• To live a life that reflects my deep faith and commitment to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
• To be the best husband and father I possibly can be.
  
• To lead people to Christ and to help them to become lifelong followers.
• To be a positive person who encourages those around me and makes a difference to their lives.
• To serve God faithfully until He calls me home.

Have you thought about this before? What are your big picture goals? What do you want to be remembered for?

When I started external studies I wasn’t sure how it would go myself. One of my concerns was finding the time and space required to study at home. While there was some initial teething problems things seemed to settle within a couple of weeks and a routine started to fall into place.

Generally I start my studies somewhere between 9-10 am each morning. This works well as this is the same time Larissa and the kids start school. I start with my pre-reading for the subject I am doing for the day. As I am doing five subjects I just focus on one each day of the week. In a sense I treat it like my job.

Once my reading for the lecture is done I then listen to the course lecture. Each one goes for about two hours and has a short break about half way. I generally listen to the first half and take my notes and then have a coffee break with the girls as they are usually on a break too. Then I go back and listen to the second half and take more notes.

I listen to the lectures on my laptop as they are all contained on one CD Rom that is set up like a mini website. You just click on the week number according to the lecture notes and work your way through. In many ways it feels like you are in the class as you hear the lecturer and the other studies questions. The only thing is you have to ring or email the lecturer your questions, but they usually get back to you within 24 hours.

In the afternoons I might do some more reading for the subject of the day or if I have an assignment due I will do some planning or writing on that. Generally I am pretty disciplined and start planning my assignments out when I first get them. I don’t like to leave them until the last minute.

Another question I have been asked is about Austudy. Austudy is available for all courses at Tabor as long as you are doing the minimum amount of units/hours required for your course. For those overseas, Austudy is a small fortnightly payment by the Federal Government that helps support students through their courses.

So all in all the external studies have worked out quite well and fit nicely into our family life. As I said I try to treat it as my job and work during the week and take weekends off to be with my family. So far it has worked well. If things continue as they are I am prayerfully considering continuing on next year.

It is amazing how much work goes into this process for the people wishing to adopt a child. There is seminars, study, lots of paperwork, processing fees and lots of in depth interviews. My friends had about seven interviews ranging from three to five hours. It looked at all aspects of their lives and was very intense for them.

When I thought about this I found it had a lot in common with the adoption process we go through as Christians. In the adoption process, the one being adopted doesn’t have to do much. They just receive the people as their new parents and are legally made part of the family. When they become part of that family, they are entitled to all the benefits of being part of the new family.

This is the same as it is when we come to Christ. The Bible tells us that we are adopted in to God’s eternal family in Ephesians 1:4-5. It says, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure”.

Ultimately, like an adopted child we didn’t have to do much to become part of God’s family. We just accepted what Jesus had done for us, confessed our sin and need for Him and invited Him to be a part of our lives. He did all the work so we could a part of His family. I don’t know about you, but to me that is great news!

If you would like to become part of God’s eternal family, please visit our “Peace with God” page.

Here’s an example to try. Place your mouse over this verse - John 3:16 (this probably won’t work if you are reading it via RSS feed). A box with the text displayed pops up and if you click on it, it will take you to the Bible Gateway website.

There is also another script that works for verses entered into a normal html page. If you know how to use templates you can add it to your main template and upload the pages of your site to your server and it will start working.

Here’s the link to reftagger where you can try it out - http://www.logos.com/reftagger

It really shows the power that taking an interest in someone can have and how a simple invitation can change someone’s life for now and for all eternity.

If you are interested in reading the article you can find it here . Enjoy!

We have done this so they can see what happens in a prayer meeting or home group. Sometimes they see tears, sometimes people are jumping for joy and sometimes the presence of God is so strong that all we can do is sit. Because we have allowed them to be present they see this sort of thing as normal.

One recent example of this is two of my friends were are our house praying (I mentioned this in my post a few days ago here). One of my girls was sitting on a chair listening and watching. She had a huge smile on her face and was soaking it up.

