How do they Know?

Yesterday Dearest dropped Dino & I to our boat because he needed the island car.  While we understand the necessity it is not something that makes either Dino or I happy.  By the time we hit the island we are tired & hungry & in serious need of caffeine.  Waiting even that extra few minutes for Dearest to get down to the jetty can seem like an eternity BUT...

Recently Dearest has been there waiting for us as we've walked down the jetty & headed to the phone box.  Lucky guess?  Nope.  Apparently Kirby & Marlow know when we've hit the Ws & go berko.  Dearest knows we're on that boat & heads on down.  Seriously?  We could be on any one of 3 or 4 boats but the cats haven't got it wrong yet!  And they know Star & I too ~ though Star & I are generally far more predictable.

How do they know?

Do you read your spam?

Several months ago I found the spam comments thingy ~ & man, oh, man!  is that an entertaining experience!  At present, 'cause I haven't deleted yet, I have someone offering me choices of male models......!!!! Seriously?  What do they think I do with my time? Male models.  In the alltogether.  Umm.....thank you for thinking of me but no.  Just no, ok. As my darling Star would say, I'm already mentally disturbed enough.  This stuff I do not need.

However someone else thinks I need a bridal gown that Trafficks the floor & has a coach! Then it helps prevent around my current ankles...I howled over that one.  Who writes this stuff?  And I am to be aided fascinating...

I don't think I'm the one who needs help here.

Meanwhile the banks who assure me they would like to deposit lots of lovely American money in my account if I will just had over all my personal details have gone one better & are now warning me not to be taken in by each other! lol I've never yet met a lawyer I could understand but perhaps someone should point out to these scammers they might do better if their English wasn't so outlandish?  Still, if I want to know how to phrase an English sentence really badly & have a good laugh while I do it I know where to go! It's as close as my inbox.

What's your best howler, ladies?

How then do we Stand?

For Jeanne @ A Peaceful Day...

Smith Wigglesworth, whose faith was so great he raised 23 people from the dead during his ministry said of Australia:
The last & greatest revival will come out of Australia...

Last night I read Col Stringer's Discovering Australia's Christian Heritage ~ which at least tells you it's not a hard read even given that as a Lit Major I can speed read to some purpose.

Now as these things go this is not either a very insightful book nor one that uncovers a hidden heritage ~ not so far as I was concerned.  None of the Australian material was new to me ~ & probably not to anyone with even a smattering of Australia's Christian heritage.  However there are positives.

This would be an excellent adjunct to other Australian material or as an introductory study.  It opens with a general study on how God views heritage & the importance He places on it then moves onto the fact none of the voyagers of other faiths ever considered settling here & that the first name for Australia was Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. It then moves onto the  founding fathers.  There is at least one quote from each person discussed displaying the strength of their faith. So far so good but major players like Elizabeth Fry, who sent bibles with every woman who was transported & organised for there to be bible studies on the long trip out, are overlooked.

Things like the godly foundations of our flag, constitution, schools, legal system etc are discussed as is our relationship & godly blessing as regards Israel.  The really jarring thing for me is the Americanised discussion of our Education system.  Surely there is enough Australian material available for quoting without resorting to the problems in America's educational system!  Ditto the long detour into Hawaii's rewriting of Captain Cook's history.  Interesting as these things may be they are not really pertinent to the central theme ~ Australia's Christian Heritage.

There is a chapter of exhortation, encouraging people to safeguard their heritage & the last thing is a sample of prayers & prophecies as regards Australia, including a prayer from our first PM.

Jeanne, you would probably appreciate this more than I did.  It didn't seem to really say anything much, was quite repetitive in places, & not particularly well or interestingly written ~ but then I have read some of the best there is when it comes to history & this is just not up there.  However I think it could work quite well for upper primary/lower HS students, giving a general overview of our heritage.

Tuesday Trivia

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?" ~ Quentin Crisp

Today's trivia ~ because I'm like that:



Hebrew is a conceptual language, as oppossed to the rest of the world's languages, which are languages of agreement.  Thus it works a little differently & each Hebrew letter is also a number, has it's own inherent meaning & is also a musical note.  Thus nouns in Hebrew describe the concept of the thing named.

  I became aware of this when our prayer leader mentioned she is a dog person & that the Hebrew for dog is kelev ~ all heart.  I don't think she got it quite right. Kelev is composed of two words: Ke & lev = as/like a heart.

Now I'm not a dog person.  It's not that I dislike dogs; I just prefer cats & I was curious as to what cat was in Hebrew.  Cat in Hebrew is Chatul comprised of the Hebriac roots chet, tav & lamed, meaning to wrap around.  How appropriate!  It also forms the root of our English word cuddle.

I also suffer from a weakness for short pithy comments that contain a world of wisdom ~ hence the quotes I subject you all to!  We are doing *Redemptive Realities* via DVD with Mark Hankins, a faith teacher, who is incredibly funny & both easy & interesting to listen to though I can get lost in the waffle & miss his point.  However he producted 2 gems today I though worth sharing with you:

We need the reality of Redemption , not just the rhetoric

&

You cannot love principles more than people.

Ok, sadly I also have homework so ho~hum, it's off to work I go....

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” ~ Joseph Brodsky

Orientation, semester 2, & the pile of books to be read through over the next two terms. The cats have claimed the box they came in.

