hangout with Alison and just enjoy being around alot

play and swim with the kids

catch fish with Liam

read something historical or biographical  like Tyranicide brief

drive a really long way away from home like Noosa

listen to some cracking preaching with Ali whilst we drive and the kids watch DVD’s in the back.

explore places where I haven’t been before like Nambour markets.

visit old friends along the way and just hang and say hi like the Jarretts and the Batemans and the Grundys

fellowship in a different church like Point Community Church

cook lots of local produce like the fish I catch with Liam

eat lots of fresh fruit

drink good wine and cold beer .

walking by water and swimming in the sea

watch some  quality movies

forgetting about emails, phone calls and GTD  lists

enjoy spending time in God’s word for no other reason than He is my heavenly father,  it is His word and I am His son.

when I feel low, frustrated, stressed etc I find myself habitually staring at the fridge.
What is happening I think is that I am seeking comfort in a good thing, but the danger is that I eat till I am full but whatever caused me to eat in the first place hasn’t been addressed. It’s just a quick fix to help me feel better. It’s an easy out and a functional pseudo saviour.
Some people go shopping and spend therapeutically , others look at pornagraphic images, others have a drink, still others go do something that makes them feel powerful or important. They’re all dirty saviours that don’t deliver. What makes you think that your eating is any less a prob than a drunk? You get a quick fix but you are never deeply satisfied, and you are always left longing for more.

It a bit like KFC regret. You have a craving, you think those sweet smells of the colonel will satisfy you, but very quickly you are left feel dirty and greasy and wishing you had never gone there.

Psalm 36: 7-9
…. You give them drink from the waters of your delight….

It’s so easy to be decieved into believng that his cup and his table won’t satisfy.

here’s what I am trying to read this month

Keller – The Reason for God ( reread in prep for an apologetic series)

Powlison – The Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair

Bebbington – The Dominance of Evangelicalism

Robinson – The Tyrannicide Brief (Holiday read)

Borden – Direct Hit- Aiming Real Leaders at the Mission Field

when it comes to reading I am a bit of a dilettante, relatively ill disciplined and eclectic.

I’m interested to know how you approach your reading and the goals you set.

also open to suggestion for December

6.5 kgs in 2 weeks, but I had a lax weekend and lost discipline.

eating like a sparrow and dumping like an elephant.

the secret is low carbs, sweat, lots of steamed vegies and a serious cut back on lattes.

any hints?

with the help of a famine.

Luke 15. The lost younger son hit rock bottom. It was no doubt humbling. His recklessness had brought him to ruin. You would think that would be enough for him to be sensing what Heidegger called ” unheimlichkeite” – that eery and anxious sense of not being at home and longing for his father. Yet just in case that were not enough, the Lord allowed a famine in that distant country of self exile.

The Lord’s providence mercifully led him to repentance. But it wasn’t what we often expect God to provide for us. when was the last tyime you heard someone say thankyou God for my unemployment. Thankyou God for my cancer. Thankyou God for my chronic backpain. Thankyou Lord for doing what was necessary to humble me. It unsettles us to let God be God.

The lost young son’s  suffering was not wasted, for it would seem that he received it as discipline. It brought a sober mind set that could savour the goodness of his father, and set him on a course home. His idols had delivered him exactly what they could – nothing – and he had finally realized what he’d had all along – a gracious father.

I like what CS Lewis says regarding this kind of suffering,  it is God’s megaphone to a hurting world.

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”.

I wish more people would ‘hear’ that megaphone  and often wonder why there is not more people “coming to their senses”.

…and for my friends who are yet to be convinced and who are suffering, despite what some brands of Christianity might tell you, Christianity is not a coke machine that exchanges a few coins of religion for a can of blessing. They put nails in his hands.

God has not promised to deliver you from suffering, but he has promised to delver you through it.  He lifts up the humble … eventually.

here’s a problem for me as a blogger and why I need to be careful online.

My righteousness can only be by faith in Jesus Christ because he is my savior – not my effort, not my performance and not even my intellect or ideas.
In other words I am ok only because of grace – i am a sinner saved by grace. any other basis for my righteousness and my acceptance will be false and will fail.
Now here’s my question, as much as i can can theorise this gospel , to what extent is it actually realised when it comes to something like blogging.

I think that on more occasions than I can remember, I have thought – maybe sub-consciously – that my worth and acceptance and status is bound up in what people think of my opinion about matters of truth.

Now you are probably thinking, truth matters. It does I assure you. But why does it matter to you?

You see, doctrinal Pharisees make an idol out of truth, in that they can articulate the doctrine of justification by faith and salvation in christ alone, yet in reality they operate with another functional saviour. They trust in the rightness of their beliefs.
Tim keller suggests that these are the people who are prone to mocking and scoffing. Because their identity and worth is bound up in the rightness of their ideas, they tend to be dogmatic, closed in mind and is always disrespectful of opponents. Their disdainfulness comes from their false sense of superiority. They are often reformed and evangelical like me, and say they are justified by faith in christ but their real trust and assurance – though subtle – Is in themselves, and in the righteousness of
their own ideas. It’s an idol because they love their doctrine about God more than God himself.

