What can I say but what an amazing week once again! God is doing so many things in our lives and teaching us so much as we open up our heart to him!
This week our lectures were on 'Intimacy with the Lord, fear of God and the Nature and Character of God.'
What I learnt from this week was to learn to desire God more and to desire to go deeper in a relationship with him... and if we don't feel our desire in our heart for more of God, to ask for it and he will help us to want him more!
The scripture that God highlighted to the teacher 'Kevin Norris' this week was Ephesians 3:17-19:
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge— that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God
I don't understand this yet but we were really encouraged that God loves us so much! - so much more then we can fathom - but God does really want everyone in the world to know how much that he loves them!
We looked at who God is and what we get from him and what we give to him: (these are not the only things but some)
CREATOR:
What we get:
Origins, purpose, creation, gifts
What we give:
Stewardship, worship, glory to god, diligence, gifts
MASTER/LORD:
What we get:
Forgiveness, mercy, grace, eternal life, inheritance, freedom
What we give:
Confession, life, respect, honour, submission, thanks and praise
SAVIOUR/JUDGE:
What we get:
Guidance, security, protection, provision, direction, orders
What we give:
Service, gifts, Glory,
FATHER:
What we get:
Comfort, wisdom, strength, teaching, inheritance, discipline, identity
What we give:
Respect, honour, love, time, obedience
FRIEND:
What we get:
Encouragment, support, loyalty, heart to heart, advice, fun , love , trust
What we give:
Encouragment, support, loyalty, heart to heart, advice, fun , love , trust
HUSBAND:
What we get:
Love, intimacy, romance, fun, adoration, captivation, gifts, commitment, unity , security, protection, joy, vulnerability, trust.
What we give:
Submission, faithfulness, adoration, captivation, vulnerability, trust, Love, intimacy, romance, fun, adoration, captivation
There are so many more things you give and recieve through our rlationship with God and some of the things you receive are the same as what you give. God desires a love relationship with us - the intimacy side is not like the physical sexual stuff that you get in earthly relationships like between a husband and wife - it is pure and God desires to love on us - even as I write this I don't fully understand this or have this in my life yet but it is something that is worth chasing after and being willing for!
God can help us to be willing if we arn't willing in our life right now.
As you go down the list of who God is you see that as we come to father, friend and husband, it is more intimate and personal.
Another way we can recognise a glimpse of the love has for us is by looking at the desires in your own heart , e.g when you desire marriage and you get flutters in your stomach sometimes whenyou are with a guy or girl - God sayes he feels that way for us but a million times stronger then what we could feel towards anyone else.
The earthly marriage is an example of how God desires to have relationship with us - the love that is shared between a husband and wife is an illustration of Gods love he desires to share with us.
Even as I write this I still barely know what this is like but I want to want to desire it more and experience it mroe and walk in it more!
Here are some scriptures that talk about us being the bride of Christ and his friend:
ISAIAH 62:5
HOSEA 2:19,20
JEREMIAH 31:32
EPHESIANS 5:31,32
LUKE 5:33-35
SONG OF SONGS 4:9
It was really cool this week to because Kevin Norris explained the significance of the way Jesus lived and did things on Earth and the illustration of the church being the bride of christ and marriage:
-Jesus first miracle was when Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding
The jewish wedding planned out like this:
-Selection of the bride - God chose us
-Mohar (price paid) - Crucifixion
-Engagement contract (wine) - Passover feast, being saved and waiting till the 2nd coming
-Mikvah (ritual bath) - Baptism - (holy spirit)
-Groom leaves to prepare a place - John 14:1-4
-Groom arrives - Jesus second coming
-Wedding ceremony
-Wedding feast
We were also encouraged to read the bible like a 'love letter' because that is what it is - it is testifying to all Jesus has done for us so that we could be forgiven and have relationship with oru heavenly father, and saviour.
We also were encouraged about he God is a relational God and we looked different scriptures abotu how he related to people. God gave me an illustration to do with this that...'God is not an eight ball with a limited amount of solutions to our sturggles and problems and questions, etc... but he is alive and we can have a relationship with him like we can with our freinds and family and we can talk to him and hear his thought and his heart' JESUS IS ALIVE!!!! :D
God wants us to be genuine with him in that.
Sometimes in worship we get encouarged that it is a choice - and that isnt wrong but if you are genuinly struggling, or you are mad with God because you feel he didn't answer your prayer or something like that, God wants us to tell him how we are really feeling, but then not just focus on our frustration, but also remember who God is from things he has done in the past and who the bible says he is and even how you have seen the goodness of God in other peoples lives.
