2 Sam 20-24 : death, sin, repentance

Again - read this too late to post - too late to recall too much.

Had a quick reread then - David again strikes me as such a great man - full of sin and yet repentant - and trusting in God's decisions on what to do with that sin.

Exodus 29-32 : The Priests

Did it late and so did not post - basically rules for establishing a priesthood - with lots of reminders that the only way a sinful man can approach a Holy God is via something dying in our place.

2 Corinthians 9-10

Be Generous
God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

How awesome is that verse - we have all we need - so that we will abound in every good work - good works that [ephesians?] says we were made for called for to carry out, good work that God had prepared in advance for us to do :D SO GIVE, give generously, God will supply all you need and enough to do all the good he planned for you to do :D

Be Obedient
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Paul is nearing the end of the second letter that we have that wrote to the church in Corinth - a troubled church full of people who are boasting in the showiness of their worship, the extravagance of their freedom to sin, but also praised for their generosity and their passion for Jesus.

They become troublesome books cos people wish to base whole ways of churching or not churching based upon what is in them - and yet when I read it I see a church of extremes - so women are to be silent - worship is to be orderly - tongues are to be desired BUT used in the right way - men are to uncover their head - and we are to great one another with a holy kiss.

SO women have a role, and have always had a role in a church, and in churching and it is not to always be silent.
Worship IS to be orderly, but not heartless and unemotional, not so structured you squeeze anywhere for the spirit to move us.
Tongues are to be desired - but they are for personal edification and so not to be blurted out when we are churching - unless someone is there who can interrupt and thus, edify all the believers who are churching together.
Men [in fact all believers] are to dress modestly and in accordance with the way the society the church meets in says expressed respect and honour to God - and yet we all have a broader call to accept one another just the same way God accepted us - by becoming like us and doing for us what we could not do our selves and leading us gently into a relationship with him.
And we are to great one another in a HOLY manner - warmly, intimately, within the culture we inhabit, not just with a kiss.

Tonight - for the first time in about a month - the undercurrent of pain, of hurt, of hate, of disappointment and uncertainty - it's not there - I even did a test a moment ago - recalling the painful things of the recent time and no matter how hard I tried to feel it - I couldn't.

Praise be to God.

Luke 3-4 : details, a nutter and an awesome God

You brood of vipers!

Last Sunday Andrew Palmer referred to this passage and made the call that John The Baptist was a nutter - well, as a Baptist, he is in very good company - but yeah, I can see Andrew's point - the man looked like a nutter and said nutty things - and yet - that was only the appearance cos in this nutter God was doing a very very special thing - he was getting everything ready for His son to get about doing the Job He came to earth to do.

I love the detail that Luke goes into in his book - his detail to help pin point the time when the events occurred - and with just four little word " so it was thought," he begins to chart the male side of Jesus' family all the way back to God - along the way showing the great heritage of Jesus - well, so it was thought anyway - cos of course he wasn't the son of Joseph at all. He was, like Adam, the Son of God - but a different, better Son, a life giving Son, a freedom granting Son. A Son of God who - well - he WAS GOD!!! What an outrageous thought, God becoming a man.

Actually it's not outrageous it's very very cool :D

He knows what it is like to be human - he knows the feeling of betrayal and abandonment - and He knows for real what it means to be forsaken by God. And he knows what happens when we die - and He is Alive today :D And He loves each one of us dearly enough to die for us.

Things like that - they are the things I wished filled my heart, filled my head - filled me so full that they just burst out, exploded into the world around me - I read this the other night - Philippians 4:4,5 from The Message [love the passion in that translation] Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you canto all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them to see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute! - I got a LONG way to go, a long way. But with Jesus on my side - He can do it, even when I can't.

Jeremiah 37-41 : read it

and then feel asleep

went to bed way too late last night - funny thing was I was very very enthralled in the story of poor old Jeremiah - going to have to come back and read this book again - it's one I haven't read much - and there was a lot last night to get me wondering, what's doing, why does all this happen, isn't that something prophesied about over in that other book.

But yeah, way too tired for much to feel like it sank in.

Job 39-40 : the correct answer is no

Coming to the end of Job - and this is this the part where God finally speaks - and Job is humbled - I actually read this last Wednesday night and I know it spoke to me and humbled me. It's great to read it again.

Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let him who accuses God answer him!
...
Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

I was humbled cos I realised that in hating myself and the person I have turned out to be, in wondering what it was God was doing with me, I crossed the line, crossed from responding to troubled times and feelings to questioning God and accusing him of having no idea of what he is doing.

God IS a powerful God.
God IS a just God.
God IS always true to His promises - every last one of them.
God DOES know what He is doing.

Dear Dad [in heaven],
I'm sorry for doubting that you knew what you were doing, sorry for telling you how you should run my life.
You have never let me down, you are right now saying yes to so many things that I am praying about.
Help me to hear your spirit more clearly as He points me to the cross and the peace, life and hope that I can find there.
Thanks so much for waiting, ready, always, for me to come and talk with you, I want to do it more often and I will try to - and not make you wait all day before I speak with you - I know what it feels like to be ignored, to be left until last, and although I also know you don't feel the way I do about that, although I know that I am completely forgiven - in fact because I am forgiven for it - I want to stop doing it, and get you back into the day to day grind of my life.
I want to find true happiness, joy, peace - which I know only comes in you and not the people around me, or the partner I do not have.
I have a heap of people I love and care for and I am just going to spend some time talking about them now.
love, b.

Psalm 57-59 : Be Exalted, O God

I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me.
...
I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.


Today was a strange day - pretty good - although I could feel the anger rising during playground duty - grr - anyway as I got home tonight I could feel the pain from the last month hanging around again - I prayed abit and tried to find some peace and also the strength to understand that God is for me - that he is working all things out for my good - that I do have friends and people who care about me - that I have not lost a friend. That God loves and comforts me.

It is now 930 and I have just finished today's reading - as I started I prayed God I need some good verses - and then I looked up to my calendar which has the bible readings on it and saw that it was Psalms tonight and I smiled :D - thanks God just what I need.

The quote above comes from Psm 57 - a psalm written while Saul was hunting David down to kill him - I was touched again - David had some serious things going wrong in his life - but he always turned to God and praised Him and sung of Him.

I don't really have anything seriously wrong with my life - and yet I find it had to lift my heart and sing.

Well i resolved to look to Jesus and sing - so I need to go off and do that - spend some time praying and giving thanks for all I do have and combat the lies of the devil that I can feel - even now - shattering my heart into a million painful pieces.

2 Sam 15-19 : bloody battle, betrayal by a son, a man with a heart like God's

I was too tired to blogg this one - though I did read it :)

It's about when David's son Absalom takes the kingship and the way it is giving back to David - I thought David behaved pretty well - like a man after God;s own heart.

Exodus 25-28 : too tired to blog

nothing else to say

2 Cor 6-8 : Living true

The letter to Corinth is a great pair of letters - so full of clear guidelines on how to live as christians in a non-christian world - how to balance the with we live in, but are not a part of - from what to eat [and how to decide] to what to do in a church service Paul covers it all.

It is also a great lesson of how to correct and rebbuke - on how to speak the truth in love.

And tonight's reading covered how to live, who to associate with, and an encouragement to keep on giving.

The verse that stood out for me was:
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

It leapt out of the screen at me - and made me see that the last month was alot about unGodly sorrow - it was about wallowing in all the things I do not have instead of giving thanks for what I do. It was about fighting against things, instead of entrusting them to God. It was about not believing God knew what he was doing and thinking I had a better idea than he.

Today - I resolved to turn around [repentance] that way of thinking, of seeing the things I do not and to trust those things to the one who can provide - it's you're problem now God, you are able, but if you choose not to do what I hope for, I will still praise you, for you are a wondrous, glorious, generous, gracious God.

Amen.

Luke 1-2 : Starting, Waiting, Doing

"I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. "

An opening line - outlining the course ahead.

I like Luke - of the gospels it seems to me to be the one that is written the best. These first two chapters are very cool - as they quickly move from before the birth of John to the young Jesus sitting in the temple - surprised that his earthly family did not get who he was. What was Jesus like as a child - even as a man? I am 33 - that is how old Jesus was when he was crucified - he started his ministry around thirty and three years later he was dead - buried - risen - ascended into heaven.

We know very very little about him before he started his ministry - I rekon it doesn't matter what he was like - the important things to know about Jesus are recorded - but sometimes I wonder. But from the man you can see what he would have been like - friendly, warm, loving, gentle, brave, bold, standing up for the right and protecting the weak, humble.

