Category: life

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Lost and Found 7: The Rich Man

I grew up in Wyong. I grew up thinking that my family weren’t very rich. I grew up disappointed that my parents didn’t buy me all of the toys that I ‘needed’.

I’ve now grown up and now realise just how rich I’ve always been. Having running water, a roof over my head, a steady income and an incredibly prosperous government and welfare system means that I’m one of the richest people in the world!

If you’re reading this on the Internet, you’re rich too. Truly poor people don’t use the internet. Jesus says in Luke 18:18-34 that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.

Bummer.

It’s pretty tough to get into the Kingdom of God!

It’s even tougher when you try to do something to get in. The Rich Dude in Luke 18 thought that he could ‘do’ something to go to heaven: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

He thinks he’s done enough. He claims to have kept a bunch of commandments. Yet he’s failed to keep the greatest commandment. He doesn’t love and worship God with all of his heart. He loves his possessions and riches more than he loves God.

The truth is that all of us fail to love God as we should.

So the disciples rightly ask – who then can be saved?

Jesus: what’s impossible with men is possible for God.

It’s impossible for anyone – rich or poor – to receive eternal life by doing stuff. Immediately following Jesus’ interaction with the Rich Dude Jesus speaks, in Luke 18:31-34, of how the impossible will be achieved. The key? Jesus. Jesus will do it. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. How does he do that? Through his death and resurrection.

Where is your trust? Is it in yourself and what you can DO? Or is it in Jesus and what he has DONE?
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Part 7 of Lost and Found. I’m writing a series of talks and studies on Lost and Found. These aren’t talks or studies… just some thinking. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

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Prayer Friday #29 + counting numbers in ministry

OBSERVATION: A couple of discussions in the last week or 2 have caused me to reflect on numbers in ministry. Discussion on Syd Ang and post on Youth Vanguard. I think people from my tribe (Sydney Evangelicals) are afraid of numbers. Maybe it's a pendulum swing away from the mega church after your mega money? Maybe it's a desire to be faithful without frills? I feel that large churches and youth groups are frowned upon. Clear statements on the syd ang forum were that 200 is the cap for a congregation and 100 is ideal. I think that is small minded. I think it's appropriate to have small churches… and we need to keep planting more and more churches of different sizes. BUT, if Sydney and Australia are going to see 10% of the population in Bible-teaching churches – we need big churches too! Tim Keller has a great article on the differences between large and small church ministry. I feel the vibe in Sydney is that youth ministries are healthy if they are small and struggling! If you have a large youth group – it's because you are having too much fun and not enough Jesus! Stupid!

Therefore, how do we measure success in ministries? I think it's appropriate to count numbers. But what do we do with the numbers? Asses the health of the numbers. Is it genuine gospel growth? Have people heard the gospel? Are people being changed by the gospel? Are year 9's making the transition to year 10? Are year 12s making the transition to year 13? (or whatever your big transitions are). If there's 1 changed life… thank God for it. If there's 1000 changed lives… thank God for it.  So… don't be scared of numbers. If you've got none – maybe you're boring people with the gospel! If you've got lots – check the health of those you've got that it's genuine gospel growth. Pray that more would hear and respond to the gospel of Jesus… dead, buried and risen.

PRAYER:

>For a healthy church and youth ministry
>Spent the last couple of days visiting siblings and nieces and nephews. Good times. Thank God.
>Shred Hotham this week. Pray for final talk prep. Lost and Found
>Be a godly husband
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Asian Cup Socceroos

The Asian Cup is almost here. It’s going to be big! Last year during the World Cup it was easy to make time to watch the games: it was played in Germany so it meant I only needed to miss sleep to watch games. With the Asian Cup being played in our time zone it makes things a bit trickier…

  • Australia vs Oman Sunday July 8 5:20pm. I’ll be on a bus going to the snow.
  • Iraq vs Australia Friday July 13 5:20pm. I think I’ll be in a leaders meeting or speaking on camp!
  • Thailand vs Australia Monday July 16 7:35pm. This one should be okay!

My tip. If Australia can deal with the heat, they’ll win. Lucas Neill needs to command the back line bettr than their last game against Singapore. Harry Kewell will remain injury free and score a bag of goals. Jason Cullina will be Australia’s player of the tournament.

My other tip. Having the Socceroos part of the Asian Football Federation will be bigger than soccer. Their involvement will have a significant economic, political and diplomatic impact on Australia’s relationship with Asia.

Keep an eye on twg and ewg for all the up-to-date news.

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Greek and Hebrew on iTunes U

I noticed a new section in iTunes today called iTunes U (I downloaded version 7.3 today too… maybe you need that to view it???). I presume that the U stands for University. Basically there are about 15 universities that post lectures and other podcast stuff on line. I found one, Concordia Seminary, that has intro classes for Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek. There is both audio and video. Haven’t really explored it much… but looks like it (iTunes U in general) could be a good resource.