Proverbs 18:21
The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Hebrews 10:23
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
It is ok to struggle, but in those times it is powerful to confess our hope in God and hold fast to it in those times because there is power of life and death in our tonge and the words we speak.
When we focus on who God is, then we can find strength in him to choose to worship and follow him all the days of our life - even when it is hard! God will be our strength if we just trust him!
We have had realy cool ministry times this week too :)
We had a time of talking about the being given the gifts of the spirits , specifically tounges and we had a time of just experience the holy spirit move in our lives and it was really cool seeing the spirit do diffenent things and showing his Joy, peace and love to us!
God is an exciting God and we don't have to understand him because it is not possible, but we also don't need to be scared of what he wants to do through all of our lives of everyone in the world! If we let him.
God is continuosly at work here and it is really cool to be taught everyday by him!
_____________________________________________________________________________________
More exciting news.......Tomorrow morning we are going camping for 2 weeks!
It is a place called ' hidden valley ' and I have heard it is really beautiful!
I know that we are making Dampa and apparantly there is only one bathroom for 26 girls lol but I don't really know a whole lot more.
That means that I won't be able to be in touch with anyone for 2 weeks but I will write an update when I am back!
We will still be having lectures during camping and it is going to be so cool!
We will be being taugh on 'Lordship' for the first week - I hope we have campfires :)
I am sharing a tent with two other girls, Asta and Rachel so that will be really fun!
My bag is all packed and I am basically ready to go camping now - just have to make sure I don't forget last minute things :)
And I hope we can go swiming too lots! :D
We also had our first evangilism night this thursday night - I peered up with Katie and we got to talk to one couple and they were really nice! We got to share about YWAM a bit and just get to know them!
I hope there will be more opportunites the more we do it :)
Godbless :)
Friday, February 18, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
4 weeks down already - crazy!
Suprise suprise, we have had another amazing week :D
This week the lectures were on 'relationships'.
On the first day we were really getting encouraged strongly that it starts with God. To have healthy relationships with others we need to seek God first. God is love and in that comes all other characteristics like mercy, patience, grace, generosity, selflessness, and all things like that that make a healthy, lasting relationship.
"Our relationship with others will only go as deep as our relationship with God."
During the week, we talked about about dwelling in the house of the Lord.
"Imagine if you had a friend that when you were with them, they would talk all the time and you couldn't get a word in."
It is good for us to as we spend time with God to meditate on who God is, instead of talking all the time - take time to think about the characeristics of God and dwell on the goodness of God through the ways he has helped us out. God is worthy of all our time - but that is especially hard to give up sometimes if there is something that you really want to do but God is asking you to do something else for him.
As an illustration of relationships in our life was compared to like a building:
"God is our rock and FOUNDATION of the building. Next you build the WALLS on the building which is our relationship with God, and the INTERIOR is like our relationships with others. You dont have to do these step by step to get good relationships, but God works on these things in you at the same time in a way - when you let him help you.
Another thing that came up this week was 'pride' again.
This has been a huge revelation in my life - pride is the source of all sin-I wasn't convinced at first about this ... but now I believe all sin does come from some source of pride.
For example: It is prideful to not believe who God says you because you're saying that God is wrong and you know more then him
It is prideful to punish yourself more when you have failed rather then accepting God's forgiveness, and mercy and grace, because it is like you are saying what Jesus did was not enough for you.
I am not trying to be condemning by the way...
There are so many different forms of pride, and I know for me God's mercy has been a huge blessing to me for a while now. I have been recognising more about how much I really need it and then his forgiveness and then his help to overcome the pride I feel inside and his strength not to walk in it. God has been so good to me everyday and I know I am not the only one because he is good to everyone!
We looked into King David and in Acts 13:22 which says: "......I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, he will do everything I want him to do"
But when you look at King David life, he did so many things wrong like commiting adultery and murder amongst others. But King David would come before the Lord brokenhearted and repent of his wrongs; sometimes he still had consequences, but in order to be made right with God we do need to face those consequences.
He also was contrite and sincere about what he had done wrong when he repented, and he was open about his wrongs; when you bring sin into light the darkness must flee.
And he brought restitution to the circumstance if there was an action that needed to be taken to restore the situation.
We were also encouraged not to push away our trials all the time but (James 1:2-4) "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
"Don't wish away the trials we face, but use them to press into God more", and know that you can't walk through them the way you can with God. Sometimes God allows us to be tested because he wants to teach us something and stretch our faith, but other times we can face trials that we don't have just because we have made silly choices.
We dont always have to struggle, and we don't have to seek trials so we can press into God more, but in those times where we do feel God is wanting to teach us something through those trials, count it pure Joy because when we stay strong to the end of it our faith will be increased and we will trust in God more.