My other girl picked up what was happening and went to the computer and made a book mark with a picture of an Eagle on it. On one side it had Isaiah 40:31 where it talks about wings on eagles. One the other side it had a message from God which really impacted my friend. At the age of ten she ministered to a 40 year old man in a way that really spoke to him.

This happened because we have really tried to live out our faith in front of our kids. We have included them in our home groups and prayer meetings from when they were toddlers. Because of this they see these things as normal, not something weird, and it is natural for them to pull up a chair and get involved as they feel led.

Charles Swindoll has written about this in a short article on Christianity.com. He says this is solitude is vital if we are wanting to grow closer to God. It is worth a read if you have time!

Here’s the link - http://bible.christianity.com/11565368/. Enjoy!

Compare this to my game. I hit within my limits and most times my drive landed in the middle of the fairway 170-180 metres down. My second shot was a long iron that either landed in chipping distance or I played another short iron. Most of time I got a par or bogey.

What I found interesting is that while I tried to play within my limits and as a result I scored well. The other guy tried to smash it to score well, but did poorly. I thought about this as I walked around and found that many people have this same approach to life. Some go like a bull at a gate and take life full on, only to stumble most of the time. While others take a measured approach and seem to do well.

Now I am not saying that either approach is better than the other as we are all wired differently, but for me I found both my golf and life seem to go smoother when I take a measured approach. If I rush in and go hammer and tongs things usually go awry, but if hold back and prayerfully consider things they usually turn out ok.

For me, a prayerful, measured, consistent approach to life seems to work best. How about you?

We took the time to draw aside into God’s presence to pray for each others needs and really speak into each others lives. It was a real encouraging day and a day that left us all buzzing. We had real fellowship with each other and real fellowship with God.

I am so thankful to God that I have these guys in my life. It is a real blessing to know that you have people in your life that stand along side you in the good times and the bad. When things are going great you celebrate together. When things are not so good or a struggle, you pull along side and uphold each other in prayer.

As I type the words from Ecclesiastes 4:10 come to mind. “If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”

It is amazing how much of a difference to people rain can make, especially in farming regions. When we lived in Perth rain was about the dams and keeping the garden green. In country areas it is about livelihoods, families and local businesses surviving. It certainly has changed my perspective on rain and the difference it makes.

Rain brings hope. Hope that crops will come, which means the banks can be paid, families stay on the land and local businesses survive. It really is a domino effect. One that I am only just starting to understand.

If you are a praying person, can you please pray for more rain in the Central Wheatbelt region of WA. Just like hope, many people need it.

God Bless,

Dave

In Philippians 4:11-13 Paul says this, “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength”.

Paul learned that while the situations of life may be up and down, if he was connected to Christ and trusting in Him, then he would be able to continue on in Christ’s strength. He knew that true contentment is not found in things, but in Christ.

I saw this contentment in person recently. A farmer I know is having one of the worst starts to a season in a long time. The rain has just not come. Instead of being downcast and depressed, his faith was alive and he had a real contentment about him. It was a contentment that didn’t make sense if you just looked in the natural…but it did make sense in light of his faith and connection to Christ. For me it was inspiring!

One of the things I have learned to do in ministry, especially in the area of evangelism, is to look for small encouragements along the way. One simple example is the other night someone I know opened their new Bible and brought out a tract I gave them four months ago. They read part of it out to the group and then said I believe this is true.

Now you might think this is a small thing. But it was good to know that they still had it, that they had read it cover to cover and they understood it. On the grand scheme of events it is quite small, but to me it was little encouragement that encourages me to listen to God’s prompting and hand out more tracts.

If you are in ministry I would encourage you to look for small signs of what you are doing has made a difference. Listen to people’s word and see if they repeat something from one of your sermons or if they are helping someone in the way you helped them. You might just find that you are making more of a difference than you think.