I am really looking forward to Col Stringer's Discovering Australia's Christian Heritage ~ something we don't hear near enough about!  But there are other's even closer to my heart. The Ministry Gifts fell open on the table & my eyes lit on this: Before anything else a prophet would be  a preacher or teacher of the word.  I had an ahhhh moment.  Am looking forward to reading the rest of it. But there is Keys to Better Preaching, Understanding the Anointing & The Art of Prayer ~ which should be fascinating because to date the best book I own on prayer is by a Quaker.  The others may reveal unexpected gems.

I am feeling more comfortable being where I am.  Not complacent.  Mostly it still feels weird all round to me but I know people & though they think we are more than a little weird our giftings aren't considered weird or outlandish.  Rather they are appreciated.  Rather a novel experience! Dearest has tapped nicely into the prayer ministry.  I am so happy for him!  He is a powerful prayer warrior but often under~valued because he gets some full on stuff in prayer like you wouldn't believe.  It can spin people out & sometimes his explanations are difficult to decipher.

Doctrine is nowhere to be seen ~ for which I am devoutly grateful.  There are certain basic tenants of the Christian faith that are important but most of the rest is so much froth & bubble.  Ask Jesus.  He didn't accuse the Pharisees of being doctrinally incorrect but of not understanding experientially what they knew!  Relationship, relationship, relationship!  That is the core of Christianity.  You can be right on all the doctrine but if you don't know Christ as your living Lord & Saviour you are as lost as the next sinner!

I guess I will be back to spasmodic blogging again ~ or not.  If they put it in it's got to come out somewhere.  Bit like uncorking a volcano really.  Wait for it..... ☺

''The tumult and the shouting dies;



The Captains and the Kings depart:


Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,


An humble and a contrite heart.


Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet ...." ~Rudyard Kipling.
 
Now that I have had time to simply stop, & think, my mind does what it always does, having sifted through the chaff & left the kernels of wheat behind to surface to the top.  What has surfaced has rather surprised me.  It is not that I do not know this.  Rather it is what the Holy Spirit is highlighting saying, Pay attention here!
 
And what the Holy Spirit is highlighting is rather shocking because it is not that His people don't know, it is simply that we have not cared enough, as though having got to a certain point we stick fast in the mud with no forward progression.  And trust me, I am majorly guilty of this because I am a thinker, not a doer.
 
And the issue is Salvation.
 
If I were to ask you what the first thing was that happened when you were saved I am sure most of you would answer, correctly, that you were sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of Redemption. This is true.  This is God's mark saying you are His now & Satan has no claim on you.  So far so good.
 
The trouble is we tend to think our salvation is all about us!  It is not!  And because we think that we get stuck in these little religious grooves where we go to church & we go to prayer meetings & we do our little daily devotions & we smugly look around at the unsaved world thinking how terrible it all is ~ because it is!  It is shocking & devastating & ugly & a good part of it is the stuff of nightmare if you are at all squeamish, which I am.  And God knows all about it.  His heart aches over it.  He felt strongly enough about the sad & sorry mess we had got ourselves into to do something about it ~ He sent His son!  And His son felt strongly enough about it that not only did He die for it, He sent a helper into the world.
 
And here is where the Christian church has come unglued over the centuries.  We haven't really understood the Holy Spirit.  We haven't understood His nature & we haven't understood His purpose ~ & even when we have we haven't acted on it!
 
One of the first bible verses we teach children is this:  God is Love.  Three little words.  Even littlies can master this verse in a few minutes.  Now leaving aside the question of how little we understand the nature of love according to God come at this from a slightly different angle.  God is Love.  Whose spirit seals us unto the day of redemption?  God's spirit.  God's spirit is love.  Therefore when we live & walk in the Spirit we live & walk in God's love & we think & act according to His nature ~ which is love.  And love so loved the world He gave...
 
That alone is enough to have me screaming But what about ME...!
 
But the Holy Spirit is more than just a seal in us, marking us down as the Lord's.  He is the 3rd person of the trinity, however you like to argue that doctrinally.  He is God.  Don't you know that you are a temple for the Holy Spirit?  This is a reality.  We literally have God living in us!
 
But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Acts 1:8
 
The Holy Spirit is given to empower us, not for our own selfish ends but so that we can do the works God planned for us from the foundation of the earth! In plain old English this verse says absolutely plainly & irrefutably that the Holy Spirit dispenses power to the believer.  Power to live the Christ life, yes, but also, firstly, most importantly, power to witness for Christ because that is what the Holy Spirit does.  He points continually to Christ, to the finished work of Christ, the love of Christ, the desire of Christ that none should perish.  And every single one of us has that power if we are the Lord's.
 
Why does this even matter?  Because we are running out of time, folks.  We have been jogging along comfortably for centuries, 2 000 odd years, with no sign of the Lord's return & the church has got itself in a nice comfortable rut.  Well, it's past time to dig ourselves out of that rut.  It's time to get down & dirty with the Holy Spirit.  It's time to ask God to help us clean up our act & to pick up our cross & live out the mandate we were given. 
 
 Salvation is ours that we can reach out with God's power to pluck the dying from the very clutches of Hell itself.  This is the heart of God, the heart of Love itself because, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. [2Peter 3:9]
 
Jesus has returned to the Father.  It is we who have been left to carry on His work.

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