The End of the World??

Due to all the drama happening around the world there has been a lot of talk about Matthew 24.  I hadn’t read it in a while so had a look through and thought it was important to post it here so that those who haven’t had a look can see for themselves (NIV translation).

⁴ Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵ For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ⁶ You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷ Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of birth pains.

Notice in verse 6 it says ‘but see to it that you are not alarmed.  Such things must happen, but the end is still to come’.  These things have been happening and will continue to happen, the end is yet to come. 

⁹ “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. ¹⁰ At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, ¹¹ and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ¹² Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, ¹³ but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

you could argue that that is happening now…but I reckon it’s going to be a lot worse than things are now.

¹⁵ “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’^[a] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. ¹⁸ Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. ¹⁹ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! ²⁰ Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equalled again.

It continues, but I’ll leave it there.  After reading that I was a lot less alarmed, and will remain that way until ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ is seen standing in the holy place…er…whatever that means, but that sounds pretty specific.

That One Again.

I was having a look back through my posts and had a read of one called ‘The Other Bit…’ from 2 June 2009.  It kicked my butt…again.  I reposted it again below:

The other bit...

I have, more times than once, found comfort in the scripture 2 Timothy 1:7

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. (NIV)

At times when I have been afraid, God has reminded me of the part that says 'God did NOT give us a spirit of timidity'. And I have found great strength in that. However, more recently God has made a statement out of the other bit...the bit about self-discipline.

When I am stressed or overwhelmed, and I go into my 'self preservation' mode, my tongue tends to become very sharp. I find fault with most things said by those closest to me (I imagine there may be a few of you who know me well reading this and nodding in a knowing sort of way).

Over the past few months, I've had a hard time of it and have therefore reacted in a not so nice way to those closest to me...mainly my husband Matt. Once I noticed the way I was acting I spent time asking God to change my circumstances so that I could get back to my more normal pleasant self. That's when He reminded me that He has given me a spirit of self-discipline...

'But I don't want to discipline myself to be nicer I just want you to change things so I don't react so poorly'

God wasn't having any of it, and so, every time I found myself reacting in a bad way, that part of the verse would pop into my head. I'm sorry to say, I did a pretty poor job of it. But I think I'm starting to get the hang of it...hold on, let me just ask Matt what he thinks...

How to Get Men to Volunteer for Sunday School

I wanted to share this because my husband is the coolest.  He wanted to do something for the boys at church in the 10/11 year old age bracket who are too young to do youth group, but too old to play in the crèche/nursery.  On Sunday just past he brought his welder and grinder to church and made 3 pronged spears with the boys…you should have seen their eyes light up (only to be used under adult supervision boys).  Of course, those who were in the church service were a little curious about the strange noises coming from outside.  Next he’s going to have them over on a Saturday to add a bamboo handle and they will go reef walking on a still evening to spear crayfish (crayfish in Australia are like lobster in the states).  A few of the men came out after church and seeing what was happening were eager to get involved…

Bananas, Oranges, Grapes, Apples…

Insert big *sigh*.  It’s been a rough few months…wondering what God is doing (what are You doing by the way??).  We still don’t know, but there has been one thing that has given us hope and joy and that is fruit. 

John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

(Notice the word ‘remain’, that sounds long term to me)  So we’ve seen some fruit which gives us confidence that we are where we are supposed to be.  We are in him and he is in us.  In saying that, do not misunderstand; there was a time when we couldn’t see an apple within a million miles, which doesn’t mean we were apart from God.  If you go back a little ways in the book of John to verse 2 you read “…while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”  So there are always going to be those pruning times…insert another big *sigh*.  But oh the joy when you are doing the work of the father.  It’s a bit like getting a big breath of fresh air after being under water, or a drink when you are soo thirsty.  I can’t believe I wrote that, I hate similes.  Anyways…there is oh so much more I could say on the subject but I will finish with Colossians 1:9-11

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.

The bible is so good…

Knowing God

Woke up this morning at 4am to Matt’s work alarm going off (oops—Matt is not at work).  When I jumped up to get it I jinked my neck and ended up back on the bed in pain…it was an early start.  After a massage from my amazing husband and a hot shower it was coffee time, and luckily the kids had a sleep in (6:30am) so I could sit and rest my neck.  That was the start to my Sunday morning.  All of that doesn’t really have anything to do with the title of this post, I just thought I’d share about my poor neck before getting on with it, cause I was on to do communion this morning and thought I’d share it here as well, it’s about knowing God which won’t be a big surprise if you’ve read the previous post…

John 14:6-9.  I’ll let you read it yourself but it’s basically Jesus saying he is in the father and the father is in him…whoever knows him knows the father.

Then the shocking fact that Christianity isn’t a religion…some of you already know this, but for those who don’t – religion is man-made, Christianity is God made.  Christianity is a relationship with God and with that comes eternal life.

I was listening to a message the other day by a Pastor named Bayless Conley (he has a TV ministry as well that is seen around the world).  He shared a story about his daughter travelling around Europe with a friend.  In Switzerland they found an out of the way Inn and were talking to the old lady that owned the place trying to decide whether or not to stay there.  As they were talking, the topic of God came up and the lady said she didn’t know much about God, but she did watch a show with a guy named Bayless Conley, to which his daughter replied ‘I know him, he’s my dad!’.  Bayless made the point that that should be our reaction when we hear the name of God ‘I know Him, He’s my dad!’.

Often though we get side tracked with our own stuff.  When we pray we are asking for our own needs, when we read the bible we are looking for answers to what we are dealing with in life and when we sing praise and worship we are hoping for those warm fuzzies.  There is nothing wrong with any of this.  In fact The bible tells us to bring our worries to God.  But we need to make sure that that is not all we do.

Jesus did not die so that we could have warm fuzzies, he did not die so that we could have a nice car or a big house or lots of money.  He didn’t even die so that we would never know suffering or pain or tears.  Jesus died so that we could have a relationship with God.

I finished by saying that we should take the opportunity of sharing in communion to make a new effort to get to know God better, so that when someone say’s the name of God we can say ‘I know Him, He’s my dad!’