God Bless,

Dave

Something I didn’t know was that he was saved in 1850 at the age of 15 when a snow storm forced him to take shelter in his local church. He said on that day “God opened his heart to the salvation message.”

One year later he preached his first sermon and with no formal education he was called to Pastor a small Baptist church at Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire. Just two years after that he was asked to take on the pastorate of London’s famed New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

I don’t know about you, but the thought of being saved at the age of 15 and then being in charge of one of the biggest churches in town at the age of 20 is amazing!

One quote from Spurgeon shows me he understood the task of evangelism…

“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies, and if they perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let no one go there unwarned or unprayed for.”

Spurgeon really was an amazing man who brought many people to Christ. I pray that God will raise up modern day Spurgeon’s to continue His work.

In his book “Great words of the Gospel” Gerald Stanton says that, ‘Salvation sets before us two major ideas, that of being rescued from a lost estate of sin with its penalty of spiritual death, and that of being brought into a saved estate of harmony with God and in union with Christ’.

As we can see from this salvation or being saved is about two things.

1. Being rescued from the penalty of sin - which means death and eternal separation from God.
2. Being in right relationship with God - both now and for all eternity.

When Jesus came and died on the cross, He came to pay the price or our sin. He took the punishment that was rightfully ours. His death opened the way for us to be forgiven of our sin and to be brought back into a right relationship with God.

If you would like to know that your sin is forgiven and that you are in right relationship with God, you can visit my “Peace with God” page to find out more.

This got me thinking about how I go about relational evangelism and what has worked for me in the past. Here’s a few random thoughts on what I have done that seems to have worked when I have entered a new workplace or club etc.

1. Natural relationships - I just try to be a friend and get to know people. I don’t try to make friends to evangelise them, but as I get to know people this seems to naturally happen.

2. I am a Christian - I let people know I am a Christian. Again this is done in a natural way. If they ask about my weekend, I might say what we did or mention church. This just opens them up to the idea I am a Christian.

3. Prayer needs - I let people know I pray and that if they ever have any thing that they need prayer for I am willing to pray for them on the spot or during my prayer times. If they are going through a major life crisis I ask if it is ok for our church to pray for them.

4. Questions - During conversations I might let them know that if they ever have any questions about God and stuff they can ask me. This is to open the lines of communication to spiritual things.

5. Bible - I ask if they have a Bible and if they would like one. If they do I give them and Bible and a tract. Again I let them know if they have any questions they can speak to me.

6. Living right - I have found that when you let people know your a Christian, they watch you carefully to see if you really are living out your faith. I try to do my best to follow Jesus in everything I do.

7. Follow up - I ask if they read the Bible or the tract and what they thought. If they accepted Christ I give them some sort of discipleship program for new Christians. This is to help them set a solid foundation for their new faith.

For me these are the things I naturally do in the course of building relationships. All the way through I pray for the people God prompts me to pray for and ask that I will recognise the opportunities God places before me.

I have found that more often than not, people come to Christ. This is as a result of being open to God, being open about your faith, by really living the Christian life and by being the best friend you can be.

There was only seven of us there, but it really hit the spot for me. Some of us had been Christians for a long time and one was just seeking. Although we were all very different in many ways, our faith in Jesus and our desire for Him brought us together as one.

I am glad that in a world where many men feel isolated and alone, there are places like this where men can talk, learn and grow together.

After some thought I spoke to her about the times when we are naughty and we don’t listen to God and do what He wants. The times when we want to do our own thing. She nodded. I said even though we are like that, God still loves us and reaches out to us and wants to be our friend and give us another chance. I said that is grace.

Her answer melted me. She said, “I love God, it is cool that He loves us and gives us another chance…even when we don’t deserve it”.

It is awesome being a parent and passing on your faith to your kids

One thing I have noticed about finding God’s will for our lives is that many times as Christians we are almost crippled and do nothing because we don’t want to step out of God’s will. We are afraid to do anything just in case it is not part of God’s plan for us.

