Monthly Archives: October 2012

From: A Meal With Jesus

The following comes from the fabulous book, A Meal With Jesus.

What are the Christian community’s meals for? They achieve many things. They express so much of God’s grace. They provide a glimpse of what it’s like to live under God’s reign. They express and reinforce the community that Christ has created through the cross. They’re a foretaste of the new creation. They’re a great context in which to invite unbelievers so they encounter the reality of God among us. But they’re not “for” any of these things. It’s a trick question. Everything else—creation, redemption, mission—is “for” this: that we might eat together in the presence of God. God created the world so we might eat with him. The food we consume, the table around which we sit, and the companions gathered with us have as their end our communion with one another and with God. The Israelites were redeemed to eat with God on the mountain, and we’re redeemed for the great messianic banquet that we anticipate when we eat together as a Christian community. We proclaim Christ in mission so that others might hear the invitation to join the feast.

Chester, Tim  A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table, Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.

Categories: christian, Christianity, Church, Devotional, Faith | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

The Life Livers

A new term begins.
The same faces
struggling up the final incline of
the school year.
 
What new skills,
knowledge or values
will be grasped?
Will visions and aspirations grow,
future possibilities emerge,
self awareness refine?
The work ethic,
for some, will be blindly poor,
but others see challenge and work
as a personal test
and a means of gaining
mental weight and stamina –
muscles for living life fully and well.
 
The future is hard,
for some, to glimpse.
Even tomorrow is vague –
too far distant.
Then there are the
“Life livers” for whom
tomorrow means
unknown but exciting
possibilities and potential
to be chased down
and grasped
with both passionate hands!
Categories: Poem, poetry, Reflections, Uncategorized | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Proper Daylight Saving

      So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.  Joshua 10:13
 

Now that was daylight saving!

Daylight saving starts in some parts of Australia today. God did it years ago – properly.

 

Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

50 Things We Learnt …

50 Things We Learnt From Our Father

One of my favourite possessions is a framed poster made by two of my daughters when I turned 50 … that is, a long time ago. This poster has hung in my study ever since. They called it, “50 Things We Learnt From Our Father.” It contains a whole range of ideas from the humorous to the serious. Some of the lessons came from their own experience and some are dated. An example, “Don’t dance near the record player.”

My favourites include:

  • “You can’t have enough of a good cheese”
  • “Horizontal and vertical stripes do go together” (A dig a their father’s lack of fashion sense)
  • “How to make toasted cheese sandwiches”
  • “Breadboards make the best plates”
  • “All meals can be prepared … and eaten, with a frying pan and a fork”
  • “There is always room for another book in your collection”
  • “Anything can be turned into a sermon illustration”

But there are others which are more serious:

  • “Girls can do anything”
  • “Don’t be afraid to try something new”
  • “Lookout for your sisters”

My favourites, which bring a lump to my throat are:

  • The joy of living for Christ”
  • Faith in the Living God”

Family life is a treasure of the big and small, the mundane and spectacular. All of it is a wonderful stage to grow a family. If you are starting out with your children remember that everything you do is being observed, from your fashion sense to your faith!

 

Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Family | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

A Quote: What We Owe God

For, until men feel that they owe everything to God, that they are cherished by his paternal care, and that he is the author of all their blessings, so that nothing is to be looked for away from him, they will never submit to him in voluntary obedience; nay, unless they place their entire happiness in him, they will never yield up their whole selves to him in truth and sincerity.

John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion,Signalman Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Categories: Calvin, christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Creation: God’s First Missionary

The title above was a sign at the 30 metre round Wilpena Pound Panorama in Hawker, S.A.

View From Tanderra Saddle near St Mary’s Peak, Flinders Ranges

Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Photo | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Enigma and the Body

Yesterday I commented on the amazing work done during WW2 by the people at Bletchley Park as they worked on deciphering German Enigma messages.

The brilliance of the work at Bletchley was the fact that a team of people with a range of different skills were brought together in one place for one task. There were maths geniuses, people who had an eye for patterns and how they repeated, there were engineering and scientific experts who knew their fields as well as stenographers and radio operators. Further afield there were brave men who boarded enemy submarines and ships as they were sinking to retrieve code books and enigma machines and there  were spies in enemy territory risking their lives by the minute.

It is not unlike the picture that Paul gives us in Romans and 1 Corinthians as to how the body of Christ is called to work with its gifts and talents in order to  further the Kingdom of God. At the risk of repeating myself, if this can be done in wartime for the common good, the body of Christ has an even greater good to promote by using its many gifts in a unified effort.

Categories: christian, Christianity, Faith, Reflections | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

Blog at WordPress.com.