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