James 4:7
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
It's true you know, what an absolutly amazing and promising passage this is.
The submit seems intricately connected to the humility in the preceeding verse.
If I could tell you that at any time of testing or struggle, that you can make the Devil flee, what a liberation. Well, just read the above.
Have you experienced the reality of this simple promise?
24.8.06
21.8.06
Foundations.
At the very beginnings of the sacrificial system in the old testament... The first sacrifices has just been offered to the Lord and consumed by Him. The people are awestruck...
Leviticus 10
"Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. "
The Spirit has first come to the believers after Christ's resurrection, and a great sense of unity, love and generousity is laying the foundation for the church...
Acts 5
...Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit... You have not lied to men but to God... When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died... [later his wife came]... Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? ...At that moment she fell down at his feet and died... Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
Foundations are so important!!
Why doesn't God strike dead every person who treated the OT offerings with contempt... why doesn't He strike dead everyone who lies and withholds from Him like Ananias and his wife did?
It seems that God is highly concerned with foundations... and so should we be. Before any new venture... any big decision facing us, we should lay a thorough foundation of prayer and dependance, seeking His will through His word and waiting continually for His wisdom, timing and peace as we progress with our actions.
Fat Priests
Stealing the fat portions...
1 Samuel 2:17 , 4:18.
"...This sin of the young men was very great in the LORD's sight, for they were treating the LORD's offering with contempt..."
"...When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy..."
A tragic story of two unruly sons and an old father who, it appears, was tainted with their wicked rebellion, robbing his rebuke of any authority. One of God's main grievances with Eli's sons was that they mocked His offering. They took the best portions for themselves although they belonged to God.
The challenge as I read this passage:
Do I offer God the "fat portions" in my life, or seek to keep them for myself. Do I give my first offerings of time and energy directly to Him? Do I give them to my academic pursits? Do I give them to my lovely girlfriend? Do I use them for seeking my own blessings in Christ?
I've been seeking to give God my sharpest moments and freshest time, the first of physical resources.
God doesn't want the scraps and the dregs.
1 Samuel 2:17 , 4:18.
"...This sin of the young men was very great in the LORD's sight, for they were treating the LORD's offering with contempt..."
"...When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy..."
A tragic story of two unruly sons and an old father who, it appears, was tainted with their wicked rebellion, robbing his rebuke of any authority. One of God's main grievances with Eli's sons was that they mocked His offering. They took the best portions for themselves although they belonged to God.
The challenge as I read this passage:
Do I offer God the "fat portions" in my life, or seek to keep them for myself. Do I give my first offerings of time and energy directly to Him? Do I give them to my academic pursits? Do I give them to my lovely girlfriend? Do I use them for seeking my own blessings in Christ?
I've been seeking to give God my sharpest moments and freshest time, the first of physical resources.
God doesn't want the scraps and the dregs.
The Lesser Known.
Shameless plug for some lesser known bands.
Caedmon's Call. - especially their later stuff is just really encouraging. My girlfriend bought me "In the Company of Angels II" (2006) for my birthday, a really uplifting new album from the guys. They are really Christ focused and reasonably mellow too. Go to a christian bookshop and have a listen.
Andrew Peterson - I still struggle to understand why this guy has not found a bigger following in Australia. His music is so uplifting, heartfelt and biblical. Go to his website. "Love and Thunder" is my favorite album so far. I'm slowly getting more people into his music.
Keith Green - He died nearly 25 years ago, but the raw passion and his strong desire for personal holyness is still a real challenge. I have all his sheet music and love to play it on guitar.
Caedmon's Call. - especially their later stuff is just really encouraging. My girlfriend bought me "In the Company of Angels II" (2006) for my birthday, a really uplifting new album from the guys. They are really Christ focused and reasonably mellow too. Go to a christian bookshop and have a listen.
Andrew Peterson - I still struggle to understand why this guy has not found a bigger following in Australia. His music is so uplifting, heartfelt and biblical. Go to his website. "Love and Thunder" is my favorite album so far. I'm slowly getting more people into his music.
Keith Green - He died nearly 25 years ago, but the raw passion and his strong desire for personal holyness is still a real challenge. I have all his sheet music and love to play it on guitar.
11.8.06
A thermometer
I've been reflecting on prayer quite a bit of late.
In australian ministry and churchianity it seems like it just doesn't happen all that much.
"What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more" - Robert Murray M'Cheyne
The power in your spiritual life for resisting sin, for changing to become more like Jesus, for being fruitful in all your efforts, seeing souls turned from dark to light... All these can only be a result of answered prayer.
Just pray.
Be obedient to the Word of God, and know His will through it, then mountains can be moved, the heavens can stop sending rain [James 5], solar bodies and systems can be changed etc.