This week we also watched a part of a series of a marriage DVD about understanding the way guys and girls think, because God made us different for a reason and when we don't understand the differences, you can get into stupid arguments over nothing.
Another thing we talked about is marriage and sex. we talked about how when you get married, a switch doesn't get flicked and everything becomes good together, but we need to prepare ourselves for that day by learning to walk in righteousness now, and learning patience and generosity and selflessness and grace now, and all the other things you need to know and when you get married you keep learning these things - but basically preperation starts now.
There were so many good things in this week and I have only said a little bit about them :)
A cool thing that was said was the definition of 'insanity':
INSANITY: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Sometimes things in our life require us to make a choice to change to get a different result.
We had a really good ministry time to this week and we just got prayer for the area's of pride and dwelling in the house of the Lord and other area's that were spoken on throughout the week and it was really cool again to see God working further in the lives of everyone!
One other cool thing that was said was:
"Be the one and stop looking for the one"
_______________________________________________________________________________
Outside of lectures today we had a 'Sunday Funday' at Naomi's house and we had pancakes and just hung out and played games - I ate waaaaaaaaaaay to much this morning...:)
And then after the 'Sunday Funday' a group of us went to the beach and we played rugby in the water and it was really fun - we also went swimming and the water was so good!
It may sound like we get alot of free time here and we kind of do , but at the same time we do have to take time throughout the week to work on our workbooks and journals and we are strongly encouraged to spend our own time with God because a huge amount of growth comes from what time we put into God on our own as well!
I think and strongly believe that our quiet times with God strongly effect what we get out of each lecture we have!
I hope you enjoy this blog :)
God bless
This week the lectures were on 'relationships'.
On the first day we were really getting encouraged strongly that it starts with God. To have healthy relationships with others we need to seek God first. God is love and in that comes all other characteristics like mercy, patience, grace, generosity, selflessness, and all things like that that make a healthy, lasting relationship.
"Our relationship with others will only go as deep as our relationship with God."
During the week, we talked about about dwelling in the house of the Lord.
"Imagine if you had a friend that when you were with them, they would talk all the time and you couldn't get a word in."
It is good for us to as we spend time with God to meditate on who God is, instead of talking all the time - take time to think about the characeristics of God and dwell on the goodness of God through the ways he has helped us out. God is worthy of all our time - but that is especially hard to give up sometimes if there is something that you really want to do but God is asking you to do something else for him.
As an illustration of relationships in our life was compared to like a building:
"God is our rock and FOUNDATION of the building. Next you build the WALLS on the building which is our relationship with God, and the INTERIOR is like our relationships with others. You dont have to do these step by step to get good relationships, but God works on these things in you at the same time in a way - when you let him help you.
Another thing that came up this week was 'pride' again.
This has been a huge revelation in my life - pride is the source of all sin-I wasn't convinced at first about this ... but now I believe all sin does come from some source of pride.
For example: It is prideful to not believe who God says you because you're saying that God is wrong and you know more then him
It is prideful to punish yourself more when you have failed rather then accepting God's forgiveness, and mercy and grace, because it is like you are saying what Jesus did was not enough for you.
I am not trying to be condemning by the way...
There are so many different forms of pride, and I know for me God's mercy has been a huge blessing to me for a while now. I have been recognising more about how much I really need it and then his forgiveness and then his help to overcome the pride I feel inside and his strength not to walk in it. God has been so good to me everyday and I know I am not the only one because he is good to everyone!
We looked into King David and in Acts 13:22 which says: "......I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, he will do everything I want him to do"
But when you look at King David life, he did so many things wrong like commiting adultery and murder amongst others. But King David would come before the Lord brokenhearted and repent of his wrongs; sometimes he still had consequences, but in order to be made right with God we do need to face those consequences.
He also was contrite and sincere about what he had done wrong when he repented, and he was open about his wrongs; when you bring sin into light the darkness must flee.
And he brought restitution to the circumstance if there was an action that needed to be taken to restore the situation.
We were also encouraged not to push away our trials all the time but (James 1:2-4) "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
"Don't wish away the trials we face, but use them to press into God more", and know that you can't walk through them the way you can with God. Sometimes God allows us to be tested because he wants to teach us something and stretch our faith, but other times we can face trials that we don't have just because we have made silly choices.
We dont always have to struggle, and we don't have to seek trials so we can press into God more, but in those times where we do feel God is wanting to teach us something through those trials, count it pure Joy because when we stay strong to the end of it our faith will be increased and we will trust in God more.