I love the 'songs of praise' people make up on the spot in response to God - I wish I could do the same, I think I can pray well and express how I feel to God and that is the important thing - although even that doesn't matter cos the Holy Spirit prayers for us when we can not work out what to say.

I am always intrigued by Simeon, the man waiting for the consolation of Israel - there had been a 400 year gap between the last prophet and the birth of Jesus - obviously he had not been waiting that long - but I get the feeling he was old, and had been patiently waiting for God to act just and He had promised He would - how much joy must he have felt to have seen Jesus and to know that here in front of him, a child born to a carpenter, this was the consolation of Israel - in fact the saviour of all of creation.

Waiting - right now - where I am now is all about waiting - about wondering what God is doing with me now, and really truely facing up to the fact that maybe God is not waiting to send someone along for me to share my life with - that out there is no woman to be my wife. I am finding that very hard to deal with - I am not like Simeon waiting - no I am like Job, railing against God - sadly I have no excuse like Job. And yet the same God is in control of both of our lives - and I need to be patient, trusting, faithing, believing that God really does know what is best for me, really is working out all things for me who loves me.

I feel so weary and burdened - and Jesus says to come to him if that is how I am - For His yoke is easy and His burden is light. I have been really wondering what that means - and I rekon it means that his yoke [the guide] is His commands, and they are easy, and his burden [telling others, that is the work we have to do] is light.

Knowing it is one thing.
Doing it is another.

setting off

The road ahead is unknown, clearly, but only to me - only to us. There is one who does know the road ahead, who knows the smooth downhill runs, the tight corners, the holes in the road, the slicks, the breakdowns, the beautiful vistas, the roads of rain and storm.

God.

He knows it cos he planned it.

So where is this particular part of my journey planning to be heading - along the road through the bible - each night I read the bible - I started 10th Jan 2004 and resolved to read every night and is so doing 365 days later end up having read the whole bible. Not cover to cover - I am not that sort of a traveller - no, I get bored of the one place easily and so I flit from place to place, person to person, book to book - I am following a reading plan outlined in the book - live like a jesus freak - when I read it I realised that I wanted to live a life more full on for God - and I knew that if I want to be on that journey then I needed to be close to God and to be close to God I need to be reading.

Up until now I have not missed a single night. Which surprises me - but when I started this journey I knew it would be a one day at a time journey and I asked God to help me - to help me to take the next step in the journey even when I didn't want to, even when I just took the step for the sake of taking the step - even when I didn't want to listen to God, let along speak with him.

And God has honoured my resolve by granting me YES to all those things - and so often I have found that when I do have a day when I set out on the next part of the journey reluctantly, hesitantly, like a dog sitting down and being dragged along - they have been the most special journey's of all.

So let's now set out together - I have been traveling dark paths in my journey of late - but I have decided to keep a travelogue, a diary of my journey through the bible and how it impacts on the bigger journey of my life.

and so it begins

Hello viewers, welcome to another place on the net where stuff just oozes out into the public realm.

I guess we should start with introductions - born in 1970 in Brisbane Australia I became christian in 1991. Currently I am living in Toongabbie, a western suburb of Sydney. I am going to Tooongabbie Baptist Church where I am the leader of the evening ministry team - I sing and lead the service and I am having a ball doing it, I am really enjoying the creativity and team work that comes from being in a band.

To keep the bills paid I am a high school teacher at Westfields Sports High - one third of the students are selected based upon there sporting ability the rest are locals - I teach Computing Studies and run the school network, which means I am often looking very stressed and hiding from people who want come up and say "brendan, my computer is broken" - but I love to help people and solve their problems, so it is a good job, though by the end of the term I am just about sick of hearing their problems and long for someone to come up and say "hi brendan, how's things going?" and have a nice chat about anything other than computers.

I am serious about following Jesus and being more like him - I guess you would call me a born again christian or an evangelical christian - the bible is God's truth about himself revealed to His creation - Jesus is God as a man who died for each of our sins and rose again to guess us life and hope of a future forgiven by God. We can only be right with God [who we have alienated through rejecting Him (sin)] by believing that Jesus death was all about Him being punished for our sins, that His death was all about being for us, on our behalf. Jesus is the only way to be in a relationship with God - which is what we where created to have, and without it we are not complete.

Catch you later.