Living stones...

This is my 200th post! How times have changed! When I first started writing this blog I was at Greensborough! I recorded the good times and the bad times. Then I went to 614 where I had some great times, and don't forget the conversion of Scott and Sharron! Then I went to Plenty Valley and have had the privilege to blog conversions, sanctifications, healing's, and deliverances! Its important to remember where we have come from and where we are going.

I remember the story found in Joshua 4 where God parts the river and the people cross the over. They then are commanded to make altars from the stones they walked on to remind people where God has brought them. Then when people in the future ask "What do those stones mean?" They have an open opportunity to pass on what God has done for them.

So, today I hope that this blog is like a remembrance stone to what God has done and is doing in my life and in the lives of those around me. I hope that some people may read the blog of people being healed, being freed from depression, and of lives totally changing and ask themselves the question, "what does all this mean?" To which I answer, Jesus is alive! He takes away our sin and pain and swaps it for life in its fullness! And you can have that too!

"You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
1 Peter 2:5

Santified?

What is your idea of sanctification? What does it mean in a practical way? I mean, do you keep on sinning even if it is only every now and then? Brengle claimed at least 15 years without sinning! So, my question is this, 1) Are you sanctified and why do you think so, 2) If you are sanctified do you sin?

My definition of sanctification is "to be made holy". It means that my sinful nature is eradicated and instead I am filled with love! "Its no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me!"

Why do I ask? Because I go through ups and downs in my life when I believe I am sanctified then times when I am clearly not. I often wonder what more do I have to do to receive this blessing of holiness from God? Maybe I have received it but keep losing it. I never want to get to the point though, when I give up on holiness because I don't think its working, after all I have signed a covenant with God saying I believe it! (Not to mention its pretty clear in the Bible...)

Anyway, Got a new book yesterday, "The Uprising" Its a holiness book for teens written by a teen (Olivia Munn) and Steve Court. So far its pretty good. They liken living in sin to swimming in poo! YUCK! But how true?!?!I am sure God will speak to me through it. But answer the above questions, I want to know what you think...

Here is the poster for Go For Souls:

Add it to your blog and myspace and let everyone know its on this weekend! Lets get as many people there as we can!

"Be with us"

Who asks God to be with them? Its a pet hate of mine when people say, "God, we pray that you will be with us today." I even say it sometimes, even though I immediately regret it... But what a slap in the face of Jesus! He said in the great commission, "I am with you always!" So, by us asking God to be with us we are in effect telling Him we don't believe what He's already told us. It may be just something you say, but stop it, it annoys me!lol

Do you feel God? Is your knowledge of God being with you in the feeling that God gives you? I had a good chat yesterday to someone who feels God alot of the time and when He asked me about feeling God I had a completely different answer. I hardly ever feel God. You see, before me and Jess broke up I felt God alot, then we broke up and I felt terrible and I couldn't feel God. My feelings for Jess were getting in the way of my feelings of the presence of God.

It was in that time I began to trust God, to have faith that He was there! Heres something for you to think about, God has always been there. Even when you can't feel Him! Even when you are in pain. Even when you are sinning! Hes there! And I thank God I don't need to feel God to know He's there anymore! I love it when I feel Him, but I now see that as a special time when God makes His presence felt.

So there you go, don't slap Jesus in the face. Believe what He said. The truth shall set you free! Hallelujah!

"P" for Evangelism

What do we need to be good evangelists? What do we need to do to evangelise? Heres a list of some "P" words to get you started...

Be PASSIONATE about Jesus
Make evangelism your top Priority
Use your own Personality

and heres a lot more...

Pray
Be Persistent (it can take years)
Have Pure motives (the motive is love if you dont know...)
Get Practical! (its not just talking ok?)
Have patience! (Good evangelism is not just making them say a prayer, but its travelling with them until they are ready to follow Jesus!)
Read Passages from the Bible
Be ready for Persecution and accept it when it comes (Jesus promises it so its no "Shock horror!" Rejoice in it!)
Be Prepared (know the gospel, know your testimony!)
PREACH!

If you have and do all the above "P" words you will have a POWERFUL evangelistic ministry!

General Burrows told us all today at ACC to evangelise and that its our priority in mission! And that if we say "its not my gift" thats an excuse. We all need to evangelise!

GO FOR SOULS

Application forms at ACC and the dates are 12-13th, We've only got an old copy of the poster on this computer... But it does make you double check the dates hey? What a great advertisement... What are the dates? 12-13th! Be there!

prophecy, enemies and judgment!

