Author: newlifenarrabri

The Horrors of the Deep

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Plastic literally at the bottom of the ocean. Very sad!

From news.com.au

Man-made horrors lurk at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean

Way, way down at the deepest point of the ocean lies a disaster of humanity’s own making that will never die – with untold consequences.Shannon Molloy3 min readNovember 24, 2021 – 1:18PM24 comments

A helium balloon decorated with characters from the film Frozen at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Picture: Mariana Trench – In Pursuit of the Abyss

A helium balloon decorated with characters from the film Frozen at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Picture: Mariana Trench – In Pursuit of the Abyss

The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean, and the deepest part of Earth itself, measuring some 11km down.

So unforgiving are the pitch-black, pressured and near-freezing conditions that we know little about what lurks below, with untold marine treasurers still waiting to be discovered.

Scientists consider the absolute lowest beds of the sea to be about as hard to reach as space.

Victor Vescovo was the last human to do so, reaching a new record depth of 10.9km in April 2019 in a Triton 36000/2 submarine, built to withstand the extreme pressure.

Over five dives to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the American explorer found previously unknown crustacean species, witnessed brightly coloured outcrops and came across a pink snailfish.

Then, scattered throughout a place only two others have ever managed to physically reach, Vescovo saw plastic.

Lolly wrappers and a plastic shopping bag, to be precise.

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Nowhere is safe from humanity

Vescovo’s shock find almost overshadowed his remarkable achievement and the scientific promise of his sea life discoveries.

And for good reason.

“We always had this sense that there was a part of the planet that was beyond, that was untouched by human action,” Eric Galbraith, an ocean biochemist at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies in Barcelona and adjunct professor at McGill University in Montreal, told the magazine Maclean’s.

“That used to be true. And now it’s no longer true.”

And unfortunately, Vescovo’s discovery isn’t the first, with previous unmanned voyages to the depths of the Mariana also encountering plenty of plastic pollution.

Showing how extensive the problem is – and how quickly waste can sink down – one dive found the remnants of a helium balloon decorated with characters from the children’s film Frozen, released in 2013.

Vision captured of that dive shows the balloon and, resting next to it, a heavy duty 20-litre plastic bucket.

A scene from the film Mariana Trench – In Pursuit of the Abyss shows plastic waste found by unmanned craft. Picture: YouTube

A scene from the film Mariana Trench – In Pursuit of the Abyss shows plastic waste found by unmanned craft. Picture: YouTube

A Frozen balloon and a plastic bucket was seen in the near-inaccessible area. Picture: YouTube

A Frozen balloon and a plastic bucket was seen in the near-inaccessible area. Picture: YouTube

In 2018, researchers from the Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering in China took samples of water and sediment at depths ranging from 2.5km to 11km.

“Man-made plastics have contaminated the most remote and deepest places on the planet,” they wrote in analysis published in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters.

“The (deepest Mariana) zone is likely one of the largest sinks for microplastic debris on Earth, with unknown but potentially damaging impacts on this fragile ecosystem.”

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Reflection on 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

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Scripture

May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows.

Observation

Paul thanks God for the church at Thessalonica. They give him great joy whenever he prays, day or night.

Paul prays that the Lord will bring him to them soon. He prays that the Lord will cause their love for one another to increase and overflow. May their hearts be strong, blameless and holy.

Application

Paul’s prayer for the church of Thessalonica is that the Lord will make their love for one another and for other people to increase and overflow.

The hallmark of any true christian community should be love. God is love, so His followers should be growing in love for one another and for people outside the community of faith.

There is a sense in which love is commanded, and is therefore something we can do. “Love one another as I have loved you,” is the new commandment that Jesus gave to His disciples.

But equally, love is a part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Love comes as a natural result of living in the Spirit.

Sometimes we find ourselves growing in love without any thought or action on our part. Other times, the Holy Spirit convicts us of attitudes or actions which might need to change.

The true christians community will be marked by three loves – love for God, love for other christians, and love for unbelievers.

Prayer

Thank you, Lord, for the grace to love other people. Please grow this in me so that, like Paul, I overflow in your love. Amen.

Ephesians 6:20

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Here is my commentary on Ephesians 6:20. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au

Ephesians 6:20

“… for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.”

Paul describes himself as an ambassador in chains for the gospel.

Every nation sends out ambassadors to other countries to represent the interests of the home nation abroad. An ambassador is a go between in many ways, communicating the views of their own government as well as informing their government if what is happening in the other nation.

To be an ambassador for the gospel means to represent the gospel amongst those who do not know it, to be the light in the darkness, so to speak.

Paul particularly saw himself as an ambassador to the gentiles. At this time of his life, that ministry is now focused on one particular person, the Emperor himself.

For Paul, the great culmination of years of preaching the gospel would be reached when he stood before Caesar to represent the Kingdom of Jesus. If he could share the claims of the gospel with the most influential people in Rome, the gospel would be more easily preached right through the Empire.

Paul’s dream did not come to pass in his own lifetime. He was executed by Nero around the year 65. Persecution of Christians continued sporadically through the Empire until Constantine became a Christian in the early 300’s. Within a generation of that date, Christianity had become the official religion of the Empire.

In every nation of the world, to be appointed as an ambassador is seen as a prestigious thing. Ambassadorships can be offered to career public servants or as a reward to political allies. While there are some positions that might be considered as less prestigious than others (e.g. remote locations in Africa or South America would be less exciting than London or Washington), nobody would want to be appointed as an ambassador in chains.

