It was a perfect morning for bike riding, as so many of them have been lately.
It was a Saturday morning, and I was nearly home after a 40 km ride that took me down the Kamilaroi Highway to Turrawan, across the Tariaro Bridge and back along the Old Gunnedah Road. Whenever I take this route, I stop at the bridge and admire the beauty of God’s creation.
Less than 2 kilometres from home, I noticed that the back tyre felt soft, and a minute later it was clear that there was no air in the tyre at all. The greatest hazard a cyclist faces is a puncture in the middle of a ride.
Without a second thought, I called my wife, who jumped into the car and came to rescue me. I was thankful that it was only a 2 km ride home and not a 20 or 30 km ride.
A couple of days later, the inner tube was replaced, and I was back in business.
My need to be rescued reminded me of an even greater need that we have.
Our tendency to run our own lives our own way is described by the Bible as “sin.” Our lives work best when we live God’s way, but we all want to do things our own way, regardless of the cost to ourselves or other people.
Sin separates us from God. It destroys the relationship that we have been created for. We can’t fix it on our own abilities.
But God initiated His own rescue plan, by sending Jesus into the world to pay the penalty for our sin. The most famous verse in the Bible reminds us: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
If you are finding that your life is about as much fun as a bike with a flat tyre, why don’t you ask God to take control? Say “Sorry” to God and ask Him to lead you to a church where you can learn to live God’s way.
As I write this article, we are in the middle of a rain event and it is not clear if there will be widespread flooding or not. For many farmers, the rain is coming at a critical time, threatening to downgrade or ruin the harvest.
For a farmer it is not enough to sow seed into a paddock. The process is not over until the seed has grown, the plant matured and the crop safely into storage. Storms, fires, mice and a hundred other hazards can destroy an otherwise valuable product.
Parenting likewise comes with a long term goal of producing well-adjusted, happy adults who can live their own life fruitfully. The humorous goal of “Just don’t kill them before they turn 18” is a very low bar to set. If you quit parenting when the child is a toddler you have pretty much failed.
There is a tree that grows in the Middle East which actively cools the air around it. This tree does more than provide shade; it actually makes the air cooler. The catch is that, if you plant a seed now, it will be your grandchildren who get the benefit of your care and nurturing.
There are many parts of life where we can make a great start, but we miss out on a reward because we don’t persevere to the end – music and dance lessons, a university degree, a promising sports career.
I have seen many people decide to follow Jesus, but after a month or several years, they just give up. Other things intervene, life gets hard.
The apostle Paul wrote, “I press on to reach the end of the race and the heavenly prize for which God through Christ Jesus is calling us.”
It’s not how you start the race of faith that matters, but how you finish. The good news is that even if you walked away from the race, for whatever reason, you can always get back on the track.
If it’s been a while since you have found yourself in church, why not give it a go this weekend?
At the core of Jesus’ teaching was the concept of God’s Kingdom. In fact, His call to His disciples was not about salvation but about the Kingdom.
“The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!” (Mark 1:15)
Jesus never directed people to ask Him into their hearts to avoid Hell. He never talked about “Four Spiritual Laws” or “Two Ways To Live.” The program of Jesus was very different to our modern religious industrial preaching.
So what does it mean to believe that the Kingdom of God is here?
Since the original sin of Adam and Eve, men and women have been under the reign of satan. We are born in sin and we live and die in sin, unless we turn to Jesus.
Satan has been in control of human beings for our entire history. Yet he is a fake ruler, an intruder, an impostor.
Jesus has come into the world as the true ruler, the real king. He is calling us to follow Him.
When I became an Australian citizen, I was required to swear allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who is Queen of Australia as well as of the U.K.
To become a citizen of heaven, you must swear allegiance to Jesus Christ.
To swear allegiance means that no other ruler will direct your loyalty. You promise to obey and to serve faithfully the Sovereign.
To be a citizen of God’s kingdom means that I will be faithful to Jesus, that I will obey Him and not allow any other person to direct my affections.
The word repent means to change our thinking so that we bring our thoughts and actions into alignment with God’s thoughts and actions. It means that I don’t live for myself any more but for Jesus.
To be a christian is much more than a religious experience, although it is that. It is more than a promise of eternal life, although it is that.
To be a christian means nothing less than complete surrender to King Jesus. He directs my thoughts, actions, and emotions. He has it all.
In 1 Corinthians 7, we read where Paul tells the Corinthians that they should not marry, although it’s not a sin if they do. Following Jesus means that I am prepared to let Him lead my relationships.
Everything has to be given over to Jesus, for the sake of a higher reward.