How bout this. We spoke to a Bengali friend who use to work in Bangladesh with Bo Brekke the day we found out about his untimely death. Being a local in the Asian region he commented that the man who killed Brekke (we'll call him J) would get help from Muslim extremists and that they would cloud and confuse the whole situation. And that 'J' would be unlikely to do much prison time... Then reports now say that 'J' was being guarded by 5 guards and he escaped! Now, I do not know for sure that any Muslim had anything whatsoever to do with any of this, but i thought it was interesting...
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Been at ACC this week and had an interesting thought. Our enemy in the Bible is the FLESH, WORLD and the dEVIL. Our sanctification deals with the flesh (sin nature) meaning we only have 2 enemies left. The devil is easy to beat, Jesus did that and has given us authority to do that too, and so we are left with the world. Is this a call to social justice? hmmmm
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And a couple of gems from my daily rations...

2 Thes 1:6-10
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
2:8
And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

wow! I don't know when Jesus is coming back, but I know I don't need to worry about missing it. It sounds pretty BIG and LOUD! And what a description of hell! Makes me not want to sin... Makes me pretty pleased that Jesus died on the cross for me and took my punishment even though I don't deserve it! Hallelujah!

I think its my personality that i keep wanting to do new things... I could be doing something, or getting ready for something and Im already thinking about whats next. It can be a good thing always looking forward, but I need to keep myself in the now to make sure stuff actually gets done. Why do I say this?

I read this great quote in my rations last night,
"We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us." (1 Thes 2:8)

What a great verse that speaks of a holiness incarntaional ministry! Me and some friends have an idea to start up a hardcore holiness-incarnational ministry amongst a poor suburb where we think the main religion is Islam.

Is it my personality or Gods calling we are not sure yet, but please pray for us as we try to work out what and how to do whatever it is God is calling us to!

Also, check out www.goforsouls.blogspot.com and check out the Go For Souls table at ACC! Lets get some people saved!

I read this today and thought it was cool... Ive rewritten it a little bit but I'll quote the good bit...

A Muslim girl in Indonesia got saved then started praying for her family to get saved. After 3 weeks it still felt as though nothing had happened , but then

"...the father turned to the daughter and said, "Why aren't you dead? I have poisoned you three times! Each time I increased the dosage! I don't understand why you are not dead!" To this the young woman replied that she was unaffected because Jesus was now her protector and had taken care of her. Upon hearing this the whole family placed their faith in Jesus as their Saviour!"

Hallelujah! What a simple witness! Make sure you make the most of all your opportunities God gives you! Why dont you drink? Because I believe in Jesus and... OR What did you do on the weekend? I went to church and God did this.... OR even Why are you so forgiving? Because Jesus loves me and helps me...

GO FOR SOULS evangelism conference! Not far away! Make sure you are coming! Its going to be great! People will get saved because of it! Gods raising up some hard core salvo evangelists! even if you don't think you have the gift of evangelism you need to come! God will equip and empower you!

I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy! Nothing will harm you! Luke 10:19

PAKISTAN TC MURDERED

News is filtering through about Colonel Bo Brekke who was shot and killed on Thursday night. He was the Territorial Commander in Pakistan. Read the brief at IHQ and a news report here.

He and his wife followed my mum and dad to Bangladesh so his death has been a bit close to home. He had to dismiss an officer for alleged financial wrong doing which has led to his death. Places like Pakistan are corrupt, and so the corruption even comes into The Salvation Army. Some is lack of character other is cultural. We know that Bo has had to make tough decisions like that one before, so i know him as a man of not compromising.

I believe that that is what we need in the Army. Men and women of God who will not compromise their beliefs and mission.

Lets remember all the people in our Army, and in the Christian faith who have not compromised. Bo will be looked back on as a hero, but there are many other officers and soldiers who have led a life of non-compromise with all sorts of loss. They have lost jobs, positions, friends, family, some have even left the Army even though they have poured their heart and soul into it their whole life. Lets thank God for His faithfulness too for without it, everything else would be worthless.

Preaching

I am currently writing a sermon for Sunday. Its got me thinking. In the early church it doesn't seem to say that anyone ever prepared a sermon, and when I look i see that some of the best sermons, like Peters at Pentecost, Steve just before he got stoned etc were not prepared sermons! They didn't spend hours sitting around working out what they were going to say.

In fact Paul said "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power!" And he says if you ever get into boiling water then trust God and He will give you the words to say...

