“Fix your eyes on the rising Morning Star. Don’t be disappointed at anything or over elated, either. Live every day as if the Son of Man were at your door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment. Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats.” – Jim Elliot
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And I quote…
May 14, 2011
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Why mission week is worth doing?
April 3, 2011
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This is a review of last year and why we will do it a third time in 2011.
God’s love is Big – for kids
March 31, 2011
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What is the HIGHEST thing you can think of?
The SUN is really high in the sky.
Can you reach up to the sun? Can you touch the sun? No… that’s because the SUN is a BIG way away.
God’s love is BIG. God’s love is BIGGER and HIGHER than the SUN.
What is the WIDEST thing you can think of?
The BEACH is really wide. It takes a really long time to walk a beach.
Can your arms stretch out as wide as a beach? No… that’s because the beach is very BIG & WIDE.
God’s love is BIG. God’s love is BIGGER and WIDER than any BEACH.
What is the DEEPEST thing you can think of? What is really deep?
A pool can be really, really DEEP. Whose toes can touch the DEEP end of the pool?
It’s a long way down isn’t it. The DEEP-end is very DEEP.
God’s love is BIG. God’s love is bigger and deeper than the deepest of pools or seas or oceans.
What is the LONGEST thing you can think of?
A shoe lace is LONG? A snake is much LONG? And a road is even LONGER? A road that is LONG and goes on and on and on!
God’s love is BIG. God’s love goes on and on and on.
God’s love is BIGGER and LONGER than the LONGEST, most never ending kind of roads.
The bible (Ephesians 3:14ff) tells us that we should ask God to be able to understand and see how BIG God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. We should ask God to know better how HIGH God’s love is, how WIDE God’s love is, how DEEP God’s love is and how LONG God’s love is.
It is in Jesus and his death on the cross that we can see and know just how BIG God’s love for us is:
“9God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. 10Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven..” – 1 John 4:9-10
Thought of the week… What the world needs now is love!
March 29, 2011
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A true love and esteem of God will dispose the heart to acknowledge God’s right to govern and that he is worthy of it; and so will dispose it to submit.
Love to God will dispose to walk humbly with God.
For he that love God will be disposed to acknowledge the distance there is between God and him.
It will be agreeable to him who loves God to exalt him and set him on high above all, and to lie low before him.
A true Christian delights to have God exalted in his abasement, because he loves God.
He is willing to own that God is worthy of this; and it is with delight that he casts himself in the dust before God, because he loves God.
So a due consideration of the nature of love will show that it will dispose men to all duties towards their neighbours If men have a hearty love to their neighbours it will dispose them to all acts of justice towards them.
Men are not disposed to wrong those whom they truly love. Real love and friendship will dispose persons to give others their due. romans 13:10 “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour.”
- Jonathan Edwards ‘Sermon One: Love the Sum of All Virtue”
Edwards goes on to say that love will dispose us to many more things that will be for good of our neighbours.
Love will dispose us to:
- truth towards neighbours (not lies or deceit)
- walk humbly among men to honor one another (not pride or arrogance)
- contentment in the station in which God hat set him. (not coveting)
- meekness and gentleness in their carriage towards neighbours (not violence or hatred)
- a sweet disposition and affection of the soul (not bitterness)
- peaceableness (not broils and quarrels)
- forgive injuries received from their neighbours (not harbouring grudges)
- acts of mercy toward neighbours who are under any affliction or calamity (not laughing at their misfortunes)
- give to the poor and bear with one another’s burdens, to weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice.
I want to love more.
Not only because Jesus is worthy of being exalted in my love towards him, but also in my love towards others.
Sounds like heaven.
Interview with the Author: Anne Rice
March 23, 2011
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I’ve asked I AM SECOND to clarify whether how this fits together with the other footage out there of her saying she ‘quits Christianity’…watch her here and watch this space for an update when I hear back from I AM SECOND.
A Conversation about God & Japan – part 2
March 18, 2011
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Friend B
Love comes from within… no matter the situation, you don’t have to detach from love, you can be in a relationship or not and still develop the same compassion. The love and joy you talk of has a catch….namely grief and pain when the joy and love is ‘taken away’. That is relying on the externals. When you grieve, what are you grieving for?The love that is described in the bible can be a bit hit and miss, “Serve the Lord with fear and trembling, kiss his feet or else he will get angry and you will perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled (Ps 2:11)”. God wanted people to fear him? Is this what you expect from someone full of love? If I had a partner like that I would call that domestic abuse. “For the Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God (Deut 4:24).” Ok so God is a jealous guy too… poor guy…. might need to work on that one…. I’ve been told it’s hard to maintain relationships when you are jealous.
And as for God not changing, name me one thing in this entire universe that doesn’t change? Saying God doesn’t change has no base for reality in our experience in this cosmos. Everything is changing all the time every moment of every day. Why wouldn’t God change as well? Is he immune from the forces of nature? Isn’t he nature? Nature changes right?
