Archive for September, 2009

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Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

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NLT's Mosaic releases today!

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

NLT’s Mosaic releases today!

NLT’s Holy Bible: Mosaic launches today and ‘is about helping you encounter Christ in a deep and authentic way, through insight from every continent and century of the Christian Church. Historical and contemporary art and writings from across the globe offer a depth of Scriptural wisdom and understanding as you read and reflect on God’s word.  Mosaic is arranged so that every week has variety of content for reading and reflection. Each week follows a theme appropriate to the Church season (such as Advent, Easter, etc). The content included for each week includes full-color art; Scripture readings; a historical reading; a contemporary reading; a prayer, creed, hymn or quote; and space for reflection.

www.HolyBibleMosaic.com

(In the spirit of full disclosure, this blog post might just win me a copy, hence the post being somewhat advertorial in tone!  That said, I was an NLT user before)

What a man is

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

What a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and nothing more.
Robert Murray McCheyne

Prayer rubs us against God

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Prayer rubs us against God. Our internal alignment changes. The magnetic attraction of Christ draws us to some things and pushes us away from others. We retain our individuality; we are still totally ourselves … but with a new polarity. Contact with God makes you – yes, you – godly. His will and your will begin to dovetail, to blend. The good which you want and the good which God wills mesh.
Why Don’t I Get What I Pray For? by John Cowart

Leave your native country

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Abraham: journey to Canaan

In amongst family, friends and church, I am trying to make sure that I do a little personal bible study each weekend.  At the moment, I’m working my way through the LifeGuide Bible Study entitled Faith: Depending On God.  This weekend’s study was ‘Abraham: Faith Under Construction’ and focuses on Genesis 12:1-9.

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation.  I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”  So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.  He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth—his livestock and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran—and headed for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan, Abram traveled through the land as far as Shechem. There he set up camp beside the oak of Moreh. At that time, the area was inhabited by Canaanites.  Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” And Abram built an altar there and dedicated it to the Lord, who had appeared to him.  After that, Abram traveled south and set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord.  Then Abram continued traveling south by stages toward the Negev.

Four years ago this week, we moved 18,000kms across the globe with 22 bags, six month visitor’s visas and the faith that we were doing the right thing as a family.  Our journey was not in the same league as Abraham’s and was certainly easier in the physical sense.  However, studying this passage certainly brought back some of the feelings I experienced as I led my family from our native country to the land we were ‘shown’ and where we hope to be a blessing to others.

We live in deeds, not years

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest:
Lives in one hour more than in years do some
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins.
Life’s but a means unto an end; that end,
Beginning, mean, and end to all things—God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
The End of Life by Philip James Bailey via midtoad’s tweet of The American Review Vol.2 in Google Books.

Mosaic

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Although I’ve just grabbed a new NLT Study Bible to add to my collection, I like the premise of the Holy Bible: Mosaic from Tyndale House Publishers. I have swapped a few tweets with Mosaic’s general editor Keith Williams in recent weeks and notice that he’s just popped out a video overview of Mosaic and its features.

A man prayed

Friday, September 18th, 2009

A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening.
Christian Discourses by Søren Kierkegaard

On Forgiveness

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and partly different. It is the same because, here also forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart – every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God’s forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily, in other people’s we do not accept them easily enough. As regards my own sins it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are not really so good as I think; as regards other men’s sins against me it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are better than I think. One must therefore begin by attending to everything which may show that the other man was not so much to blame as we thought. But even if he is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him; and even if ninety-nine per cent of his apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one per cent of guilt that is left over. To excuse, what can really produce good excuses is not Christian charity; it is only fairness. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
“On Forgiveness” (The Weight of Glory) by C.S. Lewis

IronFish & Manna

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

On my last birthday, my wife gave me a beautiful IronFish Cross Pendant.  A month or so back, after a summer and autumn of harsh New Zealand sun, sea and showers, the leather thong snapped.

While I was in the Henderson Manna Store the other day (buying a reciprocal birthday present for my wife!), I happened to see the same pendant and mentioned to my daughter that it reminded me that I needed to get a new leather thong for mine.  The guy behind the counter overheard and asked if the pendant had been bought at the store.  When I said that it had, he immediately pulled the thong from a pendant on display and passed it to me, refusing all and any payment.

Thanks, Manna Henderson – great folk, great store!