This week we also watched a part of a series of a marriage DVD about understanding the way guys and girls think, because God made us different for a reason and when we don't understand the differences, you can get into stupid arguments over nothing.
Another thing we talked about is marriage and sex. we talked about how when you get married, a switch doesn't get flicked and everything becomes good together, but we need to prepare ourselves for that day by learning to walk in righteousness now, and learning patience and generosity and selflessness and grace now, and all the other things you need to know and when you get married you keep learning these things - but basically preperation starts now.
There were so many good things in this week and I have only said a little bit about them :)
A cool thing that was said was the definition of 'insanity':
INSANITY: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Sometimes things in our life require us to make a choice to change to get a different result.
We had a really good ministry time to this week and we just got prayer for the area's of pride and dwelling in the house of the Lord and other area's that were spoken on throughout the week and it was really cool again to see God working further in the lives of everyone!
One other cool thing that was said was:
"Be the one and stop looking for the one"
_______________________________________________________________________________
Outside of lectures today we had a 'Sunday Funday' at Naomi's house and we had pancakes and just hung out and played games - I ate waaaaaaaaaaay to much this morning...:)
And then after the 'Sunday Funday' a group of us went to the beach and we played rugby in the water and it was really fun - we also went swimming and the water was so good!
It may sound like we get alot of free time here and we kind of do , but at the same time we do have to take time throughout the week to work on our workbooks and journals and we are strongly encouraged to spend our own time with God because a huge amount of growth comes from what time we put into God on our own as well!
I think and strongly believe that our quiet times with God strongly effect what we get out of each lecture we have!
I hope you enjoy this blog :)
God bless
Friday, February 4, 2011
Summary of week three :)
This week has been a really good week too!
The teacher who took the lectures this week was Ken Mulligan...He was talking about 'clear consience' and at first it was hard to adjust because it was the first time we had a new teacher other then Joanne (sorry about any names I have spelt wrong in past blogs :-/).
We had to adjust to a different teaching style and they were very different!
Ken would ask us alot of questions and he wouldn't give us all the answers but we had to think about it for ourselves.
He talked about several different topics with in 'clear consience' like trust and pride and repentance - but during the middle of the week we experienced the category cyclone Yasi which was one of the biggest cyclones they have had here as you may already know.
We had to stay in our accomodation for almost 24 hours from wed afternoon to 12:30 lunch time the next day.
That night was the earliest night I had going to bed :)
We played a few games and had a really cool prayer time and allt he prayer that went out from everyone was really cool because God really had his hand on the people in this cyclone as there was only one death that I had heard of out of this huge Cyclone!
We went with out electricity for a little bit - we thought it would be quite a few days before it came back on but then it was 2nd day after the cyclone that power came back. We also were warned not to drink any of the water from the taps because there was damage at the water plant - but then that didn't last very long either which was really cool :).
God has blessed us so much - we can tend to take things for granted so much because we dont really realise all that God has done for us.
The week we just had of lectures was really challenging but not in a condemning way. We were being encouraged to love the convictions of God wether they are good or bad - because God convicts us or disciplines us because he loves us and wants us to grow in him.
But God doesn't convict us just in wrong things we have done, but he also convicts us to encourage us that we are doing good which is really cool!
At the end of the week we had a ministry time of confession - but this confession was in front of the group because the bible sayes that 'when we bring darkness into light the darkess must flee' and to bring it into light it takes repenting to God but also confessing to others around us who we can trust.
It was an amazing week this week of being convicted and taught and I loved it!
.............
I have been thinking a bit about the way Jesus lived his life - he lived for Gods will completely and never followed his own agenda - he took up his cross for his Father so we could be saved! He followed him through 40 days of fasting when I can hardly go one meal with out giving in to food...Jesus was so obedient to God- and that is what he wants for us.
When we follow God this way, God blesses us back - Jesus put others needs before his.
When he went to have time alone with his father and the people followed he had compassion on them and did not become impatient with the people.
How do we become selfless in serving the Lord when there is something that we really want to do ?
"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
Matthew 26:41
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
Phillipians 4:13
We can't do it on our own but we need to be teachable, and let the holy spirit guide us and help us to get over ourselves to serve the Lord and help people in need.
___________________________________________________________________________________
This weekend we had no youth street so we have a free weekend and me and some friends went to the mall and bought some things for camping and outreach - the minimal things we know we need now!
Me and my friend who are going to be sharing a tent bought a tent today and some other things we have needed and last night (friday night) a group of us went to macdonalds for a soft serve :)
I really like how we have to walk everywhere here because we get exercise between meals still :)
I have found out my out reach location!
