The Soul Of My Feet

Decided tonight that Luther and I are kindred spirits. He speaks my language and thoughts when it comes to living out the Christian Life. Somes times the Church really does get it wrong by pushing people into service in order to take them out of secular life. The notion that if we busy them with spiritual things then they wont get distracted by worldy stuff. But Luther was right in saying that everything we have, see, touch, taste is a Gift from Him and we should enjoy it with thanksgiving!

Amen to that!

Well, we’ve moved on from Acts in our lectures and now we’ve begun to look at the letters Paul wrote during his missionary journeys. I have a real soft spot for Paul, I love his passion for his beliefs, and I love that he was just the most sinful person you could ever meet before he met Christ but then his whole life did an amazing turn around , fuelled by the Holy Spirit, he became an incredible servant of God. Also Stephen’s story touched me also, because he was so passionate right up until his death and he never gave in to the crowds and scoffers.

Today we looked at Paul’s letter to the Churches in Galatia and basically Paul was pretty upset because although they had apparently already received the Gospel of Jesus Christ, there were false teachers among them that were influencing them to continue to trust in the law instead of the message of Jesus Christ which was, Salvation through Grace alone. It made me think, well how does this apply today? Because it is not that much different. There’s a whole bunch of people out there continuing to trust in themselves and their own good works or good behaviour which tragically will not be enough when they stand before God. If we were to believe that 90% of our population are of the belief that they will go to Heaven because they are ‘good’ people, then the death and resurrection of Jesus, which there is credible evidence that it did indeed happen in history (AD33 approx), was absolutely pointless!!

Christ died to set us free from all of that stuff!

‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery’ (Gal 5:1)

I am living in a wonderful place at the moment, life is absolutely wonderful. Sorry I wont ramble on for too long but I’m just loving college sooo much and everytime I sit down in the lecture room I just get this rush of absolute peace and contentment. And, well it’s wonderful. My biggest revelation today is that material stuff in this world is well, not important. I mean not important at all, it has absolutely no worth, meaningless, absolutely meaningless. It was one of the Apostle Pauls biggest preaching topics as he toured the middle east. You see many of the regions were creating things to worship, some were making lots of money making images for the people to worship and they didn’t like the fact that Paul was telling them to stop worshipping idols and start worshipping a true and living God. Can you imagine if we were told to stop building massive houses, to stop buying appliances we don’t need,  to stop buying into fashion trends that aren’t real, and to start believing in the stuff that truly matters, stuff that has MAJOR eternal importance. If only we could see how amazing Heaven will be, perhaps then we’d stop placing so much importance on showing off our stuff. The most important thing is how we use our stuff, is it for our own benefit as if we’ve somehow earnt it or do we share it with others, perhaps with people that don’t have much stuff at all….

Just wanted to call in and give you a little update on life. I was driving back from college today and life began to churn through my head which it usually does when I’m driving. And a great song came on about being stuck in the middle, holding onto the past but not grabbing hold of the future and I felt like the words were really speaking to me in a big way. You see most of the time  I feel like I’m in this tug of war. This inner battle of really wanting to give it all up for God and His plans for my life yet holding onto the old plans just in case things don’ t turn out. What it really means is that I’m not trusting in God at all because I’m still trying to be in control. I’m living in two worlds and trying to please both. I can only hope and pray that God will help me to lean on him more and be prepared to let go of things as he prepares me to. Somehow I feel stuck in the middle at college too, being a part-time student is hard because I’m not there all week and I can’t fully get involved in college life and groups seem to be already forming and I’m not a part of it. I had a real sense of loneliness today and I just wanted to run but just as I was about to, a random girl came and said hello and I had a friend. Sometimes I wish I could break into groups more easily but that’s just the introverted side of me rearing it’s head again. So today I pray that God will help me to get out of being in the middle and cross to the other side…

It felt like my first day of school today…I got up at the crack of dawn which is the first thing I am amazingly surprised at because I am most definitely not a morning person, never have and thought I never would be but this morning I saw the sunrise until I entered the fog of Sydneys ‘hinterland’. Then after the hour trip I wandered into the gounds of SMBC and well for a moment I wondered whether it really was me and if this was where I was supposed to be. I felt like the class nerd not knowing anyone until and couple of friendly asian girls asked if I would put my name in their address book. That meant I was considered a friend. Yay! I was in and in that moment I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Lecture was great, even though I  realised how little I actually knew about the Bible. This may seem quite obvious to you or you might be in my position but I never thought about the author of Acts, in fact I thought the author was Paul but no it’s actually Luke, anyhow better study lots that’s all I can say!!

Tried to get a photo of my first day but camera failed, will post one next week!

I’ve been off the air lately, lots going on but some exciting stuff too. I received my student no for SMBC so it’s official starting in February. There have been a quite a few forces against this decision  but I’m pushin through and shakin the dust off. To be honest I can’t wait to start this next part of the journey! Have been through many battles lately but thankfully my God is so faithful he’s brought me through the storm and I’m ready to go again. Bring it on I say!

I checked out SMBC this week, absolutely beautiful! I’m so excited, in fact I think I’m dancing on the clouds of Heaven today! It’s amazing though how quickly the fear factor keeps creeping back in…Doubts have been flooding my mind as to the travel part of this adventure. But seriously 2 hours out of my life in air conditioned comfort , compared to the amount of travel that Jesus walked in a day. I’m pretty sure that’s not a thought coming from God, so I’m keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus and the desire to want to know the Word on a deeper level! Here goes…