Growing Up

Nathanael, my nephew, is now 9 months old. He's got such a precious personality and he's a lot of fun to interact with at the moment.

Romans 3:21-24

Romans 3:21-24 contains Paul’s essential points regarding the “good news” he proclaimed in 1:17. Martin Luther refered to this passage as the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle and of the whole Bible. The letter’s first two and a half chapters (1:18-3:20) proclaimed that all human being are, without any exception, sinful, guilty, inexcusable and speechless before God. Yet these verses (3:21-26) are “the great turning point” in both the direction of the letter and God’s dealing with the human race.

Νυνὶ δὲ χωρὶς νόμουδικαιοσύνη θεοῦπεφανέρωται,μαρτυρουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦνόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν,δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰπίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,εἰς πάντας τοὺςπιστεύοντας· οὐ γάρ ἐστινδιαστολή· πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξηςτοῦ θεοῦ, δικαιούμενοι δωρεὰν τῇαὐτοῦ χάριτι διὰ τῆςἀπολυτρώσεως τῆς ἐνΧριστῷ Ἰησοῦ·

My translation...

But now a righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, being witnessed by the law and prophets, a righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all those who believe. For there is no difference, for all sinned and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely in his grace, through the redemption which has come from Christ Jesus.

Key Points:

• This righteousness of God has been made available apart from the law
• This righteousness only comes to those who believe and have faith in Jesus
• Because no matter who we are we have all sinned... and are constantly falling short of God's glory
• But all those who believe have been justified freely through the grace which came to us from God through Jesus' redemptive act on the Cross.

Letter from my Sponsor Child

I received a letter from Ernry today - the first letter since the earthquake in Haiti.

Here's some of what he wrote (I've put it in straight as it was translated so the English is a tad rough).

On Tuesday, January 12, there is an earthquake that happened in Haiti. Many people died. The director of the project has two children and his mother who died. Those two children were my cousins. I ask you to help the project's director pray so that he can have strength and courage in these difficult moments.

My heart breaks to think of what Ernry has been through, but I praise God he was not hurt, and that he knows Christ.

Objectivity and Subjectivity of the Gospel.

“Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:1-4 NASB).


The Gospel is objectively founded in the two facts, Christ died for sins, and He rose from the dead. By having faith in these objective truths one experiences many subjective truths, such as “I am forgiven” and “I am free”. These are truths known for the individual – that ‘I am free’ – as opposed to the objective facts which are universal truths regarding the entire population – Christ died for all sin. Yet even these subjective ideas have a firm known truth basis for “…[they have] been propositionally [sic] revealed to us in the Bible.”

April Round Up

Well one post in April here probably leads people to think I've either given up this website or I've just been really busy. I must admit that with Facebook these days sometimes this blog feels a bit redundant - so what I had planned to do was divert my personal thinking and study on different things happening at Bible College to here.

The main issue with that is though I spent most of my time thinking about and studying the Bible and Church these days, by the time I've completed my college assessment my brain is too mushy to develop some further thought for here.

Maybe over the next few weeks I will copy and paste some segments of different assignments up here for discussion - I've written on some pretty interesting topics this semester like post-modern theology and the New Perspective of Paul. I've felt pretty hammer in having to tackle some pretty in depth areas of study, and with only 3 weeks of lectures to go the stress of exams is looming as well.

Church work at City North is pushing forward full throttle as well, being an intern has taken up many hours of my weeks, teaching R.E at Wavell High, running youth groups, Bible studies and young adults events, leading services and communion times as well as spending lots of time around the office learning from the other 3 pastors here.

Include into that some motorsports chaplaincy work and I've been run off my feet in April. It all ends this weekend with the V8 Supercars here in Qld for the Ipswich 300 - I'm not officially a chaplain (thanks to V8 Supercars changing their passes) but I will be out there ready to help out if any major incidents occur.

This Easter...

An objective truth is one that happens outside of your own experience. Whether you believe it or not it's true. Jesus dieing on the cross is one of those truths - so this Easter, whether you accept Jesus or not - we ARE celebrating the fact that Jesus came, died for OUR sins and rose again. No matter who you are you can turn to that truth, and I guarantee you'll be set free by it

Nathanael - 6 Months

My nephew is growing up quick. It sure doesn't feel like 6 months have passed already. Ness and Andy came home from Canada in December, so it's been great to be able to spend more time with them and Nathanael.

Nae has the most light hearted personality... even for a youngster he seems very accommodating and joyous. He's loving his solid food these days, getting into corm (yum), peas (yuk!) and all kinds of other blended delights.