Jesus must be King over all my life, or else He is not King at all.
I was happy, wasn’t I? I was a New Age spiritual healer and teacher with a thriving global soul centre based in Sydney, offering courses, sessions, and products with the goal of self-actualisation. I travelled internationally with my teachings and spoke on New Age radio. I was the ‘creator of my own reality’, tuned into the invisible spirit realm to channel healing, spiritual guidance, and wisdom to myself and my clients. I was empowered and had purpose, by helping others to seemingly heal broken pasts and move into oneness with the Divine. My source of love and energy was ‘the universe’.
I felt I had control over life and access to hidden knowledge to explain all the mysteries. But after 13 years of ‘inner work’, why did I still find myself stuck in feelings of deep inadequacy, shame, unresolved grief, anxiety, and addiction? Everything had to be analysed. Moments of spiritual bliss were ultimately unfulfilling as I moved back into the reality of life. Relationships were challenged as it was difficult to be around people who had a ‘lower consciousness’. I kept searching and striving. I was simply exhausted being my own god!
One weekend, a friend invited me to church. That very afternoon, out of curiosity, I had picked up a Bible in our hotel room. So, I accepted her invitation. I was surprised by a totally different church environment to what I expected. Everyone was so warm and welcoming, and the modern worship was uplifting. As I listened to the lyrics of So Will I, it hit me like a ton of bricks. My heart exploded. I realised I had been worshipping creation (the universe), not the Creator.
I had got it completely wrong. I realised that He is the love that I had been looking for this whole time. I sank back down into my chair and sobbed and sobbed. I felt a powerful presence of love and wholeness that was inexplicable. After dealing with spiritual energies for so long, this was completely different to anything I had ever experienced.
The preaching made so much sense. It was like a veil had been lifted. The fact that God was not a distant impersonal consciousness, but we could have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus blew my mind. I knew the Bible and Jesus was true. I was hungry, grabbed a Bible, and continued to go to as many services as I could. Within weeks, I ‘officially’ gave my life to Christ, however I believe it happened in an instant that first moment I encountered the one and only God.
I shut down my teachings and business and I was baptised in four months.
After being in the subjective reality of the New Age, I felt God calling me to study. I jumped into a Diploma of Ministry at Morling College, receiving a scholarship. God formed me through the class content and prayer, community life, friendships and most surprisingly, through doing the assessments! It was inspiring to connect with students at different points on their journey. I really felt God walking with me the whole way through it.
I realised that studying theology is not only for academics but for all Christians. The study grounded my faith and taught me how to approach questions and understand different viewpoints, skills I continue to use as I grow in my faith.
“A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”
The secretary for an organisation promoting atheism in Kenya has resigned from his position after converting to Christianity.
A statement issued by the Atheists in Kenya Society revealed Seth Mahiga was no longer interested in promoting atheism in the East African country after he “found Jesus Christ.”
The notice, which was posted to Twitter on Saturday states: “This evening, regretfully, the Secretary of the Atheists in Kenya Society Mr. Seth Mahiga, informed me that he has made the decision to resign from his position as Secretary of the society.
The statement continues: “Seth’s reason for resigning is that he has found Jesus Christ and is no longer interested in promoting atheism in Kenya.”
A day later, the organisation shared a 30-second video of Mahiga during a church service where he confessed Christ and announced his plans to resign from the society.
Mahiga said he is now so happy to be in the house of the Lord and to live by his ways.
Former atheist C.S. Lewis, who described himself as the most reluctant convert in England, once warned: “A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere– ‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises… fine nets and stratagems.’ God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”
Voices told abuse victim to ram her car into a tree
Voices in her head told her to commit suicide.
Lorena Saylor would get in her car and wind up at some random place, having no idea how she got there.
Depression had taken over her life.
“I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to get dressed. I just basically wanted to be alone,” Lorena says on a CBN video. “There was times I wanted to commit suicide.”
Lorena’s problems started with sexual abuse in her childhood home in Kentucky. Although she was the victim, she was punished. “I was the one that got spanked for it,” she says.
Migraines set in at the same time. She couldn’t concentrate in school and was diagnosed with dyslexia. She also suffered from anxiety and low self-esteem.
Lorena married at age 25, but her problems persisted. Her husband was enlisted in the Air Force and would frequently be sent for lengthy deployments, leaving her and the two children alone for long periods of time.
“This voice would say, ‘Ram your car into this tree. Your family would be so much better off if you’re just gone.’”
She was raised in church, but “the back-stabbing of people talking about people, just the things I had heard and seen within the church, I didn’t want anything to do with it,” she says.