Then I see at uni, bible college, training college etc that preaching has to do with methods. It has to do with saying the right thing, being theologically correct.

it doesn't seem right to me. If good preaching is from a Spirit filled person, someone full of the power of God, then why don't our preaching classes look more like Pentecost and less like a boring uni class? Are we setting ourselves up for failure? i mean, who really listens to many sermons and remembers them during the week? How many "theologically correct university prepared" sermons have seen thousands of people saved compared to those who live in the Spirit? What are we aiming for? What are we expecting?

So, I believe that we do need good theology. We learn that, but when it comes to preaching I think we need to rely less on our methods and more on the power of God... As for me, I'm going back to write my sermon...

House Church

A great expression of the love of God can be found in some house churches. Here the young and old gather to spend time together, to worship God, to bring people into an experience of God and to get people saved. It normally consists of eating together, talking together and doing life together.

What we have been doing at plenty Valley with the youth feels like this. We eat together, watch the tv together, go places together, talk about God together, pray together etc. We have a time on Thursday nights, (all welcome to join) when we eat, play, then worship God with the band. We have people as young as 5 and as old as 60 joining in!

But the number of people coming has gotten to about 15. Wolfgang Simpson a leading expert on house churches around the globe says that at 13-16 you should split in half. Because if you don't people don't get a say and don't feel welcomed and it turns into a congregation.

So the questions I'm thinking are:
how do we grow and at the same time disciple with limited leaders?
Do we split or stay together?
How do we avoid the negative congregation stuff?
How do we keep the great family feeling we have at the moment?

More from William Booth for all those who believe the doctrines and take a bit of fire over believing there is hell etc;

"There are plenty of arguments designed to lessen the importance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, or to explain away its merit altogether... There is plenty of interpretation of the Bible which vainly attempts to explain away the punishment of the wicked, so clearly announced in its pages. Take away these things, and the Bible becomes not only an ordinary, but an uninteresting book, to be neither feared nor cared for."
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Check out the 6 resolutions of William Booth on armybarmy. I felt my Spiritual life had plateaued. I was growing in the stuff I was doing but not so much my relationship with Jesus. So I looked at Booths resolutions and came up with my own. E.g William Booth committed to reading no less than 4 chapters of the Bible each day, I'm doing 5...lol I'm pushing myself so I keep improving my relationship with God instead of maintaining it. Don't keep doing the same thing you have always done, try and stretch yourself!
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And lastly, but not leastly, I believe God is sanctifying me and that a couple of the places in my life where I was sinning have stopped! Hallelujah! I have been freed from these sins! It feels good! Im not sinning there anymore! Now, my consecration (devotion to God) needs to keep up with Gods revelation. That means as God shows me more sin etc I need to keep up my devotion to God and then I will stay sanctified.... More on this during the week!
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GOD IS GOOD! Hallelujah! Have an evangelistic talk to someone today!

International man of ministry

He is s state rock and roll champ, He is a lifeguard who can swim underwater 150+ metres in one breath, He has sung infront of thousands of people and even on tv, He is a ladies man (just ask the home leaguers...) who always looks after his appearance by wearing pink floral tops, loves his salvo cap, has been known to fake tan and sometimes wears make up... (ok, when he was on tv...)Everyone knows him and he is mates with all the important people. He has been preaching since he was 13, He can play timbrel routines both left and right handed, he is one of the best worship leaders in Australia, Welcomes all the important people on behalf of MCD, Is speaking at connections, has led scores of people to Christ, If you can do something, he can probably do it better... And theres always stuff I dont know about him...

And its his birthday today!

Happy Birthday mate!

Sad stats

Read the Booth quotes below... but hat tip the following stats to CC via SC...

AUS Territory Stats
1996 senior soldiers: 12,129
2006 senior soldiers: 10,978 (9,318 in 2007 year book, reflecting stats for 2005)
1996 junior soldiers: 2,402
2006 junior soldiers: 1,158
1996 active officer strength: 650
2006 active officer strength: 534
1996 number of corps: 186
2006 number of corps: 165
1996 number of outposts: 33
2006 number of outposts: 5

Maybe we have lost our vision/mission/purpose! Aren't we suppose to be winning the world for Jesus? It shows we need more people evangelising! We need more people starting up outposts and corps. It shows every person is important to the mission of the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army needs you, infact, the world needs you! Fight addiction, depression, despair and sin! Join up today!

Booth Quotes

Some William Booth quotes from "The Founders Messages to Soldiers."

"The ruling spirit of the world is selfishness. The spirit of true religion is the spirit of Jesus Christ- the spirit that seeks the happiness and well being of others, even though it involves self-denial and sacrifice, and the spirit of Jesus Christ is the very opposite to the self-seeking spirit of the world, which always, and under all circumstances, keeps it eye on number one..."