I find it easier to do the drive out to Ipswich to visit the family now that seeing the little guy is also part of the deal.

More photos at my flickr account

Why do we get it so wrong?

I did a Google Image search for 'Jesus' with Pastor Joe today as we were discussing cultural views of Jesus in regards to his sermon this week on God's Revelation Through Jesus (seriously if you're in the North Brisbane this Sunday come and hear the message at City North Baptist).

Anyway, the image search was quite interesting. How, over so many years, have we got the image of Jesus so mixed up? And we continue to do it today.

Here are just a few;

Honestly, who was the person who came up with the idea of blonde Jesus??

Pretty-boy metro Jesus has soft straight hair and trimmed bear in clean fashionable robes and hugs a lamb.... awwwwwwwwww

This one gets me... Feminine Jesus just looks cringe worthingly wrong with his blue eyes, girly face and ET 'phone home' heart...

Super cool Jesus gives us his best Fonzy impression...

Mark Driscoll on the different ideas of the modern church.

I agree with him.

My Sponsor Child

Thanks again to Rodney for posting an update on Compassion's news from Haiti

Here's the link to their report on affected and unaffected Child Development Centres in Haiti. My child, Ernry, is in one of the unaffected centres located outside of the earthquake's impact zone.

A relief to hear!

Christians being judged?

Do you think believers will be judged by God for what they have done in their life?

Is knowing Christ the free pass into heaven that we've been teaching for so long?

Read Matthew 25 before you reply.

Compassion Update on Haiti

I have been sponsoring Ernry Michel for the past 10 years. He is one of those 65 thousand children sponsored by Compassion in Haiti. I am praying and waiting word on his well-being. He lives much further north than Port de-Prince, so I am hopeful that he and his family have survived this tragic event.

Please pray for this devastated nation, and consider helping compassion by donating to their aid cause at Compassion Australia.

STIR 2010

Becoming Lethargic

I've been on holidays since November when I had my final exam for the year. I still have two or three weeks of holidays left but I feel more that ready to get back into my routine of college, study and work.

I find I feel most comfortable when in a routine, and without one I become lazy and uncommitted to pretty much everything. During the holidays I have kept up my one day a week at City North, and that's been fantastic just to know that for at least one day I can go and do something productive, yet I feel a lot of my summer holidays have been lazed away.

I'm not complaining about my numerous trips to the beach or coffee catch ups, but I've found that I've watched much more TV during this time that I would usually, and I think it's just been so long that I've had my break and am ready to get back into things.

Do you find that you can have 'too much' time off??

A Kung Fu - Christian Convert's ideas on Martial Arts

Shane D'Souza was barely recognisable. The guards scrapped him off the cell floor and laid his mangled body on a dirty stretcher... We all knew who was guilty of the assault on the young Sri Lankan. No one said a word. The authorities didn't care.... there'd be no inquiry, no punishment for the attacker. No justice for my friend... When I saw what had happened, it triggered a dark and dangerous rage inside of me. Alcaponey was a nasty piece of work. No one knew his real name. He was one of the mentally deranged, the criminally insane...

On the day Shane was brutalised, I vowed his vengance would be mine. Alcaponey was a good foot taller than me. He pushed weights and his arms were as thick as my thighs, but I knew I could have him. I knew I could kill him with my bare hands and make him suffer for every blow, every stinking sordid deed, every drop of Shane's blood...

I was a world class Kung Fu champion, with skills to burst him open and break him into a million pieces...

Suddenly I was slammed against the wall as Alcaponey's screech echoed round the dark, desolate corridor. I was angry at myself for being caught off guard , but... at last my time with the demon had finally come...

I wanted his blood. I'd easily take his eye, before ripping off his ear with my teeth. Fury boiled within me, but suddenly there was something else. In the heat of those split seconds I was strangely aware of a much deeper battle raging... It was as though some kind of new consciousness was weakening the ingrained instincts that made me the combat fighter I was. As I fought to focus my attention on Alcaponey's ear, I had an image in my head from something I had read only that morning. A man unjustly arrested, his friend defending him, cutting off the ear of the servant of his accuser... "... all who draw the sword, die by the sword..."

[Tony Anthony, Taming the Tiger, p9-12]

Tony is a man bred and raised in the way of Kung Fu - taken to his grandfather's home in rural China when he was 4, he is probably the world's most skilled Martial Arts expert . After rebelling against his disciplined lifestyle he found himself in prison in Cyprus where he received Christ through a prison ministry.