At age 33, Lorena suffered a back and hip injury at work. Unfortunately, her prescription pain medication turned into an addiction. “My body just craved more and more,” she says. “I become a functioning addict.”
She felt unloved. She wanted to be alone but despaired of the loneliness. Whenever she drove, she got lost in her thoughts and direction. The voices would tell her to commit suicide.
“I wanted to die,” she says. “Many times I put pills in my hands ready to take them. This voice would say, ‘Just take it. Your family would be so much better off.’”
But another voice would counter: “Who will love your children like you? Who will raise your children the way you would?”
In 2004, her husband was deployed to North Dakota for five years, while Lorena and their children stayed in North Carolina. She hit bottom.
“I was on 10 medications, and my husband was drinking. I was ready for divorce. My family was falling apart,” Lorena says. “I didn’t know where to turn, I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was. I was in this deep dark place.”
Then something remarkable happened. A co-worker invited her to church, and she accepted.
The praise and worship music moved her deeply.
“I feel the presence of the Lord. I couldn’t stop crying,” she says. “After service was over and everybody was leaving, I found myself in the foyer. I’d hit a point where I was just done. I was finished, and this lady that worked with me had invited me to church and she was standing there with me and she says, ‘You want to go pray?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’
“That day I gave my life to Jesus.”
Then an amazing transformation began. “Something in that moment had changed tremendously inside me,” she remembers. “All my life, I knew of Him, but I didn’t know Him. Knowing Him it became a different dynamic in my life.”
After a year of attending church, she was delivered from the addiction, the depression, the low self-esteem and the pain.
“He didn’t only heal me,” Lorena says. “He delivered me of everything.”
She didn’t even realize until five days later that she hadn’t popped a pill. The migraines vanished, as did the back pain.
“In the days that followed, there was something inside that was like a thirst and a hunger that I’d, never experienced before,” she says. “I said, ‘Holy Spirit, teach me to read.’”
She began to consume God’s word voraciously.
Lorena’s husband, Raymond, and their children also gave their lives to Christ in 2015.
“I just had to reach out to Him and He was there with open arms,” Lorena says. “Jesus loves you and He has a purpose. He says, ‘I know the plan that I have for you and that it is good.’”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
I had a heart attack at 17, wealth at 27 and was homeless at 28′
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Scott’s story | Not what you expected
“I had a heart attack when I was 17. I’d been playing tennis at a high level … and I was in the Queensland Championships. After the match, I went home and I jumped into our backyard pool. My heart went into spasm and I woke up in the cardiac ward at Brisbane Hospital. It was full of old guys who were about to die. One of them said to me, ‘What are you doing here?’”
‘It gave me a new perspective on life. After 12 months, I was allowed to play tennis again … and I threw myself into everything. For the next ten years, I tried to be the best I could possibly be, in every part of life – in tennis, and in work. I got involved in a really successful company doing building design. I bought a house and an MG. I moved to Sydney to start up a Sydney branch. We were turning over six million dollars a year. It was ridiculous. I was only 27 years old and I had all that responsibility and stress. Eventually, it led to a mental and physical breakdown. I lost everything and I became homeless at age 28. I moved on to my mate’s lounge.
“I now think that God was trying to show me about certainty – that I was never in control, and I never had been, no matter how high I’d climbed the tree.
“A few months later, I started asking everyone I knew about the meaning of life. What did they believe in? Where was the book? How did they know? I was hungry for meaning.
“Then I met Janelle, through a friend. We went on a date, and I told her I was trying to figure out the meaning of life. She told me that she was a Christian and she invited me to church.
“I said, ‘No way, I’d never go to church. They’re a bunch of hypocrites.’
“We were very honest with each other. A few months later, she invited me to a carol sing-a-long. I went and afterwards, I talked to the minister … for two hours. I was getting all the answers I’d been hassling people for. He invited me to have lunch with him and we kept meeting, weekly. We became friends. Janelle went overseas. After a while, the minister and I started reading the Gospel of Mark together. But it didn’t really click. Then he asked me to do [evangelistic course] ‘Christianity Explained’. I said I wasn’t ready to make a commitment, but I went anyway.
“We got up to the page on condemnation. I can still remember it. There was a black and white line drawing of a group of people shunning their faces from the glory of God.
“Suddenly, I was an absolute, blubbering, out-of-control mess, on the floor. It happened in a split second. I was stripped bare before a holy God. It was an absolutely powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit. I became aware of my sin for the first time, and I totally understood the grace of God – the incredible mercy of God – that he should forgive me and save me, through Jesus. It was beautiful!