What I have found though as a Christian is that God guides and leads us in different ways. Sometimes it is a loud call that comes and it is undeniable, some times it is an opportunity to do something new that we have a peace about moving forward in and at other times a desire to do something rises up within us.

St Augustine who was one of the early church theologians (354-430 AD) talked about how the desire rises up within us in one of his writings. He said, “Love God and please yourself”. Now he wasn’t saying to do whatever you want, he was saying that if we love God and are following Him, the desire to do what God wants will naturally flow out from inside us.

This thought is echoed in Psalm 37:4. It says, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart”. This tells us that if we are delighting ourselves in God, we will love the things that He loves and the desire to do His will overtake our hearts. God’s will, becomes our hearts desire and then He will bring it to pass as we step out and do it.

So here is some questions regarding the desires of your heart…

• Have you got a heart for helping young people follow God?
• Have you got a desire to reach out with compassion to your community?
• Have you got a desire to write devotional or discipleship materials to help others follow God in a deeper way?
• Have you got a desire to be a missionary or support missionaries financially?
• Have you got a desire to develop a vaccine that cures or slows a diseases progress?
• Have you got a desire to preach God’s Word?
• Have you got a desire to Pastor or plant a church?

If you are walking closely with God you might just find that these desires were placed there by God and it might be His will for the next chapter of your life. Why not trust the desires of your heart and prayerfully step out in faith.

God Bless,

Dave

Now I have to admit that exercise has always come naturally for me. Since I was a child I have been involved in some sort of sport or fitness routine, even with having Rheumatoid Arthritis. For the last 23 years I have regularly done weights three times per week to keep toned. I also walk and ride occasionally too. This combined with eating a healthy diet has helped to keep my weight in check. At 41 I still have a six pack!

Over the years I have trained others in weights and fitness too. The main message I have tried to get across is to find some type of exercise that you enjoy and do it. If you can find something you enjoy doing 8 times out of 10 you are well on your way to maintaining a healthy weight. If you do it three times a week for thirty minutes that will be enough for most people. Combine that with eating most of your food in the form God made it and you will be right on target.

Maintaining a healthy weight does take time, energy and discipline, but I believe it is well worth it. Not only will you look and feel better, but you will be healthier too. You will find a little bit of exercise can go along way to improving your overall quality of life.

Integrity has been one of the core issues for Billy Graham because when he started out there were a few questionable evangelists out there. Here are three things I really like about the way he has lived a life of integrity as an evangelist.

1. He has kept the main message the same - Billy has kept preaching the salvation message for more than 50 years. He knew what God had called him too and he has stuck with it. While he is involved in compassion ministry, the key focus is bringing people to Christ
2. He has a key accountability group - Billy regularly meets with three of his close friends to pray and talk with. They even created a paper to record the commitments they made. It was called the “Modesto Manifesto” and touched on areas of honesty, integrity, purity and humility.
3. Financial accountability in place - Billy set up local committees to oversee all the money that came in to fund the crusade events in a town. For each town the money went into a trust to pay for all the associated costs of the event. Once an event was completed each account was audited and signed off on to ensure all monies were spent correctly.

While no man is perfect and I am sure there are things he would do differently, Mr Graham has had a real commitment to ministering with integrity and he has done it for a very long time.

A quote from his biography “Just as I am” sums the man perfectly up for me. He said, “If I were ever to do anything dishonoring to Christ, I would rather He take me home to heaven before I did it”.

I guess all the hard work has paid off. I am off to finish my last assignment and then I can then have four weeks off. Yay

In the news there has been talks about dropping the fairest part of the award and just making it available to the best player as voted by the umpires. I don’t know about you, but something about dropping the “fairest” tag doesn’t quite sit right with me.