I am going to the Charter Tower Regions in Austrailia for the mini outreach whic is 3 weeks long and then we are back at the base for 2 weeks and we go on the main 6 week outreach which for mr is Darwin and East Timor! :D
We will be ahving 2 weeks in Darwin and then 4 weeks in East Timor as far as we know!
I am really looking forward to the challenge of a different culture and learning to live on little compared to all the riches we have here - because we are SO blessed here and there are so many people who go without :(
I reckon that we can have the desire to help but it is so ahrd to get up off our seat and do something about it and work for the needs of others.
We don't have to work for God's salvation , but we do need to put work into helping others who are in more need then us - but the satisfaction that comes I know makes it all worth it!
We get to help in orphanages and help out at the other YWAM bases in both outreaches and a building project and more that I am not sure of yet :) we will see :D
I am really excited!!!
God is so goood and gracious - we are SO blessed!!
The teacher who took the lectures this week was Ken Mulligan...He was talking about 'clear consience' and at first it was hard to adjust because it was the first time we had a new teacher other then Joanne (sorry about any names I have spelt wrong in past blogs :-/).
We had to adjust to a different teaching style and they were very different!
Ken would ask us alot of questions and he wouldn't give us all the answers but we had to think about it for ourselves.
He talked about several different topics with in 'clear consience' like trust and pride and repentance - but during the middle of the week we experienced the category cyclone Yasi which was one of the biggest cyclones they have had here as you may already know.
We had to stay in our accomodation for almost 24 hours from wed afternoon to 12:30 lunch time the next day.
That night was the earliest night I had going to bed :)
We played a few games and had a really cool prayer time and allt he prayer that went out from everyone was really cool because God really had his hand on the people in this cyclone as there was only one death that I had heard of out of this huge Cyclone!
We went with out electricity for a little bit - we thought it would be quite a few days before it came back on but then it was 2nd day after the cyclone that power came back. We also were warned not to drink any of the water from the taps because there was damage at the water plant - but then that didn't last very long either which was really cool :).
God has blessed us so much - we can tend to take things for granted so much because we dont really realise all that God has done for us.
The week we just had of lectures was really challenging but not in a condemning way. We were being encouraged to love the convictions of God wether they are good or bad - because God convicts us or disciplines us because he loves us and wants us to grow in him.
But God doesn't convict us just in wrong things we have done, but he also convicts us to encourage us that we are doing good which is really cool!
At the end of the week we had a ministry time of confession - but this confession was in front of the group because the bible sayes that 'when we bring darkness into light the darkess must flee' and to bring it into light it takes repenting to God but also confessing to others around us who we can trust.
It was an amazing week this week of being convicted and taught and I loved it!
.............
I have been thinking a bit about the way Jesus lived his life - he lived for Gods will completely and never followed his own agenda - he took up his cross for his Father so we could be saved! He followed him through 40 days of fasting when I can hardly go one meal with out giving in to food...Jesus was so obedient to God- and that is what he wants for us.
When we follow God this way, God blesses us back - Jesus put others needs before his.
When he went to have time alone with his father and the people followed he had compassion on them and did not become impatient with the people.
How do we become selfless in serving the Lord when there is something that we really want to do ?
"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
Matthew 26:41
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
Phillipians 4:13
We can't do it on our own but we need to be teachable, and let the holy spirit guide us and help us to get over ourselves to serve the Lord and help people in need.
___________________________________________________________________________________
This weekend we had no youth street so we have a free weekend and me and some friends went to the mall and bought some things for camping and outreach - the minimal things we know we need now!
Me and my friend who are going to be sharing a tent bought a tent today and some other things we have needed and last night (friday night) a group of us went to macdonalds for a soft serve :)
I really like how we have to walk everywhere here because we get exercise between meals still :)
I have found out my out reach location!
I am going to the Charter Tower Regions in Austrailia for the mini outreach whic is 3 weeks long and then we are back at the base for 2 weeks and we go on the main 6 week outreach which for mr is Darwin and East Timor! :D
We will be ahving 2 weeks in Darwin and then 4 weeks in East Timor as far as we know!
I am really looking forward to the challenge of a different culture and learning to live on little compared to all the riches we have here - because we are SO blessed here and there are so many people who go without :(
I reckon that we can have the desire to help but it is so ahrd to get up off our seat and do something about it and work for the needs of others.
We don't have to work for God's salvation , but we do need to put work into helping others who are in more need then us - but the satisfaction that comes I know makes it all worth it!
We get to help in orphanages and help out at the other YWAM bases in both outreaches and a building project and more that I am not sure of yet :) we will see :D
I am really excited!!!
God is so goood and gracious - we are SO blessed!!
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