Jesus Christ. Are we sharing our faith, taking every opportunity to tell our friends, neighbours about a God who loves them, cares for them and is passionate about having a relationship with Him?

Ps Georgina continues this series by looking at the incredible story of one blind man's encounter with Jesus that left him totally transformed. His identity was completely redefined, regaining so much more than his sight, that he was never to be the same again.

God wants to communicate with His people and He meets them right where they’re at. He knows us intimately and He uses language and stories that will land in our world. He approaches different people in different ways and we can see His tactic with Nicodemus who was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin.

Jesus makes it clear that no matter how religious and pious or full of good works you are…”You MUST Be Born Again” everyone of us who are followers of Christ start our journey with the spiritual birth, there are no exceptions.

Derek Smith speaks at Blackpool.

We all have a race to RUN And GOD wants us to RUN TO WIN! We need to put the right shoes on for the race…Our shoes are fitted with the readiness for …The Gospel (Good News) of PEACE. If you’ve not got your shoes on you’re going nowhere. We are not meant to wear anybody else’s shoes, God spoke to Joshua and had to remind him that “Moses my servant is dead” in other words this is… YOUR TIME… your foot – your shoes - your race – God’s pace. There are things that can stop us in our tracks from winning our race, stones in our shoe, shoes that are too tight and shoes that are too loose. If we deal with the things that stop us we will go on to win the race and bring a whole load of people with us!