AND

"When you renounce all friendly relations with this enemy, and turn your backs on the world forever, the Holy Spirit will come to you, in fuller measure than before. He will fill you with love and power and joy, and make you conquerors over sin and Hell! Why not make that sacrifice now? What do you say?"

1. When we are having our meetings/church etc are we looking at it for ourselves or for others?
2. What Spirit are you breeding by the choices you make?
3. Is yours a life of sacrifice or being served?
4. Notice how Booth talks of full surrender, then once fully surrendered the Holy Spirit comes like it hasn't been before!
5. Are you a conqueror over sin and hell? I mean does sin still have a hold on you?
6. What of the world do you need to sacrifice?
7. Notice how Booth thinks you can be made holy on the spot by renouncing all evil forever!

Firstly, let me apologize for sounding like I don't like/appreciate older people! I love older people, I even worked in a nursing home for a bit! I did not meant it sound like I don't like older people! Rather I don't like some of the values and beliefs some older people have!

So having said that, I hate the values of church being quiet and in order! I love church when people are speaking out!Testifying! Talking to new people! Trying to get people saved! It is messy, and I love that! Why? Because God is there and is moving without being bound by human comfort! Have a think about that one for a minute... At the center of this is what is our mission? Is it a nice quiet service or is it a meeting to get people saved and or sanctified? What do we really want? I love it messy because that is where I have seen God do great things from 614 to Plenty Valley! God moves when we let him!
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Also, Heres a couple of verses I love, (not meant to be connected to the above, but in a way it does...)

"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." Matthew 18:15-17
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Also check out Dave Collinsons blog, especially if your a youth. Weigh in and tell them how good you are...

GO FOR SOULS
Evangelism Conference
OCTOBER 12-13th

LEARN-PRAY-EVANGELISE
GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH WANTED 100,000 PEOPLE SAVED IN JUST 6 MONTHS! THESE DAYS WE STRUGGLE TO GET ONE SAVED PER WEEK! COME AND LEARN HOW TO EVANGELISE AND WIN THE WORLD FOR JESUS! EVERY FOLLOWER OF JESUS IS TO EVANGELISE. "COME FOLLOW ME AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN." IF YOUR FOLLOWING JESUS YOU NEED TO EVANGELISE. COME AND LEARN SOME WAYS HOW YOU CAN EVANGELISE!

Key Speakers:
Jason Golden (Catch the Fire Ministries!)
Cpt Steve Court
Lt Rowan Castle

Only $10
brochures out now

www.goforsouls.blogspot.com

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Revolution or Evolution?

Ive been pretty busy this week! Havent had much of a chance to slow down but here I am with another poast...

When I think of church disputes I wonder, who is the person who should give in? If there is a congregation with older people with one set of values/vision and misison and the younger ones have a different one who should give in? Is there a compromise in the middle or do we follow whichever one is closest to Scripture?

Generally speaking the church in Australia has been trying to mix two completely different types of church together. Theres the people with a club mentality who want church for themselves and dont really care alot about those not in their club. People are welcome to join but they cant change the way they do things...

Then theres those who actively want to see people saved. They are outward focussed. Pastoral care etc takes a back seat in favour of everyone putting in, everyone being a minister, everyone helping, everyone saving people.

When these two come together they are different and the church has been trying to shift the first type of values to look more like the second set of values. The only problem is is that it is not working! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. It is a way or evolution. We'll keep going and see what happens.

The other way it can be dealt with is to try and start something completely new. This is revolution. A drastic change. The church would be outward looking and not so insular. It would be a new plant built upon a set of values, and would be very clear what their purpose is.

Pros and cons are for both. Revolution could lose older generations, but get new people saved, evolution keeps generations together but its hard to get people saved.

What is the purpose of the church? What is the purpose of the Salvation Army? I would say to get people saved! That was Jesus' purpose.

As for me, Im beginning to think, are officers allowed to be revolutionaries? Or do they have to be maintainers of the evolution process that has been proven not to work? Am i too negative about evolution? Is it working somewhere? let me know!

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
Matthew 9:12

PORN

Came across this again this week...





We laugh about it now, maybe find it a little bit offensive, but this is a massive problem in society and many people don't even know it, and if they do know it, they dont want to say anything about it. I even know a few people who have fessed up to porn being a problem in their relationships.

Porn is a $57.0 billion (U.S) world-wide - $12.0 billion in the US industry. Its massive. Its destructive... For more info, stats, help, porn filters for your computer go to www.xxxchurch.com