I have been reading Ephesians lately, such an awesome book in the bible. Something that has spoken to me is Ephesians 4, especially verses 17-32.
17 With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. 18 Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. 19 They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.
20 But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. 21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, 22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.
25 So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body. 26 And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.”[a] Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 for anger gives a foothold to the devil.
28 If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others in need. 29 Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.
30 And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own,[b] guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. 32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
Paul is talking here about changing the way we live our lives. It's not just 'Don't do this, Don't do that, keep on doing what that guy does;' he's talking about a complete transformation of our lives.
And you know what? WE CAN'T DO IT. We can try and we might make a lot of progress, but in OUR OWN STRENGTH we will never pull off a complete transformation of our lives.
eg V28 - 'If you're a thief, stop stealing and start working hard so you can give generously to others.' What kind of thief would be able to just decide one day that they're going to stop stealing and start working hard to GIVE to others? It's a complete transformation from being selfish to selfless.
Or V31-32 - 'Get rid of all bitterness, rage, slander, anger, harsh words, evil behaviour and be like Christ.' Again, what kind of person will be able to just decide one day that they are going to do that, and then be able to actually pull it off?
We actually can't do it. Not in our own strength. We need God.
V23 - "Instead, let the spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes"
THE SPIRIT. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit regularly if we're to have the strength or ability to overcome sinfulness in our lives. Our own strength is nowhere near enough for us to overcome sin. But with God and the Holy Spirit in us, we are more than conqueror's and we will see our lives transformed.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Attitude
Yesterday I was working at a milk/ice cream/juice production plant out of town in a place called Leeston. I was with a whole bunch of people, and around 3pm we were all informed we would be finished work by "5pm at the latest". It had been a long day for those of us from Christchurch (I personally had a little over an hour's travel each way to get to the fatory, I had left home at 6:40am for an 8am start) and so we were looking forward to the end of the day. 10 minutes to 5 we start on the next job which ended up taking about an hour and a half. Needless to say, there was a lot of unhappy murmuring and outright complaining going on. I don't mind working a long day, but to be honest I was ready to go home and disappointed, and felt that we had been unfairly misled.
About 10 minutes into everyone's complaining and moaning, I became aware of my own attitude. Not that I was voicing any of this, but I found myself getting sucked into the negativity around me. I started thinking, "They (the bosses) need to sort themselves out, they need to get organized, how dare they keep us later than they said they would, some people have plans tonight, I hate this, I just want to leave, what would they do if we just stopped working" and so on and so on. I was annoyed, but the fact that things hadn't gone my way really didn't give me an excuse to treat my bosses with contempt and let my work ethic slip. How quickly my day changed from being pretty good to being pretty lame, and unfortunately (and sadly) it took far too long for me to sort myself out again.
I wish this story had a different ending, one where I changed my attitude from negative to positive, where I let this be reflected in how I carried out the rest of my day and that people noticed this and saw Christ in me. Unfortunately hindsight is all I have. I learnt a hard lesson.
The negative attitudes of others are extremely infectious.
In Romans 12:2 it says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
The pattern of this world is to grumble and complain, be insubordinate, be sinful, have a terrible attitude, treat others with contempt, be selfish, to steal, to bring others down, to abuse power, to kill, to deceive, the list goes on.
How often do we conform to this pattern world?
How infrequently do we let our mind be renewed and let this transform the way we live out our lives in every situation?
How often do we let the attitudes of those around us become our attitudes and ruin our day? And then bring that attitude home with us and let it impact negatively on our loved ones?
What would happen if we let the Holy Spirit renew our minds, if we listened to His promptings and lived our lives in a way that shows God to those around us? I reckon it would transform our society, our city, our country, our world.
Too many of us are guilty at one time or another of being no different to the world around us. We are called to be different. If there’s nothing different in our lives to those of our non-Christian friends, what do we have that they don’t?
We have Christ.
He should take first place in our life.
He should be seen in us.
I want my life to be a billboard for Him.
I want people to meet Him when they meet me.
I want people to want what I have.
I want Him to continue to transform me by the renewing of my mind, and for that to change the way I live.
That’s what I want.