Here lies the danger, because the internet has the potential to breed scofffers and mockers, because let’s face it – your traffic increases with scoffing, disdain, sarcasm, mockery and bombastic quips.

so some strategies to guard my heart
1. Believe the gospel and keep praying that it is realised functionally when it comes to others acceptance and opinion
2. Make a practice of caring more for God and his glory and less for my place, status, worth and identity apart from him and his gospel.
3. Search my motive before I post, ensuring that I am being slow to scoff and quick to bless.
4. Sit it in the drafts and wait a while
5. Allow the word of grace to identify, expose and demolish the idols of my heart.

answer: it doesn’t address the idols of my heart, community or culture.

have you ever wonder why alot of preaching seems to fail to move people toward change or make a difference in a relatively indifferent world.

recently I was pointed to the response to the preaching of Paul in Acts 19.

there is a riot in response to Paul’s persuasive preaching, because the whole economy is threatened by what he proclaims.
interestingly there is no sermon recorded but rather a precis is given by his opponents.
Demetirus says: ‘ he says ” their gods are no gods at all”.

That got me thinking that its probably worth asking what our opponents think we are saying! e.g what does the average guy in my neighborhood think is the message that I am giving, is it accurate and does it have anything to do with true and false worship?

it would seem that real impact happens, with ensuing social upheaval and transformation, when the idols of the culture are demythologized. that is,  we say “whatever you are giving your life to right now is an inordinate love, a good thing that has become a god thing that will not and cannot save you.”

further we show and demonstrate where are deepest love and desires cannot truly be satisfied and rewarded in the glory and grace of Jesus Christ.

our proclamation must  identify, expose and demolish idols.
our personal relationships and gospel communities must demonstrate that the gods of our culture are no gods at all, and when that happens – the volume really gets turned up (as does the heat!) – and people really start listening.

what do you reckon?

there are times when you may have thought that if God is there than he is just like a mean kid who pulls wings of flies for fun. holy heroes of the bible have thought the same until they have reflected more on God’s character.

Psalm 56:8

“you have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” (ESV)

its a wonderful little snippet of God’s character. He knows you better than you know yourself, he knows your restlessness, your fears, your worries, your hopes.

its striking don’t you think that He does not miss one drop of a tear, one ounce of pain.

the singer is confident that his God is no longer against him as an enemy, but his God is faithfully FOR him, against the enemy – whether that be some foe, or his own sin, or death itself.

” for you have delivered my soul from death, yes my feet from falling, that I may walk befre God in the light of life.”

yesterdays sermon seemed to go OK

I preached on Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23 as part of a series looking at what we would want for each other in our gospel community. We want for each other to know God more and more. God has given us everything we need in Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace.

1. We give thanks for the “trophies of grace” that we gather in community with each week, particularly their faith in Christ outworking in their love for the saints.

2. we pray for one antoher that we would know God better.

3. we pray that the Lord would give our hearts insght so that:

a. we grasp our hope more deeply and live in light of it

b. we realise the possessions that are already ours in christ and stop pursuing what we don;t need

c. we experience God’s power  in the risen Christ who rules us by his word and renovates us by his spirit

The more I have reflected upon this the more I realise the importance of not only praying this for others but wanting it for myself. Imagine if all of God’s people in your local area, just for a week or even a month, stopped fussing over “stuff” and fussed about knowing deeply and personally the supremacy or Christ and his power -imagine what a difference that might make.

I am a bit over blogging at the moment and am not at all confident that I have that much to say that is genuinely coming from me.

don’t take it personally, but I have found that I have been a lot happier and more useful in general by staying away from the computer and doing other things like reading books and focussing on the people in front of me rather than my iphone.

oh and I got back from Fiji recently. I had a great time teaching, building partnerships and mentoring a bunch of super keen young Christians.  Despite the fact that I missed my family it was very rewarding and refreshing. For the first time in a long time I don’t feel like a spiritual sham, and my desire to learn and grow and walk in Christ and delight in the Lord’s grace has been renewed. One thing I learnt from a great sage called Mike was what he meant when he said ” I knew a lot  more when I first left college than I do now”. (let he who has ears let him understand).

if you could pray for me and my family that would be great. especially that we would have one heart and mind in serving the Lord together, and that I would love them in the kind of way that Christ loves his church. Also that I would be faithful and diligent in my role as a pastor of the church, God’s flock.

and one final thing that I heard yesterday that was really refreshing

” Christianity is an anti- statistical proposition”

Paul Windsor of Langham partnership  was making the point from Acts 8 that the Lord uses some of the most unusual people, in the most unusual timing and unusual places to effect his most unusual work of redemption and transformation. I so needed to hear that.

what have you needed to hear recently?