Just pray.
The very essence of sin is independance from God. Rebellion against Him can be simply ignoring His word, leaving righteous works undone or not considering Him first in the smallest endeavor.
The thing about prayer is that we never know how much more fruitful, how much more satisfying, our ministry and joy in Christ can be, because we never taste it.
We kid ourselves that what we are seeing is the full blessing of God upon our works when in fact it is most likely crumbs compared to the power of the divine hand we could witness if we exercised more dependance.
Reading Esther, Nehemiah, Isaiah... prayer was such a fundamental aspect of each account, I don't think these stories would be in the bible except for the prayer. They wouldn't have occured. Not worth dwelling on hypotheticals though. Lets just pray.
God has been answering lots of my prayers lately and its such a great encouragement and source of spiritual strength. All praise to Him.
I'm grieved for those who never know these joys because they never trust enough to experience them. How many of God's uncounted spiritual blessings in Christ [Eph 1:3] are similarly unexperienced. A.W.Tozer calls it the second greatest tradgedy of mankind, the first being our fall and rebellion toward God.
In australian ministry and churchianity it seems like it just doesn't happen all that much.
"What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more" - Robert Murray M'Cheyne
The power in your spiritual life for resisting sin, for changing to become more like Jesus, for being fruitful in all your efforts, seeing souls turned from dark to light... All these can only be a result of answered prayer.
Just pray.
Be obedient to the Word of God, and know His will through it, then mountains can be moved, the heavens can stop sending rain [James 5], solar bodies and systems can be changed etc.
Just pray.
The very essence of sin is independance from God. Rebellion against Him can be simply ignoring His word, leaving righteous works undone or not considering Him first in the smallest endeavor.
The thing about prayer is that we never know how much more fruitful, how much more satisfying, our ministry and joy in Christ can be, because we never taste it.
We kid ourselves that what we are seeing is the full blessing of God upon our works when in fact it is most likely crumbs compared to the power of the divine hand we could witness if we exercised more dependance.
Reading Esther, Nehemiah, Isaiah... prayer was such a fundamental aspect of each account, I don't think these stories would be in the bible except for the prayer. They wouldn't have occured. Not worth dwelling on hypotheticals though. Lets just pray.
God has been answering lots of my prayers lately and its such a great encouragement and source of spiritual strength. All praise to Him.
I'm grieved for those who never know these joys because they never trust enough to experience them. How many of God's uncounted spiritual blessings in Christ [Eph 1:3] are similarly unexperienced. A.W.Tozer calls it the second greatest tradgedy of mankind, the first being our fall and rebellion toward God.
2.8.06
God of the Season
This one was from a few days back but couldn't post because the internet was broken.
It seems so many things are seasonal down here... maybe just to remind us that home isn't here...
Our hearts were created for eternity... permancency... but we just see restless decay and change and death.
In His Sovereignty, God has arranged seasons and declared them to exist. Ecclesiastes seems to me to be a book which answers the unanswerable. It's wisdom is profound... I think it silences questions you may have. Maybe it captures an element of mystery that some other wisdom literature just doesn't have so much.
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Later in the book it is declared the godly man knows both judgement and time.
We are taught to "tell the time" when we are young but we must learn through experience how to "tell the time" in this sense.
Lost in the mystery.
It seems so many things are seasonal down here... maybe just to remind us that home isn't here...
Our hearts were created for eternity... permancency... but we just see restless decay and change and death.
In His Sovereignty, God has arranged seasons and declared them to exist. Ecclesiastes seems to me to be a book which answers the unanswerable. It's wisdom is profound... I think it silences questions you may have. Maybe it captures an element of mystery that some other wisdom literature just doesn't have so much.
Ecclesiastes 3 - A Time for Everything.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Later in the book it is declared the godly man knows both judgement and time.
We are taught to "tell the time" when we are young but we must learn through experience how to "tell the time" in this sense.
Lost in the mystery.
Beggars.
So we were at Macca's ( just trying to keep warm - but we bought a packet of fries between the half a dozen of us.)
We were reading some bible after the prayer events in the last post. We were just talking about people who ask for money, wondering how to treat them, how to react and relate.
A guy came in and asked us for money. "His grandma died two weeks ago, he was kicked out of that place and needed food." When we offered to buy food, the story changed to needing rent money. There were holes everywhere in his story, and while his clothes looked newish... he did smell a lot.
anyway... it is just so hard sometimes to know how to be Christlike here... Here was a guy lieing to us, quite regularly claiming he "knew God and Jesus". He had some crazy ideas about ghosts, aliens and so on, seemed like he wasn't all there.