I really like the idea that the Brownlow Medal is for the best player, but also the fairest player. I believe that sport is about pitting your skills against your opponents and trying to beat them. But to me it must be done fairly and  within the spirit of the game. In some way making it restricted to those who play by the rules and have not been suspended makes it more valuable in my eyes.

I would hate to see the AFL change it. After all there are plenty of other awards out there for the “best” players, especially the media awards.

I found it interesting that in the Mark version, Jesus added the word “mind” that is not in the Deuteronomy version. This got me thinking. I wonder if Jesus added the extra word in to really emphasise the importance the mind in making the decision to love God? I wonder if He really added that in to help us to know that we need to really decide purposely to love God as an act of our will?

It is an interesting thought that is worth pondering I think…

At first I thought he was joking and I laughed, but he assured me that it would work. He said that it aerates the soil and allows the water to get down to the roots. I was told that in four weeks I would have a beautiful thick lawn.

I thought about it for a bit and then decided to try it in my backyard where no one could see. I carried out his instructions to the letter. Sure enough, four weeks later, hey presto, beautiful thick healthy lawn.

Armed with new confidence I decided to try it out the front. The funny thing was it just happened to be a day when all my neighbours were outside gardening or driving past. A few of them nearly crashed their cars watching me as they drove. I looked very strange and I am sure most of them think I had lost it, but I was confident it would work.

Well it has been two weeks and now my front lawn is beautifying more and more by the day. It is getting thicker and greener and looking good. I hope the neighbours see the results and realise that I hadn’t lost it, I was just doing my lawn a favour.

Hopefully they don’t think of me as that crazy lawn chopping guy down at number 11

In a conversation with God in chapters one and two, we see that Satan is allowed to test Job, but not take his life. This shows that while Satan is powerful, he is still subject and bound by God’s ultimate power.

I love the way Henrietta Mears describes Satan’s power in relation to God in her book “What the Bible is all about”. She says, “Satan has great power, but there are limits to it. Satan is mighty, but God is Almighty! He can only break through where God allows”.

As Christians it is great to know that we serve an Almighty God. Yes Satan is powerful, but God is ALL powerful!

When it came to that song this morning it was amazing how 12 years or so had passed, but it still expressed my heart towards God. Not only did it rekindle old memories, but it allowed me to express or re-express my heart to God and my growing desire to serve Him.

Here’s the lyrics…

This is my desire to honor You
Lord with all my heart
I worship You
All I have within me
I give You praise
All that I adore is in You

Lord I give You my heart
I give You my soul
I live for You alone
Every breath that I take
Every moment I’m awake
Lord have Your way in me

And I will live
And I will live for You

I am so thankful for songs like this and the impact they have on our lives. I love how they allow us to express our hearts to God and allow us to commit our lives to Him in a deeper way.

In my defence though, it was titled, “What the Book of Job teaches us about suffering”. That is a huge subject and one I know a fair bit about because of my history with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

When I get it back I will put it in a form suitable for the web for those who are interested.

The way I personally connect with God is through prayer. I like to spend time alone with Him and just talk. Sometimes I tell Him my problems, sometimes I ask for wisdom, sometimes it is more about just being with Him, sometimes is just about listening and sometimes it is more like chatting along the journey as I go about daily life. The key for me is just to make that connection and talk.

My wife makes her connection to God through worship. She loves to put on worship music and sing her heart out to God. She gets a real sense of God being right there with her and at times she says she feels like she is in the throne room of God. After a time of worship she is alive and recharged and ready to go on. Worship grabs her and takes her to a special place. One where she feels a real up close and personal connection with God.

I have another friend who gets in his car and drives. He puts on worship music and prays and goes on a journey. Sometimes it is to visit someone and other times it is to make that connection with God. He might have something on his mind, something he is trying to sort through or he just feels he needs to be alone with God. It is almost like he journeys to be with God and make his connection.

Again I ask. How do you make your connection with God? What things do you do that help you to make that connection? Knowing how you connect best with God is vital for your continued growth in Christ.

