Thursday, October 25, 2007

it's not about what you do for me, zander; it's all about what I did for you

What I do for God

I've been fasting since Tuesday, for various reasons; some good, some not so good. But in this, God, as in everything, has been moulding and shaping me, and teaching me through his word.

Andrew Murray once said, "Fasting helps to express, to deepen, and to confirm the resolution that we are willing to sacrifice anything, to sacrifice ourselves to attain what we seek for the Kingdom of God."

Fasting is a good thing to do. It reminds me that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Dt 8:3; Mt 4:4). But I was thinking today, this being the third day of my four-day fast, that by tomorrow evening I will have accomplished my goal of showing God how much I love him - that he matters more to me than food. It struck me then that it really doesn't matter what I do for God. He will still be God, regardless of whether I fast for four days, forty days, or not at all. His love for me, His devotion to me, will not be diminished because of my paltry response to him.

Colossians 1:13-22

Reading Colossians 1:13-22, and reading Dick Lucas's exposition of it in the Bible Speaks Today series :

"This resolute refusal to divide God's work from Christ, or to divide Christ in respect of the various parts of his work, gives us a clue we need to recognise two forms in which 'fullness' teaching may have reached Colossae. It may have been by a claim that God had not finished his work of salvation for the Colossians in giving them Christ, so that he had still more to give them if his work was to be completed. But the false teaching may have been put in another way. The Colossians may have been told that to receive the benefits of Christ's saving work on the cross was one thing, but that to receive and enjoy the benefits of his reigning work at God's right hand was quite another. To be cleansed from sin was a blessed beginning; but to be delivered from sin's power they must now claim and appropriate the victory of the ascended Lord over the principalities and powers. To be fully saved the Colossians were urged to make the full Christ their own.
"Against both these forms of erroneous teaching Paul's testimony stands unshaken. He teaches first that what God has done in Christ exhausts all that God has to do for us. He teaches, secondly, that when a person is in Christ, he or she is the beneficiary of all that God has done in Christ."

What God did for me

While fasting and praying and reading the Bible and good works are all important parts of the Christian life, and while they can assist my spiritual growth, God's work in me is not based on what I do for him. Everything that he does in my life is because of what Christ did on the cross for me. All of who I am and will become is because of Christ. Nothing is based on my efforts.

Now there's a comforting thought.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

keyboard

Well, thanks to God's provision and to Steph and Richard Rotgans's kindness, I now have a keyboard that works with my computer. Thank you to Steph and Richard and thanks especially to God. It has made things so much easier. Thank you also to everyone who offered help to me.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Goroka, PNG

It's been a week and a half since I got back to Australia, and already I miss PNG. It's a great place and I can see myself going there one day - but that's a long way off, and we'll see. It was great to see Mum and Dad and Caitlin, and to see first hand what they are doing.

my Dad has the coolest office

...and this is his desk. I went flying with Dad a couple of times while I was away. It's a whole different type of flying. Dad says he's never done so much praying about his flying in all his life.
Mostly the type of flying he does is flying people in and out of Goroka, some doing church work or going on a Sunday school trip, or flying coffee out of the village to take it to the market to sell. MAF is a vital life-line for the people living in the PNG highlands - the country is so mountainous that any other form of access is almost impossible.

Mum

Mum has to make a lot of things from scratch - not least, bread. She has a bread maker, but even so she is making a loaf at least every two days. She buys most of the vegetables from the open-air market two or three times a week, then goes to the supermarket to get other things, then to the other supermarket because the first one didn't have everything she wanted, and then she ends up making do because no one has what she is looking for.

She's also involved in things during the week. Prison ministry is on every fortnight and she goes with some of the other ladies to that; it is taking a while for her to get to know the locals, but gradually she is making more and more contacts.

and much more...too much to tell

I could go on and on, but I have only so much space. Seeing it all has made such a big difference, and given me a much better idea of what it is that I will be doing should I go to PNG with MAF. I am very grateful for the opportunity - and hopefully next year I will be able to visit Mum and Dad in Telefomin, where they will be moving to (in the middle near the border - more remote, no roads, but really pretty, apparently). They are coming home this December/January for Joel and Carolyn's wedding.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

grace

"No single word more accurately defines the essence of the Christian gospel than grace. The young church at Colossae had understood 'grace' in its true meaning and simplicity, without any of the false additions that so easily make grace no longer grace. This meant that, from the very beginning, they understood that man can make no claim on God, however sincere or faithful he may think himself to be; that the heart of the gospel concerns not our commitment to God but his free and merciful offer to commit himself to us in Christ; that our acceptance of the Saviour is meaningless unless God has already freely accepted us in him; that the very essence of the story is not that of men striving to make Christ their Lord, but of Christ in sheer goodness and pity, undertaking for his own sake to make us his servants, despite the fact that we never cease to be unprofitable and undeserving of such a privilege."
Dick Lucas, expounding Colossians 1:3-8 in
The Message of Colossians & Philemon

(Leicester, England : Inter-Varsity Press, 2000)

Will write more soon on my trip to PNG. Blurb : went to PNG from 15-30 Sep. '07 to see Mum, Dad and Caitlin. Fun. Good to see first hand what Mum and Dad do, and what I plan to be doing eventually, too.