About 10 minutes into everyone's complaining and moaning, I became aware of my own attitude. Not that I was voicing any of this, but I found myself getting sucked into the negativity around me. I started thinking, "They (the bosses) need to sort themselves out, they need to get organized, how dare they keep us later than they said they would, some people have plans tonight, I hate this, I just want to leave, what would they do if we just stopped working" and so on and so on. I was annoyed, but the fact that things hadn't gone my way really didn't give me an excuse to treat my bosses with contempt and let my work ethic slip. How quickly my day changed from being pretty good to being pretty lame, and unfortunately (and sadly) it took far too long for me to sort myself out again.
I wish this story had a different ending, one where I changed my attitude from negative to positive, where I let this be reflected in how I carried out the rest of my day and that people noticed this and saw Christ in me. Unfortunately hindsight is all I have. I learnt a hard lesson.
The negative attitudes of others are extremely infectious.
In Romans 12:2 it says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
The pattern of this world is to grumble and complain, be insubordinate, be sinful, have a terrible attitude, treat others with contempt, be selfish, to steal, to bring others down, to abuse power, to kill, to deceive, the list goes on.
How often do we conform to this pattern world?
How infrequently do we let our mind be renewed and let this transform the way we live out our lives in every situation?
How often do we let the attitudes of those around us become our attitudes and ruin our day? And then bring that attitude home with us and let it impact negatively on our loved ones?
What would happen if we let the Holy Spirit renew our minds, if we listened to His promptings and lived our lives in a way that shows God to those around us? I reckon it would transform our society, our city, our country, our world.
Too many of us are guilty at one time or another of being no different to the world around us. We are called to be different. If there’s nothing different in our lives to those of our non-Christian friends, what do we have that they don’t?
We have Christ.
He should take first place in our life.
He should be seen in us.
I want my life to be a billboard for Him.
I want people to meet Him when they meet me.
I want people to want what I have.
I want Him to continue to transform me by the renewing of my mind, and for that to change the way I live.
That’s what I want.
Monday, January 18, 2010
I'm Learning
I am learning more everyday.
For example - I have learnt since getting married that my wife sheds more hair than I ever thought possible. I find it EVERYWHERE, on my clothes, clogging the drain, in our bed, clogging the vacuum cleaner head, but as of yet I haven't (that I remember anyway) found any in my food.
I have however found, on more than one occasion, a long, filthy black hair in my chinese food from the chinese shop down the road. Note to self - Do not EVER go back there.
I'm learning to overcome disappointments as I miss out on jobs that I've been applying for. I'm learning not to worry. I'm learning to keep plodding along, learning to not hate my temping jobs so much, and I'm learning how faithful God is every day. It is awesome. Praise Him!
I have also just learned something really awesome that I can't tell anyone - yet. I will as soon as I can, and I will probably post it up here.
In other news...
'Global warming' is losing the support of the public more and more everyday. Sorry Al Gore, you're going to have to find some other way to fleece the public of hard earned money to line your pockets.
The Senate race in Massachusetts is heating up. Normally this probably wouldn't be a big news story, but here's the catch. If the Republican candidate, Scott Brown wins, this would take the numbers in Senate to 59 Dem, 41 Rep. And that would be good news to me. Why? Because then the US Government would be forced to change their tactics and do things bi-partisanly. That is, treat things democratically.
The health care take over won when it went to the senate because the democrats had 60 members. Obama needed 60 votes for the take over to be passed. All he had to do was convince all democrat senators to vote 'yes' and he would have success. I'm not against that so much. However, my main problem with this is the way it was carried out. It was not a democratic process.
Knowing the republicans are generally opposed to government intrusion into the everyday choices of the public, he shut them out of talks. It became a one sided debate, aimed at bringing about the largest government takeover of the private sector in American history. Instead of transparency, these talks were held behind closed doors.
While campaigning for presidency, Obama promised to have a transparent government, have open doors talks with both sides of the political spectrum on issues such as health care, and to have c-span camera's present at all of these meetings. None of this happened. The talks resembled more of a secretive, under-cover-of-darkness campaign then a genuine, democratic process for the good of the people. Never mind the fact that only 30% of american's support the government take over of health care, and that most people actually oppose it.
So for me, anything that is going to bring democracy back into the white house is a good thing. I think it will be great to see the president faced with the challenge of working with both Democrats and Republicans, instead of just needing to do the bare minimum to get votes from his own party alone.
