Marching Forth!

No one can receive God's love without being dynamically changed by it.  Instead of focusing upon self, love turns its gaze towards God and others.  There is compassion and grace where there was once only selfish preoccupation.  Love makes our hearts grow in breadth and depth.  Knowledge paves the way to feelings of incredible persistence.  God's love is so profound, tangible, and real.  A person who tastes of this love sees it is good, and nothing in or of this world can compare. God's love seek release through acts of service and salvation.  No one filled with the Holy Spirit and His divine love can read shocking statistics of how many children and adults are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and remain unmoved.  The world has sown to the flesh through sexual sin and is reaping a bumper crop of deception, oppression, pain, ruin, disease, horror, addictions, and death people don't even want to think about.  But love won't lo...

Last night I came home from a week at Camp Kedron, a wonderful Christian camp on the edge of a national reserve.  I was part of a team hosting a holiday camp for years 7 through 10.  Even with the rain it was a massive success:  kids had an awesome time, the Gospel was shared and discussed, and Jesus Christ received the glory.  As I drove up Mona Vale road, the sunset was breathtaking:  rays of light peered through plumes of clouds, lining the edge with a glistening ribbon of white.  Two vertical pillars were illuminated with a swath of orange and blue as fog swirled like a fragile membrane between them.  "God, how could something be so beautiful?" I asked.  "I have done greater than this in the hearts of many this week," was His response.  And God's right - nothing is a beautiful as the transforming, redeeming work He does within the soul of a person by His grace. As the camp speaker for six days at an Australian holiday camp, it was a fre...

This week I said a final goodbye to a good friend, Trevor "Ross" Tooke.  As I looked at him as he lay peacefully in a casket before his funeral, I didn't need words.  I smiled through teary eyes.  After battling brain cancer for many years, he was finally a man who embraced eternal rest with His Saviour Jesus Christ.  Ross will always be an amazing man. I had the great privilege of getting to know Ross when I accepted he and Joan's offer of hospitality.  I had accepted the offer of pastoring Calvary Chapel Sydney and needed a place to stay for two months.  During that time I was afforded a special view into the life of a man I love, respect, and admire.  Ross took me on as a project of sorts, happily teaching me the intricacies of Australian pronunciation, lingo, and culture.  While under the wing of Ross you learn a lot of things:  how to clean a pool, how to make a proper cup of tea, handle a BBQ, and to show love through service.  E...

" So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. 4 Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey ." Judges 6:3-4 In the book of Judges, we are told that there was no king in Israel:  everyone did what was right in his own eyes.  God promised to reign over His people, but they rebelled from under His rule.  They sacrificed to idols and forsook God.  Then God delivered them to oppression by the hands of their enemies.  The Israelites toiled in their fields rising early and staying late, but their crops were destroyed by the Midianites.  The people of Midian and Amalek waited until the children of Israel had sown their crops before they would destroy everything.  They left them nothing to eat, even killing their animals.  It was a desperate time....

A misunderstanding which has led to much disillusionment among Christians is the concept of easy victory.  When we look at the example of the Israelites, it is clear that God gave them victory over their enemies when the Promised Land was divided among them.  But it was not a victory without fighting or obedience.  The land was divided by God, but it was the responsibility of the people to obtain the land.  It was hard.  And it was a job they never fully completed, despite the power of God.  It was not the weakness of God which prevented them, but the people themselves.  We can be our greatest hindrance to a deeper walk with Jesus. God gave His people a rich land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  But there were also established strongholds, giants, and fighters with better weapons than the Israelites.  The tribe of Joseph approached Joshua with a question:  "Why don't we have more land allotted to us?"  Joshua's answer was bas...

Over the course of my life, I have had different skin-related issues.  By God's grace I have successfully battled athlete's foot, dandruff, dry patches of skin, and an occasional wart.  Warts can be particularly annoying because they are so durable!  Caused by a virus, warts have the amazing ability to regenerate even after being burned, cut off, or persistently treated.  I have had about five warts over the course of my lifetime, and they have never been cured without an all-out fight.  This is certainly not a glamorous post, but I trust it will do some good. At the moment I am well on my way to ridding myself of a wart on the pad of one of my toes.  Since it wasn't giving me any pain, I ignored it for some time.  It was never that large, but it amazes me how fast skins grew around it for protection.  After many months, I decided the wart was part of my body I no longer wanted and committed myself to dealing with it.  So every other day I ...

Reading is a critical part of the life of every Christian.  I am always concerned when a Christian tells me they are not fond of reading, seeing as God has provided His Word to us in written form!  As followers of Jesus Christ, we ought to be people "of the Book."  That being said, there are many profitable books written that give glory to God.  Books challenge the way we think and are an impetus to growth.  It is important that we read wisely, seeking to find material which lines up with the truth of scripture.  In my experience with Christian bookstores today, only a fraction of the books written fit this criteria.  From the Puritan era probably 90% of books are worth reading, and in the modern era 10% are worth reading.  In the last century there has been a rapid departure from the authority of God's Word. Ever so often I am introduced to a book which makes me wonder, "Where has this book been all my life?"  I am in the middle of Alan Re...