The PASSION Blog

With the AFL Grand Final on tomorrow and all the talk about the big game in the news, I thought I would share my favourite sporting events. I have been a sports lover since I was a kid and these ones a must watches for me each year.

1. AFL Grand Final - This is one of my free pass days. I get to sit in front of the TV all day. No-one asks me to do anything as they know how much I love watching the big game. If my team is playing that is good, but I am just happy to watch the best two teams battle it out.

2. The Boxing Day Test - For me there is something special about watching the Aussie Cricket Team walk out on the ground in the Boxing Day. If a player takes a bag of wickets or scores a big ton he is an instant hero in my eyes. This is another free pass day!

3. Wimbledon Tennis Open - I love the tradition of Wimbledon and the green grass courts. While the other majors are pretty good, Wimbledon is the big prize in my eyes. If you win that you can really play tennis!

4. The Tour de France - I have always loved cycling and each year I tune in to the main race. I just love the different stages and races within the race for the different colour jerseys.

5. Bathurst 1000 - At heart I am a bit of a rev head.  My first car was a red and black 1972 HQ V8 Monaro! I really get caught up in the day and my wife and I like to watch it all day from start to finish.

So there you have it. My top five favourite sporting events that are held each year. As you can see I am a bit of a sports nut to say the least. What are your top five sports events of the year?

Last week I noticed in the Koorong catalogue there was a special on all the books in the Essential Bible Reference Series.

These are small books of about 20-30 pages that have lots on information on a variety of Bible topics. They are full of pictures, maps, Bible time lines and more.

Some of the titles include:

• The Life of Jesus
• People of the Bible
• The history of the church
• Introduction to the New Testament
• Introduction to the Old Testament
• Bible Facts and figures
• The story of the Bible
• Archaeology and the Bible
• Bible Atlas

I purchased six of them as they have a special where you buy two and get one free. For only $7.95 each they are a great resources to have in your bookshelf and to help you understand the Bible better.

If I could recommend you purchase one of these titles it would be “The life of Jesus“. It really has a great overview of who Jesus is and what He did while here on earth.

If you want to check them out, you can click on this link

In yesterdays post I talked briefly about the process of renewing your mind from Romans 12:2. In today’s post I thought I would share some of the things we can do to transform our thinking patterns from worldly to God’s way of thinking.

1. Read your Bible regularly and reflectively

2. Pray and spend time alone with God regularly

3. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in your heart and life

4. Spend time with positive Christian friends discussing spiritual things

5. Listen to good quality sermons and take notes

6. Read positive Christian books

7. Read missionary magazines and articles that tell of reaching people for Christ

8. Read and interact with positive Christians online

9. Read a daily devotional like “our Daily Bread” or “Every Day with Jesus”

These are just some of the things that will help renew your mind and change your thinking patterns. Romans 12:2 says that if we renew our minds we “will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will”.

I have been reading and reflecting on Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2 the last few days. I have done this many times over the years as this passage was one of my first memory verses in the discipleship program I did.

For those not familiar with this passage it says…

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (NIV).

At the heart of this passage is offering our lives to God for His service in response to His mercy towards us. When I came to Christ back in 1989 this was the last thing on my mind. Yes I was a Christian, but I still wanted to live life on my terms and do what I wanted to do.

Over the years though, my mind has slowly (very slowly at times!) been renewed as verse two talks about. This has happened as I have prayed, read the Bible and allowed the Holy Spirit to move in my life. Now living my life for God just seems to be the natural option for me. It just makes sense and to be honest I couldn’t imagine not living this way.

Just as a matter of interest. The above text was taken from the New International Version of the Bible. The text below is from The Message version. I like the simple way it explains it…

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you”.

My daughter just came up and asked me a question. She said, “What is the longest word in the dictionary?”

I thought hang on I can get this one, give me a moment. I started to think of all the big words I know. Antidisestablishment, no. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocis, no. Before long I gave up.

She said, “Smiles…Because there is a mile between the first s and the last s”.

I hadn’t heard that one before and it gave me a chuckle. It looks like I have been outsmarted by a ten year old…again

One of the links I have recently added to my link list is Gospel for Asia. This is because my wife Larissa has been reading a free book she got from them titled, “Revolution in World Missions”.