“Everything changed in an instant. The first verse I memorised was Philippians 4:6-7, ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’
“Before that, I’d always been anxious and striving. I couldn’t cope with uncertainty. But I read that verse and I prayed and I read the Bible (all the way through, twice!) And I felt peace, every time I prayed. It transcended understanding! And now, I love uncertainty. I can’t tell you what God has done since then. It’s been exponentially better than anything I could have imagined.
“Janelle and I got married. We had two kids and we went off to Cambodia, as missionaries. And now, even in tough times, uncertainty doesn’t faze me. I know that God is sovereign. And he’s got it!”
This morning the news was all about the fire at Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral. Journalists and the various “experts” they talked to were in shock over this great cultural loss.
I say to them:
Woe to you hypocrites who mourn the loss of a place of faith but you spent the last decades defaming and hating the people of faith. You care about a Catholic cathedral, but loathe the Church the building represents.
Woe to you hypocrites who weep over a burning church that was empty but ignore the daily burning of christians inside their places of worship.
Woe to you hypocrites who marvel at the faith and vision of christians half a millennium ago to build a place of worship, but condemn those of faith and vision today who speak words you do not want to hear.
Woe to you hypocrites who wail at the loss of material objects which you can see but ignore your own souls which you cannot see.
Woe to you who live only for your own pleasure.
Your salvation is in Jesus Christ alone who forgives our sins and rescues sinners from the fires of hell.
In Las Vegas yesterday, 22000 people went to a country music concert, and 58 of them died in an awful shooting incident. One man in the space of minutes ended the lives of 58 ordinary people, and injured hundreds of others.
In another part of the United States, singer and songwriter Tom Petty died unexpectedly, possibly of a heart attack.
Did any of these people expect to die at this time? They were just going about every day life, not expecting that “every day life” was about to stop.
None of us knows when our time on earth is about to end.
The decisions we make now determine our destiny in eternity. Only those who sincerely follow Jesus will be allowed into God’s kingdom.
In 2 Corinthians 6:2 Paul says, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.”
We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we can reach out to God today and receive His salvation. If you have never asked Jesus to forgive your sins do that today. Then ask Him for the grace to live His way, and join a church where people will be able to help you grow in Him.
One of the big problems with contemporary evangelical theology, according to N.T. Wright, is that we often have part of the answer but it leads to the wrong conclusions. For example, the theology of the cross comes down to “Jesus died so you could be forgiven and go to heaven.”. As Wright points out that is not what the New Testament teaches, or at least it is not all that the New Testament teaches.
So Wright goes back to Adam and Eve, right through the Old Testament and comes to the conclusion that the main sin that people have to face is idolatry. The people of God were constantly faced with the challenge of staying faithful to the one true God, Yahweh or worshipping the false gods of the nations around.
The problem with idolatry is that it undermines our calling or vocation as human beings. We were created in God’s image so how can we worship another image without damaging ourselves? For Israel, God’s covenant people, to worship other gods meant separation from God and the Land He had given them to live out their calling.
When Jesus comes on the scene, Israel has spent much of its existence either in exile or in subjection to other nations. The prophets knew that the solution they needed was national as well as individual salvation.
The cross then is not about a human sacrifice to appease an angry deity, which is what many christians think of. It is more like the one true representative of humanity (“the Son of Man” as Jesus frequently called Himself) dying for the world. He speaks of the sins of the nation, especially its idolatries, being heaped up and falling on Jesus.
A revolution of love, self-denying and sacrificial love, brings a new rule in the world- the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom, launched by Jesus’ death on the cross, sets us free to see and experience the true God and to follow in His ways.
The death of Jesus on the Cross at 6 pm on Good Friday is the start of the revolution. His resurrection before dawn on Sunday is the first sign that God’s kingdom of life, love and forgiveness is here.
Wright says that the gospel is bigger than “we get to go to heaven” (which is a pagan Platonist ideal). The true gospel message is that the Kingdom is here and God is overturning everything that is based on human idolatry, including relationships, politics, oppression and self-worship. Yes we get to live for ever in the new heavens and the new earth, but the Kingdom is more than that.
It’s hard to justice to a book of this size and scope in a few hundred words, but it is well worth reading. Wright covers deep topics in a way that many people find is easy to read. I think most people would want to read a few pages and mull it over for a few days.
I’ve always felt that the typical atonement theory whereby Jesus takes the punishment for our sins and as a result we go to heaven has a few gaps in it. This book goes a long way to filling the gaps.
New Life Narrabri 