Reflection on Philippians 4:1-9

October 8, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Scripture

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again- rejoice!

Observation
Paul exhorts the Philippians to stay true to the Lord. In particular, two women who have disagreed are to settle the matter.

Rejoice always, Paul tells us. We must nor be anxious about anything, but instead we should pray and trust the Lord.

We should fix our thoughts on what is right and honourable, lovely and admirable. And then we need to put into practice what we have learned.

Application
All the directions of our relationships need to be constantly worked on. Our relationship with God comes first and everything needs to be seen in that light. Prayer and faith lead to peace and joy.

By being consumed with negative things, our internal lives are damaged. We need to give our attention to what is good and honourable to allow our souls to be healed, and for godly values to flow out of our hearts.

If there are conflicts in our lives we need to reconcile them. It’s fine to disagree with others, but we must not allow that to break relationships, particularly with other christians.

When we put into practice the teachings of scripture we find that our lives are changed and we make a difference in the lives of everyone around us, including unbelievers.

Prayer
Thank you Lord for saving me and for the promise of peace in every situation as I submit myself to you. Please help me to lay everything at your feet in prayer. Amen.

Reflection on Exodus 32:1-14

October 7, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Scripture

So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people.

Observation
While Moses is up on the mountain receiving the Law, the people of Israel decide to make an idol. They go to Aaron and demand that he make them a god.

Aaron takes the gold from their earrings and fashions a calf. Then he builds an altar and declares the next day will be a festival to the Lord. The people burn sacrifices to the idol and engage in “pagan revelry.”

The Lord tells Moses to go down and see how quickly the people have reverted to idolatry. He threatens to kill them all and make a new nation from Moses. Moses intercedes on their behalf, and the Lord relents.

Application
Idolatry is always lurking in the human soul. We have infinite capacity for worshipping false gods. It is as if being in relationship is too big a gift for us to appreciate and receive.

Most christians do not worship golden calves or other explicit idols. We might find ourselves exalting other thins above our obedience to the Lord- family, church, denomination, sport, work.

There are many idols but just one God.

Prayer
Father, please rescue me from my tendency to put other things ahead of you. May I never give in to any form of idolatry. Amen.

Lunar Eclipse This Wednesday!

October 6, 2014October 6, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Total lunar eclipse to glow red across Australia

6 HOURS AGO OCTOBER 06, 2014 12:03PM

The total lunar eclipse will be more spectacular than the one in April, astronomer Alan Duffy said. Picture: NASA. Source:Supplied

IT’S big. It’s red. And it’s coming to a night sky near you.

On Wednesday night Australians will get the chance to witness a total lunar eclipse that will turn the full moon a deep red colour for an hour.

Astronomer Alan Duffy of Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology said the eclipse will be much more spectacular than one that was visible in Australia in April.

“This one will be the real McCoy,” he said.

“Australia is the perfect place to see the long lunar eclipse experience, weather permitting, and we will see that distinctive blood red colour.”

The partial total lunar eclipse above Geelong in April. Picture: Kaylene Stocks Source: Supplied

A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth gets between the sun and the moon, casting a shadow across the moon that causes it to turn a blood red colour.

“It’s like all the sunsets around the entire earth shining on the moon. I love that description,” Dr Duffy said.

“The atmosphere bends the light from the sunset around and gives the moon that red colour.

“Without the atmosphere, the moon would just be dark (during a lunar eclipse).”

West Australians will see the total eclipse but will miss the entire passage of the earth’s shadow across the face of the moon because the eclipse begins before the moon rises over WA.

Lunar eclipses occur at least twice a year, but lunar eclipse lovers can expect seven to occur in 2038.

WHEN TO WATCH (local times):

NSW/ACT/VIC/TAS: Eclipse begins 8.15pm, total eclipse 9.25pm-10.25pm, eclipse ends 11.35pm. QLD: minus one hour for all times

SA: Eclipse starts 7.45pm, total eclipse 8.55pm-9.55pm, eclipse ends 11.05pm. NT: minus one hour for all times

WA: Moon rises at 6.19pm, total eclipse 6.25pm-7.25pm, eclipse ends 8.35pm.

From news.com.au

New Temperature Records- It’s Hotter Than We Thought!

October 6, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

How bizarre- the Bureau of Meteorology has adjusted Australia’s temperature records to exaggerate the warming trend of the last century. The next time the media tell us it’s a record high temperature or an angry summer you might need to ask, “What does that even mean?”

From Jo Nova:

Australian summer maximums “warmed” by 200%

Which causes more summer heatwaves: carbon dioxide or Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) adjustments?

Ken Stewart has analyzed the adjustments used to create the all-new ACORN wonder dataset and compared them with another BOM dataset called AWAP, and finds, extraordinarily, that the trend in average summer maximums has been tripled by adjustments that the BOM imply are neutral.

Since summer maxima are the ones used to generate the most headlines in Australia, I ask again if the Bureau of Meteorology is a scientific agency or a PR group? Increasing the trend in summer maxima would produce more headlines of hottest ever month, season, heatwave, and weekend.

In this graph Stewart splits the data into months, and compares the trends in maxima in the AWAP and ACORN datasets, across the entire nation. We see that most of the adjustments happen to data from the hottest months of the year, October to March. Even though the measured maxima in February and March are possibly cooler now than they were in the early 1900s, they have been adjusted to show warming trends.

