Welcome to the Aussies bouncing in....:)

Hello from Canada to all my mates down under. You made my day, but where have you been? Seems like I have been waiting forever for you to give me a shout out! Welcome and Blessings are yours from my little blog here. Sorry, the drugs are kicking in. :)

picture thanks to http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/6182/funny003rf5.jpg

It is You from Hillsong's For This Cause

Some kind soul directed me to this song today. It is one I have not heard and I could not hear it all, but the words speak to me. Seeing that I have had a severe case of sciatica today and for the last few days you can imagine the blessing this brought me. Thanks.

Words and Music by Darlene Zschech

Lamp unto my feet,
Light unto my path,
It is You.
Jesus, it is You.
This treasure that I hold,
More than finest gold,
It is You.
Jesus, it is You.
With all my heart,
With all my soul,
I live to worship You,
And praise forever more,
Praise forever more.
Lord, everyday I need You more.
On wings of heaven I will soar with You.
You take my brokenness,
Call me to Yourself.
There You stand,
Healing in Your hands.

Say Cheese!

From Tozer today.
Nehemiah 8:10

We are missing the mark about Christian victory and the life of joy in our Savior. We ought to be standing straight and praising our God!

I must agree with the psalmist that the joy of the Lord is the strength of His people. I do believe that the sad world is attracted to spiritual sunshine--the genuine thing, that is.

Some churches train their greeters and ushers to smile, showing as many teeth as possible. But I can sense that kind of display, and when I am greeted by a person who is smiling because he or she has been trained to smile, I know I am shaking the flipper of a trained seal. When the warmth and joy of the Holy Spirit are in a congregation, however, and the folks are spontaneously joyful, the result is a wonderful influence upon others....

I have said it a hundred times: The reason we have to search for so many things to cheer us up is the fact that we are not really joyful and contentedly happy within....But we are Christians, and Christians have every right to be the happiest people in the world.

Confused?

From Larry Crabb's book....Becoming a True Spiritual Community.

"Confusion isn't always a bad thing. If we're not confused about anything it's likely we're grasping the truth about nothing important. Developing convictions about vital matters is never easy and, until heaven, is an ongoing, never finished process."

"The upside of confusion is openness. Confused people listen better, not always, but more often than people whose minds are made up. Those folks listen only in order to critique, to see if someone else is on the right track, namely theirs. Confused people are more likely to combine kindness with whatever convictions emerge out of their confusion. And, because of their eagerness for meaningful dialogue with honest people, the convictions they develop tend to speak to the realities of life as it really is lived."

Start bailing

A good thought from This Day's Thought. Reading about Spiritual Community makes me think this is very related. :)

"To say, my fate is not tied to your fate, is like saying, your end of the boat is sinking."

Hugh Downs

More on ...Larry Crabb's

Okay, so the first part of the book Crabb is going to talk about..."a way of thinking about spiritual community. What it means to really as he calls it "turn our chairs toward each other" (you have to read the book to get the analogy of that), and pour out the life in our hearts into our brothers and sisters, and to let them pour into us. It is sometimes more difficult to receive than to give. In spiritual communities, people do both."

The big question....."What makes a spiritual community unique?"

Interesting question....back to the book.

A Profound Vision of What the Church Can Be...

Becoming a True Spiritual Community formerly known as The Safest Place on Earth by Larry Crabb is a book I 'happened' along at the 'store' and couldn't pass by. I did not read this book in 1999 when it came out under the first title....totally different place then, yep, for sure.

Today, He is speaking through this book to me. Expect some quotes as I journey on.

"Even when a few of us gather together to relate, do we somehow manage to keep our souls to ourselves, never really meeting, neither giving nor receiving what is most wanted?"

Crabb says that he, "wants us to talk with each other, not merely to make conversation, but to make a difference, to be caught up in another sphere, the world of the Spirit, where first things are first and second things are second."

"I think that's what the writer to the Hebrews had in mind. He told us to never stop getting together with other Christians. And, when we do get together, to say and do things that stir a flame into a fire, to arouse the life God's Spirit has placed within us so we can go on through dark nights or pleasant mornings with our eyes fixed on unseen reality."

"In real community people know each other; they relate in ways only God's Spirit makes possible."

"Churches are rarely communities.".......

Interesting thoughts from an 8 year old book. Leaving off here with this..."They know that God gives them His Spirit and works miracles both in them and among them, not because they cleverly make it happen, but because they revel in their dependence and learn to hear the Spirit's voice (see Galatians 3:5)."

Sounds familiar...almost like the gate that is seldom found.

In A Squirrel Cage???

Tozer Today

Til I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
1 Timothy 4:13

In an effort to get the work of the Lord done we often lose contact with the Lord of the work and quite literally wear our people out as well. I have heard more than one pastor boast that his church was a "live" one, pointing to the printed calendar as a proof-- something on every night and several meetings during the day. Of course this proves nothing except that the pastor and the church are being guided by a bad spiritual philosophy. A great many of these time-consuming activities are useless and others plain ridiculous. "But," say the eager beavers who run the religious squirrel cages, "they provide fellowship and they hold our people together."

To this I reply that what they provide is not fellowship at all, and if that is the best thing the church has to offer to hold the people together it is not a Christian church in the New Testament meaning of that word. The center of attraction in a true church is the Lord Jesus Christ....

If the many activities engaged in by the average church led to the salvation of sinners or the perfecting of believers they would justify themselves easily and triumphantly; but they do not. My observations have led me to the belief that many, perhaps most, of the activities engaged in by the average church do not contribute in any way to the accomplishing of the true work of Christ on earth. I hope I am wrong, but I am afraid I am right.

Michael Frost

Brought to my attention by Biscotti Brain
Interesting thoughts

Becoming the poor



Jesus Etiquette



Jesus: Man of the Streets

hmmmm

From This Day's Thought

"Not only do we not know God except through Jesus Christ; we do not even know ourselves except through Jesus Christ."

Blaise Pascal

So there you go

Thanks to Jim's blog for this

How and what others think and feel about me is none of my business. I am only responsible for giving unconditional love and acceptance to everyone; and then going my way in peace, detached from their response and opinion of me.

Gary Vacca

Low moral enthusiasm?

From Tozer's Devotion for today

"Were some watcher or holy one from the bright world above to come among us for a time with the power to diagnose the spiritual ills of church people there is one entry which I am quite sure would appear on the vast majority of his reports: Definite evidence of chronic spiritual lassitude; level of moral enthusiasm extremely low...."

"It is true that there is a lot of religious activity among us. Inter- church basketball tournaments, religious splash parties followed by devotions, week-end camping trips with a Bible quiz around the fire, Sunday school picnics, building fund drives and ministerial breakfasts are with us in unbelievable numbers, and they are carried on with typical American gusto. It is when we enter the sacred precincts of the heart's personal religion that we suddenly lose all enthusiasm."

"So we find this strange and contradictory situation: a world of noisy, headlong religious activity carried on without moral energy or spiritual fervor."

Canada's Really Big.... Giggle

Happy 140th Canada!!

Happy Canada Day!