Suddenly, words formed in my mouth. I heard myself speak. My terror was gone. My lust for Alcaponey's blood evaporated as I spoke. I was suddenly calm, yet as shocked as the brute by the power of my utterance:

'In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to leave me alone.'

[Tony Anthony, Taming the Tiger, p167]

Alcaponey, though only speaking Greek, reacts to this proclamation in English and runs away screaming. Tony realises that God had moved in a miraculous way, protecting him when he had not even specifically asked it, when for the most part he was confident that he could have handled the situation in his own strength.

Walking slowly back towards the main block... As I reached my cell I gazed again at the shape of the cross, formed by the window bars. 'I am the way the truth and the life...' I feasted on the words and knew that it had not been the Ch'i or martial arts that had saved me. It had been Jesus and my God-given faith that shielded me from clear and present danger. It was my first, scariest, most powerful lesson in faith. I knew it was time to fully turn my back on the way of Kung Fu and put my trust firmly in the hands of God.

[Tony Anthony, Taming the Tiger, p168]

More trials face Tony during the rest of his book, but from this point Martial Arts does not play a part, he succeeds in trusting in God's strength not his own.

A final thought on this by Tony challenged me and helped me come to the decision not to seek a martial arts physical routine recently...

From that incredible day when God demostrated his power as I wrestled with Alcaponey, I have always discouraged people from pursuing any form of martial art. In the West it is mainly taught for fitness and self-defence, but it is rooted in spirituality that I believe is misleading and dangerous. The 'way' of Kung Fu is a very different path to the true way of Christ. It is a way that builds false confidence in self. Martial arts appeal to a person's fears, weaknesses and ego. Christ's way is to release a person into new life, freedom and security through, and in, him.

[Tony Anthony, Taming the Tiger, p197]

Christianity and Martial Arts

Just wondering about initial views and opinions at the moment.

Something I've been reading about lately and pondering where it all fits in Biblically.

More to come...

I Am Alive

If my blog was anything to go by, you would all be thinking I was still lost somewhere in the Canadian wilderness.

I returned home, and got stuck straight into my exam period for college. That was a tiresome, stressful and painstakingly long period of time. But that's been over for a while now and I've been enjoying some holidays with lots of trips to the beach and such.

With keeping in touch with people much more regularly on Facebook these days I guess I find it 'doubling up' to write daily life stuff here as well. I will try and delve into my thoughts more here - though I've been limiting the amount of thinking I've been doing since I started holidays so we'll see where this blog goes.

Snow

27 years old and yesterday was the first time I've ever seen snow!

Andy took his mum and I up to Grouse Mountain, just north of Vancouver. It was a fantastic spot, with a fun climb up the mountain in a Cable Car and then to get to the peak we had to take one of the ski field chairlifts (which I must admit got me a bit tense, that height and such a little bar holding me in). But once up the top we were able to experience Grouse's first snow for the season which had fallen the night before. It was icy and melting, but hey IT WAS SNOW.

The rest of the day was fun too - with Grouse Mountain putting on a Lumberjack Show and seeing some amazing views of Vancouver before heading back down and revisiting Stanley Park (and dodging the attacking Raccoons!)

Hmmm and photos don't seem to be uploading, but there are heap on Facebook if you're over that way!

Vancouver

Went into the centre of Vancouver yesterday. Figuring out the public transit system was pretty easy (it's much better than Brisbane's) and Mum and I made our way into town via the Sky Train before walking round the dock area and then catching a bus up to Stanley Park.

That park is huge! We walked quite a bit of it, right up to the top where there was a lookout overlooking the shipping lanes entering the bay. We went to Beaver Lake, but saw no beavers and then made our way back through the gardens - seeing quite a few squirrels, which were pretty cute.

We then caught the bus back to Gastown, the older more traditional part of town which has a lot of those touristy type shops and was very nice to walk through.

Today Mum, Ness, Nathanael and I went to 'Metrotown', a giant Mall (probably twice the size of Chermside). I'm not one for shopping but it was interesting witnessing a very different culture of shops, clothes, food and sporting apparel.

I'm still feeling pretty darn crook. Seems all this sickness has allowed my sinuses to become infected. So feeling pretty rotten most of the time, but making the most of it anyway.

Not Jetlag

Spent all night in a feverish sweat, and feeling mighty crook.

Am a lot better today, still headachy and a bit disorientated. Not what I wanted after flying all the way to Canada, especially now I'm having to keep away from little Nathanael cause I'm sick.

Hoping it clears up real quick!