When was the last time you heard the BOM tell you that their “hottest ever” February record depended on adjusting down the past hotter records?

Full story: Australian summer maximums “warmed” by 200% « JoNova.

Fading Glory

October 6, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

The excitement is over, the Bunnies won their first premiership in a hundred years (I exaggerate a tad) and NRL goes on holidays for a couple of months.

As I was listening to the news this morning and the soundtrack of “Glory glory to South Sydney”, the commentators waxed lyrical about the glorious victory and how the team had been redeemed after years in the wilderness. (That sounds sort of familiar).

So, after school goes back tomorrow and the cricket season starts, who is going to care about this? By Christmas who will even remember the score? And by the start of next footy season we will have to stop and think about who won the competition in 2014.

If you think I’m overstating the case, ask yourself what was the score in the last State of Origin? Only the die hard fans remember just a few months later.

Sporting glory is a fading glory. The crowds are entertained for a night and people have something to talk about at work the next day, but the accolades dim quickly. What excites us and seems so important right now soon loses its lustre after the event.

There is a reason for this.

Human beings are created for an eternal glory, an immortal honour that goes way beyond the sporting arena.

We were created to worship God, the ultimate glory, and to share in His nature. We get so easily distracted by the immediate things we see in front of us. We settle for a pretend glory and think that’s all there is.

Jesus came to bridge the gap between the human and the divine. He has prepared a place in eternity for His followers, and a glorious destiny we can only imagine.

Don’t settle for anything less.

Nothing changes.

October 6, 2014October 6, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Today’s sermon

October 5, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

revelation the_t

The sermon for October 5th 2014 is now available on the New Life web-site. In this sermon, which is based on Revelation 4,I talk about the Book of Revelation and how to interpret it.

Click here to listen or here for the mp3

Computer Troubles

October 4, 2014October 4, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

I’ve been frustrated by my main computer the last few days. At random times, for no apparent reason it would turn itself off.

At first this seemed to only happen when I wasn’t using it. Tim thought it might be some power saving feature that had gone wrong. Yesterday, though, it happened while I was actively using it. The power supply was now the chief suspect.

Joshua brought one from the shop and quickly installed it. Success!

The computer ran happily until this afternoon and then resumed its bad behaviour. I thought it must have been overheating. I installed an app that puts up a graph of the CPU temperature.

The temperature steadily increased until it was well over 100 C.

The culprit was a program I was using to rip DVDs. It is very heavy on the CPU, and I discovered that when the temperature reached 128 degrees the system shuts down. When I paused the program, the temperature quickly fell again to about 50 degrees.

Tim is going to get me a “new” motherboard from the computer shops trade-in pile. In the meantime I had better refrain from ripping too many DVDs!

The Pause Grows Up

October 3, 2014October 3, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

It’s official- the pause in global warming is now 18 years old- which means that people graduating from High School about now have never experienced global warming. So what happened to that catastrophic warming we keep hearing aobut?

From Watts Up With That?

It’s official: no global warming for 18 years 1 month

Guest Blogger / 2 hours ago

Global Temperature Update By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

The RSS monthly satellite global temperature anomaly for September 2014 is in, and the Great Pause is now two months longer than it was last month. Would this year’s el Niño bite soon enough to stop the psychologically-significant 18-year threshold from being crossed? The official answer is No.

Globally, September was scarcely warmer than August, which was itself some distance below the 18-year trend-line. Therefore, taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies, there has now been no global warming for 18 years 1 month.

Dr Benny Peiser, our good friend at the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK, had anticipated the official crossing of the 18-year threshold by a day or two with an interesting note circulated to supporters on the ever-lengthening period without any global warming, and featuring our 17-years-11-months graph from last month.

The Great Pause is the longest continuous period without any warming in the global instrumental temperature record since the satellites first watched in 1979. It has endured for a little over half the satellite temperature record. Yet the Pause coincides with a continuing, rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Figure 1. RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies (dark blue) and trend (thick bright blue line), September 1996 to September 2014, showing no trend for 18 years 1 month.

The hiatus period of 18 years 1 month, or 217 months, is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.

Full story

Newcastle Can Keep This One!

October 2, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Massive red-bellied black snake surprises Newcastle wrangler called in to remove it

Updated 2 minutes agoThu 2 Oct 2014, 8:07pm

PHOTO: Snake wrangler Geoff de Looze holds up the massive red-bellied black snake he captured in Newcastle.(Supplied: Newcastle and Hunter Animal Control)

MAP: Newcastle 2300

Wildlife wrangler Geoff de Looze is well accustomed to catching snakes and bagging them, but even he got the shock of his life when he found a massive red-bellied black snake at a job in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

“Mate, this thing was huge. I don’t even think I’ve seen one [a red-bellied black snake] half its size,” Mr de Looze said of the massive reptile.

The snake had taken up residence at a Newcastle air conditioning firm in the suburb of Cameron Park.

“He wasn’t coming out, but I could tell straight away that this snake was something else,” Mr de Looze said.

“There were people all around me at the time, and luckily this one didn’t have a go at me. These snakes will eat brown snakes and can get pretty nasty.

“These are the jobs you think: ‘I should have brought an extra pair of undies today’.”