Resolution #1: Stop breaking the law and endangering lives!

Resolution #1

To stop breaking the law and endangering lives

I have dilly dallied a while on the first one because I felt the pressure of #1 signifying a level of importance, not just a random order

But it has been too long delayed. Given the whole idea of this series of blogging was for me to not forget what I was struck by at Engage, it is time to put pen to paper with a disclaimer that #1 is not necessarily the most important :-p

#1. Stop breaking the law and endangering lives

We’ve all seen the tv ads, the ones that have a mobile with a message like “running late, be there soon” and a cut to a funeral. They are trying to give us a somber message that the message can wait. I don’t know about you, but I continue to type and drive

A friend who is training to be a police officer the other day was telling us how it is illegal not just to use your phone when driving, but any time the car is on (i.e. at a red light!)...

In the letter that the apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Rome, a place where they are getting less than a fair run from the governing authorities, he tells them that there isn’t a government in the world that hasn’t been put there by God, therefore submitting to them is submitting to God. Following that: “Government is God’s servant to you for good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason.”

Its not like the government sits around trying to figure out how they can ruin my life, and yet I treat the law as if it is a nuisance? And its not like I can just follow “God’s way” and ignore the laws of Australia.. that is antithetical.

I am going to put Romans 13 into practice in this way:

No more texting and driving.

Please hold me to this friends

Whether by telling me off if I forget and you’re in my car

Or by understanding if I take even longer to return a text :)

I want to serve God, even in this alleyway of my life

Thanks

Kat

Resolved to Resolve!

This weekend gone I spent up at Katoomba at a Christian conference called Engage. It is aimed at young workers, connecting God to the world they live and breathe in the 9-5 (slash 7-midnight) life.

Speakers Tim Blencowe and Steve Timmis spoke from Titus and 1 Peter on the topic of “Working for Good”.

The churches and groups I am blessed to be a part of are a part of the “Protestant” tradition which protested salvation through your own good works of the Catholic Church by crying “Faith Alone, Grace Alone, Christ Alone and Bible Alone” though not quite like that because it may or may not have been in English.. hah

So that made this topic a gutsy one, because we hold tightly to the fact that the ONLY way we can be in relationship with God when we are so unworthy is through Christ taking our place and the judgement that was due us, meaning we can be raised to a new life with him. At a Muslim-Christian debate I was at last night someone asked a great question about how come that didn’t just mean that we can now do whatever we want and therefore humanity will descend even further into its own evil/sin/corruption. Great question! We believe that we are saved by Grace ALONE and nothing that we do. So that’s it, we can now live as we want? No. No one thinks that do they?

And neither does the bible teach that.

Ephesians 2:8-10

You are saved by grace (a free gift, not from within yourself), therefore not by anything you have done, so you can’t boast. However you are saved to do good things (though even then God has laid them out for you to do)

Over the next ..who knows how long! I am determined to blog about my resolutions, because I want to hold myself accountable by putting them in writing, and be held accountable to them.

I want to make resolutions because at Engage I was convinced of two things:

a) (and here I come to the fifth 'Sola' that everyone seems to forget - to the Glory of God ALONE)

We are God’s! He is literally amazing! How dare we bring disrepute on His name by saying "I’m Christian" then acting as if I am my own God, or that my pleasure and whim (or money or acceptance, whatever) is my real god;

and

b) We are given good works to do not so we feel better about our own pious nature, but that through them people may see God at work in us, may feel God’s love, and may be willing then to listen to the Gospel of His Son, as I was willing to do almost 7 years ago now!

If you are still with me then thankyou. I blog to make this public intentionally - ask questions and pry, challenge me and tell me I’m not doing it right, that is how it works in community :)

I only ask people to remember that none of us are perfect, but thanks to God the Holy Spirit is within me perfecting me, and perfecting those who are His. So progress should be seen, but patience will be needed :)

In Him

Kat

Hunger

Last year I went on a calorie counting diet. It meant 1000kj a meal, 5 meals a day.
Restricting my intake that much meant that when three hours rolled around and it was time for my next meal I was delightfully hungry. I LOVE eating when I’m hungry! Food just tastes so Good!!

Now that I’m back to ordinary eating I often forget to eat.
And when I forget to eat in the busyness of a day, I eventually forget my hunger. Until I think to eat, and when those nutrients hit my body I realise just how sluggish I had been for the past few hours and why!!! I was starving my body!




tonight at "Club Bible (better than Hans' BS)" we were reading Psalm 1 and ElderLiao (heh slash Paul) was encouraging us from the passage to be like the blessed man who is compared to a tree planted by the stream.

in ordinary language, be hungry for God's word.
Crave bible reading time.

(God has been hitting me over the head with this one lately btw)



i think hunger is the right word here. Because its often like that with being Hungry for God's Spirit through His Word. Hunger numbs eventually so you don't know its there, but its still there.



So i am RESOLVED to fill my heart and soul and mind and strength with the nutrients per se of God's word. I want to fill myself up with Him, and I know that regular bible reading will make me realise how hungry I've been all along.



If you're the praying kind, please pray for me that I would be faithful to this resolution, for God's glory and not for my own gratification alone.



love you all
In Him
Kat

Window to the past

I have been doing a fair bit of reflecting lately, into the past, into who I was 10, 5 or even 2 years ago. This has been predicated by two main events, maybe three

The first is that on this coming Tuesday I will be at the airport to farewell one of the most influential women in my life at the moment, after my family. For the last two years my emotional and spiritual growth has been the burden / responsibility of one Jodi Mac, and looking back to two years ago is a scary thing. It is going to be hard to say goodbye because I can see how far I’ve grown emotionally and spiritually in this last year, and more than that I can see how much farther I have to go now, and thanks so much to her I have learnt to not build barriers around myself, but instead to trust, to let people in, so that God can bring into my life more beautiful women who can inspire me and love me, and who I can love and serve in return, so that we can together fight to follow Christ. I am healthier because of God’s work through you Jodi Mac, thankyou for being you (and not just in terms of being a fitness freak who inspires me to physically healthiness, but for being someone who is willing to look inwardly, to be real about needing people, and to be excited about being a daughter lovingly made by the Creator).


The second is today my old credo small group (FINALLY) caught up. 2004, second semester, I had become a Christian earlier that year, but still thought I knew it all. These are the people who inspired me on in godliness and maturity, particularly to have guys who were so counter cultural - who valued relationships, who were loving and respectful towards women as sisters, and who sought to see people and themselves walk closer to God. Today I was reminded so much of the blessings of all these people in my life, even if I haven’t seen them in too long, the impact from almost 5 years ago is still working at me.




There are times when I am just so thankful for the weaknesses God has put in me, because they force me to need others, to be a part of the body of believers, rather than thinking I can go it alone. There are so many other people in my life who love and inspire me, listing them all would not give due honour to their place in my life, but if you seek to love people and build them up, then I just want to say thankyou. Thankyou for those with generous hearts and minds to give me a moment of your time, a hug when I need one, to buy me lunch when I’m low on cash. Thankyou for those who work up the courage to rebuke me in love, even though it hurts you and me, its a tear that heals stronger both in our relationship together and our relationships with God.

It reminds me of that bit in Hebrews ch10 : And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.


Thankyou for being my brothers and sisters as we throw off all that weighs us down or so easily ensnares so that we may run this race with our eyes fixed on Jesus.


In Him
Kat