When you look into the term Hermeneutics you realise it is not something we should be worried about. It is just the rules and principles of Bible Interpretation. Hermeneutics uses two main parts to find out what the Bible is actually saying to us - Exegesis and Interpretation.

Exegesis involves looking at the text and finding out a bit about the background of the time of writing and what the author was trying to say to the intended recipients. The whole aim is to come up with a summary of what it meant at the time of writing.

Once this is complete you can move on to the task of Interpreting the text and seeing if it has any meaning for us today. Most Bible text has some transferable meaning and use for our times. Some have not as they were specific for the time of writing. As we are looking at the interpretation side of things we need to remember what the ultimate goal of Biblical Interpretation is to get a plain text meaning.

You might ask why is this so important? Well I believe there are two reasons. The first is to accurately apply the Bible’s teaching to our lives and secondly to correctly teach it to others. The Apostle Paul warned Timothy to make sure he correctly handled the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15). This should be the goal of all Christians and especially those in ministry because when it is not handled correctly people really are led astray.

So if you are worried about using the principles of Hermeneutics and being led astray you don’t need to. You might actually find that it helps you to understand the Bible better and then apply it to your daily life in a more accurate way.

If you would like to find out more about Hermeneutics you can visit Theopedia.com here

World Vision in particular realised this and came up with the idea of one person changing one persons world. They worked out that individually we can’t change a countries cycle of poverty, but an individual can enormously impact one persons life and change it for the better. Hence, child sponsorship was born.

As I thought about this recently I came to see how we can use this approach in our task of evangelism. You and I can’t bring the whole world to Christ, but we all have one or two people in our lives that we can impact for eternity. It might just mean committing to praying for them everyday for a year, purchasing a Bible for them, giving them a tract or inviting them to church. Simple things like this can change there life forever.

Is there someone in your life you could pray for? Is there someone you could give a Bible or tract to? Is there someone you could invite to your church?

1. I encourage people to trust Jesus for their salvation
2. I encourage people to read the Bible daily
3. I encourage people to pray everyday
4. I encourage people to meet with other Christians
5. I encourage people to seek God’s will for their lives
6. I encourage Christians to share their faith
7. I encourage people to have more family time
8. I encourage people to be generous
9. I encourage people to live a life that reflects their faith in Jesus

For me this encouragement process happens when I preach, in my writings and when I am one one one with people. I guess in many ways it is about sowing into peoples lives so they can sow into other peoples lives too.

Here are a few ways we are trying to train our kids in the things of God.

1. Modeling - we try our best to model the right way to follow Jesus in front of our kids so they can learn how to do it themselves.
2. Teaching - we show our kids what the Bible teaches on different subjects in a practical way so it is easy to live it out.
3. Encouragement - whenever our kids do something well we try to encourage and positively reinforce what they are doing.
4. Correction - we give them constructive criticism to correct the behaviour if they are doing something wrong.
5. Benefits - we show the benefits of living the way God wants us to live and that it makes sense to do so.
6. Love - we let our kids know how much we as parents we love them and just how much God really loves them.
7. Purpose - we show our kids that God has made them a certain way to do certain things in this life and that we should seek out God’s will for our lives.
8. Developing - we are helping our kids to develop their own faith and relationship with God. We want them to have their own personal faith and to relate to God in a way that is meaningful to them.

At the heart of this training is a desire to pass our faith on to our kids. As parents we want to be faithful to God and His Word and to prepare them to be the best they can be and to make a positive impact of the world around them.

Then after some thought and about a week or so. This usually gets said, “How on earth am I going to cut this down by 500 words?”

It is a strange phenomenon. I wonder if this just happens to me?

What I have decided to do is just hand the assignments in now. If the lecturer wants to deduct some marks for going over the word count, that is ok. After all I am doing these studies to learn and prepare for future ministry. While the marks are important, they are not as important as the learning and growth that comes from study.

