The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia

The governor of the Reserve Bank surprised interest rate watchers again by speaking about his Christianity and how it drives his role as a central banker.

Glenn Stevens used a charity breakfast in Sydney this morning to say he was using his god-given talents to do the job of managing the economy.

“I think if you are a Christian, God has given you certain capabilities to do a job, to earn a living and the bible teaches that you should do that as if you were doing it for him, because you are and that is my attitude.”

In an audience of business and community leaders, including the former prime minister John Howard and the ABC’s managing director Mark Scott, Mr Stevens also responded to a direct question about his belief in God.

“I would say that, despite claims to the contrary, there is a God. This is worth checking out and the critical issue people have to deal with is, was Jesus Christ who he claimed to be? If he wasn’t then you can forget about it, and if he wasn’t then I am living in a fool’s world,” Mr Stevens said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/31/2861385.htm?section=justin

His Kingdom coming today, and my faith

Our LORD Jesus taught us how to pray, daily.

How amazing that we are co-workers with God! His Kingdom coming today, and His will being done today, is inseparable from our faith. This is why we pray.

If we were to say that God, thru our faith, which is exercised in prayer, creates our day for us according to His Kingdom and His will, according to our faith, daily, then we would be right.

If you don’t lay hold of His Kingdom and His perfect will, every day in prayer, then you miss out on His best.

The myth of superiority

I read about a Catholic woman in the US, who had stopped going to church, bcos in the light of the current scandals she thought that the priests were more flawed than her, so why listen to them? Just an example which shows how religion creates and pushes a myth: the myth that the leaders of the religion are closer to God than ‘normal’ people. That woman, when she discovered that her leaders don’t know God any better than she does, saw no reason to go to church anymore. The illusion was shattered. This is an illusion which is created, carefully crafted, nurtured and is used to keep people in bondage to the religion, no matter what flavor of Christianity it is manifested in.

Whatever the setting, note how a hireling always first establishes his spiritual superiority over his audience, whether it be on TV or at the local church. Now, he may get someone else to exalt him, knowing that self-exaltation is crass, yet, self-exaltation, and setting himself over others as superior, is vital to his ‘ministry’. Why? Bcos he knows that Christians have been conditioned to think that ‘leaders’ are superior to them, and he knows, therefore, that he can successfully use that lie, and milk it for all it’s worth, to get what he wants.

When you were a new believer and you watched TV evangelists, didn’t you think that there was some aura they possessed? You reasoned that if they are great enough to get on TV then they must know God better than you and thus be a spiritual authority to you.

No one should lord it over your faith

Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for by faith you stand. 2 Cor 1:24

How do you redeem the time?

A good encouragement and reminder:

See then that you walk carefully, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5:15-17

…making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. ESV Ephesians 5:16

Walk in wisdom toward them that are outsiders, redeeming the time. Col 4:5

Update on the Heavy Stone

http://johnmcternansinsights.blogspot.com/2010/03/daily-digestmarch-28-2010.html

The presence of the LORD brings times of refreshing

Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the LORD… Acts 3:19

Sing with me

Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD!

The whole earth is full of His glory!

What the Godly use of the rod teaches children

The rod of correction, used in a loving Godly manner, teaches a child a lot about God.

It teaches them that obeying and respecting their parents is a non-negotiable, with God.

It reinforces that He hates sin and there is a penalty for sin.

It reinforces that God does discipline and punish people for sin.

It reinforces that people do indeed reap what they sow.

It reinforces that God’s discipline is bcos He is righteous. It teaches them about judgment.

If they can’t obey their parents, how could they ever obey God? or love God?

It teaches them that God uses discipline on His children to restore them to Him, not to destroy them.

It teaches that there is no contradiction between God’s love and His judgment.

It causes children to face the reality of their sin, and the reality that they are sinners in need of a Savior.

Just as how we, as adults, often feel indignant when we get a parking or speeding ticket, then have to realize that it is sin working in us that makes us to be indignant and causes us to protest our innocence when we know we are guilty, so does the rod cause a child to come to terms with the same issues.

Proverbs 13:24, 29:15, 23:13, 23:14, 22:15, Heb 12:9

There is a Redeemer

Shroud of Turin 3D images

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=131177

Where is this heading?

Is he worth praying for?

That brother of yours. That sister of yours. Is she worth praying for? Will it be worth it?

Yes.

LIFE is for the living

and religion is for the dead.

We will naturally gravitate toward whatever is already in our hearts – that which rules our heart: whether it be Jesus, or the things of this world : the living toward that which is alive, and the dead toward that which is dead.

Could they find many men like this today?

Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit... Acts 6:3-5a

Men of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit, full of faith and wisdom.

The Epicenter of the shaking of all nations

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome (heavy) stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it (who try to move that stone) shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth are gathered together against it. Zech 12:3

Praise God! Jesus is coming soon, saints!

We are your people forever, LORD

For your people Israel did you make your own people forever; and you, LORD, became their God. 1 Chronicles 17:22

The journey is too hard for you

And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for you. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. 1Kings 19:7-8

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; 2Cor 3:5

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: 2Cor 9:8

Death for just one lie

Acts 5:1-11

Led by the Holy Spirit?

I think the “paradigm” of what the Spirit-led life is, is often wrong to begin with. That is, if the basic assumptions are faulty to begin with, we build a wrong understanding.

Here’s what i mean: We have a spectrum: On one end, there are the non Spirit-filled evangelicals, who are saved, but work more out of their own intellectual capacity and reasoning than by revelation and guidance by the Holy Spirit.

And on the other end, the super-spirituals, who would even pray about whether they should go to the bathroom, or to wash the dishes, etc.. While claiming to be focused on Jesus they are really focused on themselves. (The NAR groups like Joyner et al are an example of this)

Should we find a middle-ground between these two extremes?

Or, is LIFE in Jesus not even on that spectrum?

I suggest it’s not on that spectrum. Jesus is our LIFE. Every breath, every heartbeat is to be FOR Him and BY Him, and IN Him.

His LIFE gets incarnated into us: I no longer live, but Christ lives in me... In these terms, our life can’t be divided into “spiritual” or “secular” units : we are a different person at church than in any other place we find ourselves.

Blessed Redeemer