George W Bush (Republican) spent the majority of his presidency with a Democrat majority in both congress and the senate. He didn't have the option to do things any other way than bi-partisan. And I think that's a good thing. Not only does it mean that people on both sides of the political spectrum are better represented, it means both sides have to work together to reach the solution. And that has to be a good thing.
For example - I have learnt since getting married that my wife sheds more hair than I ever thought possible. I find it EVERYWHERE, on my clothes, clogging the drain, in our bed, clogging the vacuum cleaner head, but as of yet I haven't (that I remember anyway) found any in my food.
I have however found, on more than one occasion, a long, filthy black hair in my chinese food from the chinese shop down the road. Note to self - Do not EVER go back there.
I'm learning to overcome disappointments as I miss out on jobs that I've been applying for. I'm learning not to worry. I'm learning to keep plodding along, learning to not hate my temping jobs so much, and I'm learning how faithful God is every day. It is awesome. Praise Him!
I have also just learned something really awesome that I can't tell anyone - yet. I will as soon as I can, and I will probably post it up here.
In other news...
'Global warming' is losing the support of the public more and more everyday. Sorry Al Gore, you're going to have to find some other way to fleece the public of hard earned money to line your pockets.
The Senate race in Massachusetts is heating up. Normally this probably wouldn't be a big news story, but here's the catch. If the Republican candidate, Scott Brown wins, this would take the numbers in Senate to 59 Dem, 41 Rep. And that would be good news to me. Why? Because then the US Government would be forced to change their tactics and do things bi-partisanly. That is, treat things democratically.
The health care take over won when it went to the senate because the democrats had 60 members. Obama needed 60 votes for the take over to be passed. All he had to do was convince all democrat senators to vote 'yes' and he would have success. I'm not against that so much. However, my main problem with this is the way it was carried out. It was not a democratic process.
Knowing the republicans are generally opposed to government intrusion into the everyday choices of the public, he shut them out of talks. It became a one sided debate, aimed at bringing about the largest government takeover of the private sector in American history. Instead of transparency, these talks were held behind closed doors.
While campaigning for presidency, Obama promised to have a transparent government, have open doors talks with both sides of the political spectrum on issues such as health care, and to have c-span camera's present at all of these meetings. None of this happened. The talks resembled more of a secretive, under-cover-of-darkness campaign then a genuine, democratic process for the good of the people. Never mind the fact that only 30% of american's support the government take over of health care, and that most people actually oppose it.
So for me, anything that is going to bring democracy back into the white house is a good thing. I think it will be great to see the president faced with the challenge of working with both Democrats and Republicans, instead of just needing to do the bare minimum to get votes from his own party alone.
George W Bush (Republican) spent the majority of his presidency with a Democrat majority in both congress and the senate. He didn't have the option to do things any other way than bi-partisan. And I think that's a good thing. Not only does it mean that people on both sides of the political spectrum are better represented, it means both sides have to work together to reach the solution. And that has to be a good thing.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
My life so far in 2010
It's 2010.
I'm unemployed - It really does suck. I have finished my Diploma in Civil Engineering, but when I try and use it as bait for potential employers, they generally have been telling me it's pretty much worthless. Would really have liked to know that before I spent two years and about 15 grand on getting it. Apparently going back to Uni to get my BE is the only way to get into what I want to do. I know for a fact that just a few years ago, that wasn't the case. I knew it would be harder with just a Diploma, but I didn't think I would be told by a number of Engineering Firms that its impossible.
Don't worry, I'm not depressed. I have been battered by disappointments BUT... I have faith. I believe God when He says, "I know the plans I have for you. They are for good and not disaster; to give you a future and a hope." I know that as these doors seem to close, He's moving me to the open door He really wants me to go through.
So for now, I've re-signed with a temping agency which should be able to provide me with enough work for us to pay the bills and on the days I'm not working I will be continuing my door-to-door job hunting and giving out a billion copies of my CV and praying for God to open up opportunities. Watch this space.