Recently it had a spike in visits again. I am not sure why, but I thought I would highlight it again for those who might not have seen it. It you are suffering and healing has not come, I hope it helps in some way.

You can view it here http://www.passionaustralia.org/whenGoddoesntheal.html

When I think of a definition for revival, I can’t go past Charles Finney’s words from his book “How to experience Revival”. He says that revival is “a renewed conviction of sin and repentance, followed by an intense desire to live in obedience to God. It is giving up one’s will to God in deep humility”. For me, Finney hit the nail on the head. The true fruit of revival is not so much signs and wonders, as great as they are, but a deeper commitment to Christ and His mission for us in this world.

The first is that players from all countries came together and played as teams. Boundaries were not set on international lines, where things had started to become a bit tribal and aggressive over the last couple of years. As the tournament progressed you could see players from India, South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand and Australia were building lasting friendships. You could see things slowly changing. This will be a very positive thing for Cricket in the years to come.

The second thing is that a lot of fringe players got a chance to play against the big names of world cricket. I always love to see someone who has had a dream to play in the big time finally get their chance. When that moment comes where they really believe they belong at this level it is like a light comes on inside them. Andrew Symmonds did this in the World Cup several years back and I think Shane Watson did it this time. He won the player of the tournament scoring nearly 500 runs and taking 17 wickets. This might see him really step up and take his place long term in the Aussie team.

So while the IPL didn’t really grab me at first I can see how it has been very positive overall. If it gave some young players a chance to step up and it helped players from different countries see that we are not all that different after all then it has served a purpose. These two things alone will help world cricket to be better in the years to come.

1. They stood by Job in his suffering - these days when people lose all their wealth and prestige many friends leave too. Especially when their might be some sort of sin involved.

2. They wanted to help - they were there to comfort and support him and offered advice which was aimed to help him overcome this problem. They wanted to see Job restored.

3. They listened - they let Job share his sufferings. The Bible tells us they spent seven days with him before they spoke. They really wanted to understand Job’s problem and then respond. Not the other way around.

Although the friends advice was not correct or really that helpful, at least they tried to be friends and stuck by Job in the midst of his suffering. They were there for him and offered support in the best way they could. They tried to make sense of his suffering from their limited understanding of the situation and their limited understanding of God.

After we went around the park and started home my wife asked me to look at the tree again. This time we were closer to our home and looking from a completely different angle. This great tall straight tree suddenly looked very different. It was leaning on a huge angle and looked more like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I was surprised that it was the same tree!

As I strolled the rest of the way home I couldn’t help but think this is a lot like some of the opinions we hold. We see it from a certain angle or from our perspective only. We might find it hard to see it from the other persons side. Sometime it might cause some strife between us. It might even end relationships or friendships. When all the time we are looking at the same “tree” from a different angle.

Maybe sometimes we might need to get up and walk around to where the other person is standing and see the view from their side. We might just see things in a whole new way.

I believe that there are times when we need to day yes and get involved, but there are also other times when we the answer should be a polite no. Saying no to certain things is part of setting good healthy boundaries for our lives. There are times when we are snowed under by work, by other family pressures or we need time to work through certain issues. It is in these times that we should say no and we should feel at peace with that decision.

Sometimes I think we can fall into the trap of cutting people off because we think we know what they are going to say. This can especially happen if we have known someone for a long time. We might think we have the answer to their problem or we have some advice to give them, as well meaning as it might be, it might just not be the right thing to say. Sometimes it might just be time to listen and let the person articulate what they are trying to say.

I really believe that many of us have things inside us that we want to say or just get out. But when the people around us don’t really listen, we can feel that it is trapped inside us. If we really love and care for people we should stop and listen. We need to let them express what they are feeling or thinking. Sometimes they need some advice, some Bible verses, some encouragement, but sometimes they just need someone to listen, really listen.

Here’s the link to the Theopedia website. Enjoy!

If you would like to check out the article you can click here.