In the human way of looking at things, Paul was just another political prisoner or a religious zealot awaiting trial before the emperor, but Paul saw his position as God saw it. He was an ambassador of Jesus Christ!

We must not let our self-esteem be determined by the world’s judgements. If we are serving God, it is His assessment of us that matters, not the world’s .

Paul asks for the Ephesians to pray for him to be bold in his speaking.

We might think that Paul would want to tread carefully while he is in prison. In this situation, he is vulnerable to mistreatment by guards, other prisoners, and officials. It might be tempting to not say anything that might cause offence. Paul isn’t one to fly under the radar. He prays for the ability to speak the message boldly even in this vulnerable condition.

He is aware that he must speak. It isn’t clear whether he is thinking primarily about his eventual court case before the Emperor. Perhaps he is thinking about his daily encounters with various people.

He is conscious of the need to share the gospel. It is like a fire burning within him, a force that compels him. If he is going to speak, as indeed he must, he might as well do so boldly .

He needs prayer for this because it is all part of the spiritual warfare that he wrote of earlier in the chapter. As the ambassador of Christ in chains, his battle is not against human enemies, but against the principalities and demonic rulers of this present age.

Key points in this verse:

  • We are all called to be ambassadors for the gospel
  • whether we are In chains like Paul, it is God’s calling that gives us status not the rewards of men
  • Even though Paul’s desire to see the Emperor saved did not come in his lifetime, it did come to pass eventually
  • We must not soft-pedal the gospel even when we are tempted to do so
  • Everybody needs prayer to be able to share the gospel

Ephesians 6:19

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Here is my commentary on Ephesians 6:19. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au

Ephesians 6:19

“Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”

Having asked his readers to pray for all the saints, Paul asks for prayer for himself.

Paul was at the front lines of the spread of the gospel and the planting of churches throughout the Empire. He was aware that, for this reason, he was in special need of prayer .

The proclamation of the gospel is not just a matter of putting together a message. It is a part of the war of the spirits that Paul alluded to earlier. Paul is the spearhead in this battle against satan, and therefore he needs extra prayer because he faces greater opposition.

We all need to pray for people whom we know in ministry. Our own pastors, small group leaders, evangelists, and missionaries. Every one of these is engaged in the most intense of battles, and they need our constant prayer.

Paul asks that when he opens his mouth to speak, a message is given to him. Paul, like many preachers, does not want just any message, he wants a word (“logos” is the words translated as message here) from God. The word from God changes lives, pulls down strongholds, demolishes opposition, raises the dead, and saves souls. This is the sort of word that Paul wants to speak. It only comes through prayer as our spirits are submitted to the Holy Spirit.

Paul wants to speak boldly. He has something of a reputation as being fiery and bold, but I suspect this was not his natural disposition. There is a boldness, a fire, that comes from the Holy Spirit, which is greater than human oratory. A man can persuade a crowd by force of personality and various manipulative techniques. When the Holy Spirit takes control of a preacher, the result is far greater than human abilities alone.

Every preacher should pay for both the message of the Lord and boldness in preaching it.

Paul wants to make known the mystery of the gospel. A mystery in the Bible refers to something previously hidden, but now being revealed.

The gospel, or Good News, is a mystery in the sense that until Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, there was so much about God’s plan of salvation that was hidden in plain view.

God promised in Genesis that the seed of the woman would destroy the serpent. In retrospect, we can see that this applied to Jesus who was not conceived in the normal way.

God promised King David that one of his descendants would sit on the throne of Israel forever. That seems to indicate that there would always be a Davidic dynasty reigning over Israel. But now we see that this, too, was a reference to Jesus reigning over the world for ever.

All of the Old Testament, in fact, points to the Good News that “ God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

The gospel can be deduced from the Old Testament, but only when we see Jesus is the key that unlocks the mystery.

So Paul request prayer for boldness to be able to preach this message under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Key points in this verse:

  • Paul requested prayer because he was on the front lines of the spiritual war
  • Every preacher needs a word or message from the Lord
  • Paul wanted to proclaim the gospel in boldness. We should also ask for the boldness of the Holy Spirit

Reflection on Jeremiah 33:14-18

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Scripture

And this will be its name: “The Lord Is Our Righteousness.”

Observation

Jeremiah, writing at the time of the Exile, writes of Israel and Judah’s future hope.

The Lord will do all that He has promised. At the time of His choosing, He will raise up a righteous descendant of David. This man will do all that is just and right in the land. Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will be called, “The Lord Is Our Righteousness.”

The Lord promises that David will have a descendant on the throne for ever, and that there will always be priests offering sacrifices and grain offerings to the Lord.

Application

The Lord is our righteousness.

We cannot be cleansed from our sin and guilt by our own efforts. We cannot earn it through religious sacrifices or by doing good deeds. Elon Musk does not have enough dollars to buy his righteousness.

No, the Lord is our righteousness. He is the one who declares that we are not guilty.

He does this because of the death of Jesus on the cross. The sin of the world was laid on Christ, and when He died, our guilt died with Him.

The Lord is our righteousness. He is the one who declares that our sin has been atoned for.

Now we are welcomed into His family, His Kingdom. Nothing can separate us from the Lord.

Prayer

Hallelujah! Lord I could never be good enough by myself. Sin always finds me. But you have declared that I am righteous. Please help me to live in your righteousness. Amen.