In the end I said I would give him $5 if he heard me out. I told him his story was barely believeable but that we did want to be compassionate because God has showed his love to us.
We dialogued about God and Jesus and so on, he knew nothing really but had no shortage of things to say anyway. I tried to get the gospel in but it was pretty hard and intermittent. In the end we left it that we were giving him money because God loves us. He walked away with $15 but I wonder whether we just just shortchanged Christ.
Jesus never had money really and so the people coming to him had different motives it would seem. Hard to say, I just knew Jesus would have known the perfect response and reaction to this guy, whilst I felt totally inadequate to know how to handle him.
We all prayed for him after he left... God the rest is up to you. We hope a nice aftertaste remains in this guy after his brush with us.
Reading Isaiah today, in the early chapters it seems some of the crowning signs of depravity within their society (in God's eyes) were their neglet of the fatherless and the widow.
Our society is easily wotrthy to recieve the same rebuke, but God's voice wasn't super clear with this guy, just didn't know how to penetrate the christian rhetoric he has learned in the traps. Didn't know what to believe or how to actually say something that he heard. We'd be utterly bewildered if we couldn't pray.
We were reading some bible after the prayer events in the last post. We were just talking about people who ask for money, wondering how to treat them, how to react and relate.
A guy came in and asked us for money. "His grandma died two weeks ago, he was kicked out of that place and needed food." When we offered to buy food, the story changed to needing rent money. There were holes everywhere in his story, and while his clothes looked newish... he did smell a lot.
anyway... it is just so hard sometimes to know how to be Christlike here... Here was a guy lieing to us, quite regularly claiming he "knew God and Jesus". He had some crazy ideas about ghosts, aliens and so on, seemed like he wasn't all there.
In the end I said I would give him $5 if he heard me out. I told him his story was barely believeable but that we did want to be compassionate because God has showed his love to us.
We dialogued about God and Jesus and so on, he knew nothing really but had no shortage of things to say anyway. I tried to get the gospel in but it was pretty hard and intermittent. In the end we left it that we were giving him money because God loves us. He walked away with $15 but I wonder whether we just just shortchanged Christ.
Jesus never had money really and so the people coming to him had different motives it would seem. Hard to say, I just knew Jesus would have known the perfect response and reaction to this guy, whilst I felt totally inadequate to know how to handle him.
We all prayed for him after he left... God the rest is up to you. We hope a nice aftertaste remains in this guy after his brush with us.
Reading Isaiah today, in the early chapters it seems some of the crowning signs of depravity within their society (in God's eyes) were their neglet of the fatherless and the widow.
Our society is easily wotrthy to recieve the same rebuke, but God's voice wasn't super clear with this guy, just didn't know how to penetrate the christian rhetoric he has learned in the traps. Didn't know what to believe or how to actually say something that he heard. We'd be utterly bewildered if we couldn't pray.
1.8.06
Piercing the Darkness.
Ok, so tonight brought a really thought provoking sequence of events. As part of a prayer rally, we drove around to three different places. First a centre of education, then a centre of entertainment for young adults, and finally somewhere that has a significant impact on our society.
At each place we prayed and asked God to transform things by His power. We went to Melbourne University, The Melbourne Cricket Ground, and near Crown Casino with the towering banks and corporate giants gleaming in the night. It was great to be there in the night playing for these places and all they represent, with other christians huddled together in a circle arms around shoulders. To confront the darkness I guess, but it raised the questions "how can we change things?" and so on. A great time and on the way home with a mate, we were able to have a fantastic encouragement about struggles with godliness and lust and pride, and have another prayer session.
After that, I came in and had an incredible chat with a housemate. Gods ways are so mysterious in some regards but its just amazing to see the difference that truly depending on Him for a situation changes things. It's beyond comparison.
It just deeply brought home to me the need to be humble, the power God feely gives through prayer, and the futility of doing things without praying.
Prayerlessness = Carelessness. (among other evils)
At each place we prayed and asked God to transform things by His power. We went to Melbourne University, The Melbourne Cricket Ground, and near Crown Casino with the towering banks and corporate giants gleaming in the night. It was great to be there in the night playing for these places and all they represent, with other christians huddled together in a circle arms around shoulders. To confront the darkness I guess, but it raised the questions "how can we change things?" and so on. A great time and on the way home with a mate, we were able to have a fantastic encouragement about struggles with godliness and lust and pride, and have another prayer session.
After that, I came in and had an incredible chat with a housemate. Gods ways are so mysterious in some regards but its just amazing to see the difference that truly depending on Him for a situation changes things. It's beyond comparison.
It just deeply brought home to me the need to be humble, the power God feely gives through prayer, and the futility of doing things without praying.
Prayerlessness = Carelessness. (among other evils)
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