I am at lecture 11 of 16 and so far I have really enjoyed it. I feel a lot freer in myself and I have a deeper understanding of who I am in Christ. As a result of this I have found that I am striving less and just “being” more. It is really amazing when you take an in depth look at Ephesians chapters one and two and how much you can really get out of it!

The funny thing is last time I did Bible College back in the 90s my favourite unit was “Understanding God and Ourselves”. It was very similar in content and required a lot of reflection. I guess I am just a glutton for punishment…the good kind that leads to growth that is!

In Luke chapter 19 we read about Zacheus the tax collector. Zacheus was despised by the locals because he worked for the Romans collecting the high taxes they placed on the people. Tax collectors in those days would quite often take over the amount required and keep it for themselves. They lived very well at the expense of the people they lived amongst.

In the Luke 19 passage we see that when Jesus was passing by He called out to Zacheus and invited Himself to lunch at his home. This was unheard of as a Rabbi (as some people called Jesus) would never eat at a tax collectors house. They were social outcastes and considered unclean. Yet we see that Jesus wanted to be His friend! As we read on we see that the result of this lunch was that Zacheus repented of all the things he had done, gave half his money to the poor and promised to repay four times over all the people he had cheated. Jesus then said, “That salvation has come to this house today”.

The key message of this passage is that we see that Jesus accepted Zacheus before he had even repented or promised to make amends. Jesus even approached Zacheus right where he was at. He didn’t have a list of things that he had to do first, Jesus just accepted Zacheus when not many other people did.

If you feel like you would never be accepted by God because of some of the things you have done, I would encourage you to come to Him today. He loves you and accepts you exactly where you are and He just wants to be in relationship with you. If you would like to experience the love and acceptance of God I would encourage you to visit my Peace with God page right now.

One of the things I love about the country is the feeling that we have jumped off the treadmill. Life is certainly a lot slower and more relaxed up here. When we lived in Perth it always seemed we were busy working to pay the mortgage, the endless bills, the loans and rushing from one thing to another. Up here we feel we have stopped and can smell the roses. I have actually noticed that roses do smell…and they smell nice!

If you feel like you are on a treadmill and you are just running from one thing to another, you might like to prayerfully consider the country move. For us as a family it is by far one of the best things we have ever done!

So why am I drawn to the idea of house churches? I guess I like the idea of being a part of a small group of people who share lives of faith together. I like the idea of being part of a large church with its resources, but I find the closeness and intimacy of relationship happens better in a small group. For me personally I have always enjoyed the small home group meeting during the week more than the hustle and bustle of Sunday mornings. I have found most of my breakthroughs have come during this smaller group.

The other thing is that a house church seems like a natural progression for us as a family. We are a home school family and we spend lots of time together in our small “clan”. We are not naturally drawn to big meetings with lots of people. Getting together with a couple of other families (or singles) each week and spending some time in fellowship, prayer, worship and learning together from the Bible sounds appealing.

If you are interested in finding out more about house churches, two of the resources that have really helped me learn about house churches are “Starting a House Church” by Kreider and McClung (link is to their website about the book) and “The church in the house - a return to simplicity” by Robert Fitts (links to the book itself in html).

“The Scriptures are the glasses by which we bring the world into focus. When we look through the glasses of Scripture, we see God and his world and his people and ourselves more clearly. There are some things, especially about God, that we would never see at all without the Scriptures. There are many things about the world, others and ourselves that we would see in a completely distorted fashion without the glasses. The word of God changes our perspective”.

I can say a big Amen to this. This is what I found when I began to read and study the Bible. My life started to make sense and I started to see myself and others more clearly. It also helped me to see the part I can play in God’s eternal plan.

How about you? Has the Bible helped you see life and yourself more clearly? If you haven’t read the Bible, you can access one online at BibleGateway.com

“True servants of God help others whether they themselves get anything out of it or not. Their only concern is that God be glorified and people trust Christ”.