One thing being employed has 'helped' me with is now instead of a quick read up on the news every day, I have a lot more time to do some reading. I'm passionate about politics - not because I like to argue, but because I think it's extremely important for us to know what's going on around us in the political scene. The politicians are employed by us to make decisions for our good. So it's important to me that I know the full story about a law change that's being proposed. Or a policy change. Or what lawmakers are debating on. It's important to be informed and to really do some research into the pro's and con's.
I am a dual citizen of the USA and NZ. So I have a huge amount of interest tied up in what is going on in the USA (as well as here in NZ).
I'm watching the Healthcare Reform (or should I say Government take-over of the Health Sector) with great interest. I've been watching the global warming scam with great interest. I've been watching the media frenzy over Sarah Palin with great interest. I've been following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan closely. I've been watching the out of control Government spending closely.
I don't like how biased the media is. I don't like how EVERY media outlet is biased, mostly left wing, but Fox, a right leaning outlet, is the only one bashed for having a biased viewpoint. I have been surprised time and again by what is reported on the news and how it is reported. I'm sick of humanity-caused climate change being reported as fact when there is less evidence for that than there is for life on mars. I don't like the direction Barack Obama is taking the USA and I don't like the way the press plays favourites with him. It seems they spend as much time praising him as they do trying to slam Sarah Palin.
This was not meant to be a rant, but I guess I got started on one. I wasn't expecting it to become a list of things I'm getting a bit "over it" about.
ANYWAYS...
I hope you are having a fantastic year so far. I am going to try and keep this thing updated fairly regularly and just say what's on my mind. It won't always be Politics. It won't always be winging and moaning (hopefully only a rare moan will make it on here). It will always be from the heart, and hopefully it will add something to your day, not take away from it.
I'm unemployed - It really does suck. I have finished my Diploma in Civil Engineering, but when I try and use it as bait for potential employers, they generally have been telling me it's pretty much worthless. Would really have liked to know that before I spent two years and about 15 grand on getting it. Apparently going back to Uni to get my BE is the only way to get into what I want to do. I know for a fact that just a few years ago, that wasn't the case. I knew it would be harder with just a Diploma, but I didn't think I would be told by a number of Engineering Firms that its impossible.
Don't worry, I'm not depressed. I have been battered by disappointments BUT... I have faith. I believe God when He says, "I know the plans I have for you. They are for good and not disaster; to give you a future and a hope." I know that as these doors seem to close, He's moving me to the open door He really wants me to go through.
So for now, I've re-signed with a temping agency which should be able to provide me with enough work for us to pay the bills and on the days I'm not working I will be continuing my door-to-door job hunting and giving out a billion copies of my CV and praying for God to open up opportunities. Watch this space.
One thing being employed has 'helped' me with is now instead of a quick read up on the news every day, I have a lot more time to do some reading. I'm passionate about politics - not because I like to argue, but because I think it's extremely important for us to know what's going on around us in the political scene. The politicians are employed by us to make decisions for our good. So it's important to me that I know the full story about a law change that's being proposed. Or a policy change. Or what lawmakers are debating on. It's important to be informed and to really do some research into the pro's and con's.
I am a dual citizen of the USA and NZ. So I have a huge amount of interest tied up in what is going on in the USA (as well as here in NZ).
I'm watching the Healthcare Reform (or should I say Government take-over of the Health Sector) with great interest. I've been watching the global warming scam with great interest. I've been watching the media frenzy over Sarah Palin with great interest. I've been following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan closely. I've been watching the out of control Government spending closely.
I don't like how biased the media is. I don't like how EVERY media outlet is biased, mostly left wing, but Fox, a right leaning outlet, is the only one bashed for having a biased viewpoint. I have been surprised time and again by what is reported on the news and how it is reported. I'm sick of humanity-caused climate change being reported as fact when there is less evidence for that than there is for life on mars. I don't like the direction Barack Obama is taking the USA and I don't like the way the press plays favourites with him. It seems they spend as much time praising him as they do trying to slam Sarah Palin.
This was not meant to be a rant, but I guess I got started on one. I wasn't expecting it to become a list of things I'm getting a bit "over it" about.
ANYWAYS...
I hope you are having a fantastic year so far. I am going to try and keep this thing updated fairly regularly and just say what's on my mind. It won't always be Politics. It won't always be winging and moaning (hopefully only a rare moan will make it on here). It will always be from the heart, and hopefully it will add something to your day, not take away from it.
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