Christ is risen…He is risen indeed.

Reading through Dallas Willard’s book Renovation of the Heart and he made the following comment about feelings.

I quote…”Feelings are, with a few exceptions, good servants. But they are disastrous masters.” Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, pg 122

In our feeling oriented world something to ponder.

The last few Sundays we have been talking about Jesus relationship with His Father and exploring that a bit. We have looked at some of the different stories including when he was a child and was left at the temple…in His Fathers house, when He started His ministry and was baptized and the Holy Spirit fell on Him, and last Sunday we looked at his prayer life and why he prayed.

One of the comments I made last Sunday was that the issue between Jesus and His Father(God) which is the same issue for us and God, is that the key issue is relationship. Sometimes we think prayer is the issue…prayer is the vehicle, relationship is the issue. Because God longs to have relationship with us, prayer is important because prayer is the language of the heart, the language of relationship.

We are going to explore these topics some more this Sunday.

I wrote last about our being involved in the carnival that the school where we are meeting was running. It was a great day. Good to get involved and help them, good to continue to build relationships within the school community and good to just have fun being with them.

Church is after-all…God’s people and God’s people are called to go as witnesses to who Jesus is and what he has done in our lives, to go as those called to love our neighbor, and called to go and make other followers of Jesus. On  Sunday reflecting on it, I made the comment that at the heart of the way we live is that we want to be natural. Natural enough that people know we are real and that we can relate to real people in real ways. As Christ followers…the church sometimes through our language, our busyness or our preoccupations we can lose connection. Doing things like the market keeps us grounded, keeps us connected, keeps us real and natural.

I also mentioned Sunday that the other side of the coin is that we are called to be Supernatural. Check back another time and I will write on that.

Picked up a great book the other day.  Richard Foster, “Life with God”.  The subtitle grabbed me…”A life-transforming new approach to Bible reading.”  I love thinking about soul topics; the journey of prayer, and the journey of relationship with Jesus as important parts of our faith .  But at times I have not found Scripture reading as easy.  I get in the ruts and routines of discipline and forget who is speaking through the pages of Scripture, and who authored the pages of the Bible.
Richard writes, that we often study the scripture to gain information (pg 4) or to find a formula to solve a need (pg 5).  He writes the following.  ”What we must face up to about these two common objectives for studying the Bible is that they always leave us or someone else in charge.  They are, in fact, ways of trying to control what comes out of the Bible rather then entering the process of the transformation of our whole person and of our whole life into Christlikeness.”  It is about learning to come to receive from the Bible and from the Jesus of the Bible rather then coming to it as a self help book or a text book on religion.
Good wisdom and so far a challenging and a great read.

I have a chance to stop and check my e-mail and write a few words.  We have been involved in a camp with a church community which went real well.  What has been fun is the variety of food and the enjoyment of eating it all.  Everyone wants to take us out and chat, and eat, and chat some more.

In the midst of good food, the basis of relationship and conversation, the oportunity always seems to avail itself to talk about the Kingdom.  To talk about the things of God.  To encourage, to pose questions, to teach and disciple through the way questions and conversation and lives intersect.  To learn and receive as much if not more then you give.  To be a blessing and to be blessed.

 The thing about food and conversation, is that you stop, you slow down and you enjoy being together.  Time gets forgotten and the next thing you know it is after midnight and time has flown.

I think coming from the west, I do realise we get far more time concious.  We feel we need to be ordered and stop.  We move on to the next thing. 

It is often in the lingering, in the food and in the conversation of life on life we get stirred or reminded of the things of the kingdom.

…arived in south east asian country today.  First impressions, green after Melbourne, humidity is slowly kicking in (that hot and sticky feeling), the mix of cultures; so western and so eastern all together, things that remind me of nigeria…20 plus years ago.

First gathering, great,  such a heart for God.  Great to be doing something with Tim again.  Stay posted.

Heading overseas for a trip to encourage some churches and missionaries.  Really looking forward to it.  Been a busy period of time.  A major job ended today, with the  graduation from the course I have been managing in my other job at EastWork.  Will let you know re my trip, hopefully as we go.  

A couple of days ago I read through the latest Cutting Edge magazine.  Lots of great ideas, things to ponder, questions for myself about how we are doing.  Things like are we doing enough?, Is there more?…the usual types of reflection when you think and read through lots of great ideas.  As I went walking this morning I found myself reflecting, thinking, praying…Lord where to with all this?  What do I do with it all?  Do I need to do something, change something? One of the great things about the Lord is that He speaks.  He has promised that His people will know His voice.  You learn and you grow in discerning.  For me one of the aspects of His voice is not just what He says, but the peace He brings when He speaks.  Today the Lord reminded me to keep going with what He had already said. To persevere!  Hebrews 10:36, in the Bible says…”You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” “Great reminder Lord…and great that you bring peace when you speak(see Phil 4:6.7 for more clarity).  I will keep going on those things you have said.”   Oh and I was going to share them here as well…

I know the above alliteration is terrible…but did it catch your attention? Last year our then almost Prime Minister had the catch phrase of Kevin 07!  Worked for him.

Anyway back to the above.  Been a bit quiet lately.  January became both for the church and me a time of rest and doing different things.  I have written lots on this blog about the value of rest.  I keep learning about it.  Have you ever taken time away from work, family, tv, internet…just for silence and prayer.  I had a few days away in January just for that.  It is so helpful for getting perspective.  I read a book in a couple days(something I never do), I walked and realized later it had been about 12 klm.  I enjoyed the silence and quiet and prayer. God spoke. He refreshed.  And I went back to work the next week ready to face not just the day ahead but also the year.

Vision is now beginning to stir…stay tuned.