As much as I love this conversation, we’ve probably both learnt that such discussions don’t really get anywhere as we both have egos to maintain. Sorry for initiating the debate…. I like what you have to say and you come across as a person with the right intention…. and that’s the most important thing….:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L50xVM7wwss&feature=feedu
3 hours ago · LikeHayley Neal
yeah i enjoy these chats. hard to share thoughts on a FB thread though.I think the big difference in our thinking is the way we approach and understand God and the things around us.
I believe God is God. If God wasn’t immune from the forces of nature he would not be. He would just be you and me and I agree with you unable offer no hope.
Thanks for the link… found it interesting, especially having just read this the other day: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/jesus-the-buddha-on-happiness
A Conversation about God and Japan…
March 16, 2011
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Status Update by Friend A:
Just following my post regarding the wonders of god in the tragic Japan Quake… I guess this answers it??????
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/81374648/7 hours ago · Like · Share
Hayley Neal
While I want to and do affirm God is in control, I’m know there is a need to be filled with greater humble compassion. Because, I know if God were to shake, who could stand? Not the girl in the video, not any of us. We would all be stuffed.These calamities make me look up & think why? Why didn’t that happen to me? I feel so fortunate to not have been in that place at that time. In many ways I could have easily been caught up in that?
I don’t want to be cliche Christian – but it makes me see my need for God even more. Left to ourselves, what hope is there? It’s why we need a God who wasn’t thankful for human suffering (unlike this young girl whom i think is misguided) but was willing to endure human suffering, taste death, (i.e. the cross) so that we wouldn’t have to.
6 hours ago · LikeFriend B
Left to ourselves, what hope is there? Answer – Ourselves.
5 hours ago · LikeHayley Neal
What hope is there for us in ourselves?
5 hours ago · LikeFriend B
You have no hope for yourself?
4 hours ago · LikeHayley Neal
do u really think we can prevent ourselves from disappointments, hurts or ultimately death? what kind of hope in ourselves r u talking of?
3 hours ago · LikeFriend B
I’m talking of the hope that let’s you decide which path you take. You can’t prevent death, but you can prevent disappointments and hurt (mental). What is a disappointment? It’s when you expect an outcome and it doesn’t happen right? The reason people get disappointed is because we don’t see reality as it is. Mental hurt (as opposed to physical hurt) is merely an effect to how we deal with a situation. You can learn to react to situations in different ways so mental suffering loosens its grip.
3 hours ago · LikeFriend C
What ever is going to happen, will happen, the biggest illusion is that we get to decide on what happens to us. We are all here to progress and that also means facing sorrow head on.
about an hour ago · LikeHayley Neal
The grief &/or disappointment of knowing your partner will not be coming home from work because they were killed in the earthquake, is responding to reality as it is. To say they just need time to deal mentally with the physical situation and wait for it to loosen its grip, is mere poetry.We are holistic beings whereby our emotions are, more often than not, rooted in a very real and physical or relational reality.
We need a hope that does not come from within but from outside. Otherwise when I or my situation change so too would my hope. But if hope comes from outside then it will sustain me even when I or my situation (whether physical or emotional) may change.….
A Five-Pointer Shares the Gospel
March 9, 2011
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Unbeliever: So what are you offering me?
Evangelist: Salvation from God’s wrath and from your sin. Everlasting life.
U: How?
E: Because when Jesus, the Son of God, died, he absorbed God’s wrath, removed it, and he bore the guilt of sin for all who trust him.
U: Did he do that for me?
E: If you will have him—receive him—you will have all that he is for you and all that he did for you. If you will trust him, yes, he did it for you.
U: So you don’t know if he did it for me?
E: He is offering himself to you right now freely. He is offering you a wonderful, finished work of redemption—all that he accomplished in absorbing God’s wrath and cancelling sins. All of that is yours for the having, right now. If you won’t have it, it’s not yours. If you will, it is. There’s only one way to know if your sins were cancelled and your death sentence was commuted in the death of Jesus. Believe on him. His promise is absolute: If you believe, you will be saved. If you won’t believe, you remain in your sin, and under God’s wrath.
U: So what are you asking me to receive?
E: Jesus. Receive Jesus! Because Jesus really did these things. He really secured the freedom of his people from the wrath of God. He really bore their sins in his body on the tree. If you receive him, you are one of them. You are included. All that is true for you. He offers to you freely right now.
Read the rest of the conversation here A Five-Pointer Shares the Gospel.
- Jesus All About Life :: How to Respond to Cheap Shots
- Jesus All About Life :: It’s a Clever Campaign
- If I was a Community Pastor…
- Internal Churning
- Review :: Gospel Websites & Applications
- Socially-Driven Church – a Model for Arts Organisations.
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