As she has shared with me the many stories in the book I have been reminded how lucky we are in Australia and how much more we could do to impact one of our closest neighbours in Asia.

If you are interested you can get a free copy of the book through their website here

This is the blurb from the back of the book…

“Do you long to let go of self-centredness and be more eternally minded?  Do you desire to make a difference in the lost world but aren’t sure how to go about it?  Based on the testimony of thousands who have read Revolution in World Missions,this gripping message can radically change your life.

In this exciting and fast-moving narrative, K P Yohannan shares how God brought him from his remote Indian village to become the founder of Gospel for Asia.  Drawing from facinating true stories and eye-opening statistics. K P challenges Christians to examine and change their lifestyles in view of millions who have never heard the Gospel.

Gospel for Asia has more than 14,000 (as of June 2004) national missionaries in the heart of the 10/40 Window, operates 54 Bible colleges with more than 8000 students, and heads up a church-planting movement that pioneers an average of 12 new fellowships every day”.

As a dad I am trying to encourage my kids to have good positive attitudes. One that I am especially keen to pass on to my kids is being thankful for what we have.

Yesterday in our Sunday arvo family worship time we looked at the attitude of being thankful. After some worship I looked at a few verses from the Bible that talked about being thankful for what we have and to see them all as blessings from God.

After this I invited each of my family to share one thing that they were thankful to God for. I was happy to hear that they all struggled with just finding one thing to narrow it down to. We all seemed to find five or six things off the top of ours heads!

After that we finished with communion and the old song “Give thanks with a greatful heart”. It was a nice time of family worship and sharing.

Just in case you are wondering. I was thankful for my faith and salvation, my family, our new life in Merredin and that we can all meet and share our faith as a family.

I was reading the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians this morning. The heading for chapter four is “Living to please God”. It grabbed my attention.

It is interesting that when you read through this chapter it naturally breaks into four paragraphs that tell us how to please God in the way we live. Here are the four headings that I gave it.

1. Live in purity - Verses 3-8 tell us that we should live a sanctified life (set apart for God). It says we should avoid sexual immorality, be controlled and not take advantage of our neighbours. Verse 7 tells us why. “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life”.

2. Show brotherly love - Verses 9-10 tell us the importance of brotherly love. It says that we should try to love each other more and more. At the heart of brotherly love is caring for others, helping them when in need and showing respect.

3. Be a good testimony - Verses 11-12 talks about living a quiet life and minding your own business. It also says that we should work with our hands so we are not dependent of anyone. If we do these things we will earn the respect of others and have a good reputation in our community.

4. Have hope - Verses 13-18 talks about Jesus return and those who have already died in Christ. It says we should look forward to the future with hope and expectation that we will be with the Lord forever. Verse 18 reminds us that we should encourage each other with these words.

If you want to live a life that pleases God, this passage gives us four things you can do. Live in purity, show brotherly love, be a good testimony and look forward to Christ’s return with hope.

If you don’t have a Bible, you can read this passage on BibleGateway.com by clicking here

There is nothing like the feeling of emailing off your last assignment for a term. Every time I do it I let out a big sigh and sink down in my chair.

While I am loving this opportunity to return to full time studies as a mature age student, there is nothing like knowing that you don’t have to open a book, listen to a lecture or write an assignment for two weeks.

Time to relax for a bit and take it easy

I was doing some research for an Ethics assignment that addressed the issue of churches and copyright recently. In the process I came across some information on the Australian Copyright Council website that deals specifically with copyright and churches.

I thought I would pass on the link as increasingly churches are using movies, soundtracks and other presentations in their church services which might be subject to copyright.

Just for interest sake copyright covers:

• literary works;
• dramatic works;
• musical works;
• artistic works;
• films (the moving images and soundtracks);
• sound recordings;
• broadcasts (the skill, effort and cost in assembling, preparing and transmitting programmes); and
• published editions (the layout, typesetting and format of published works).

The attached link is to the website page that deals with churches. It has information about copyright, training courses available and a number of free brochures that address various issues.

If you are interested you can click here