Bill Clinton the Calvinist???
Check this out:
Embedded video from CNN Video
Fasting
Thinking a lot about the spiritual discipline of fasting as I approach some big decisions in my life.
Check out this post from Mark Driscoll on the issue.
What do you think about fasting?
God Spared Them
I have some good friends who run a ministry called Breakaway Camps.
There website explains: Breakaway Camps provides a program of outdoor recreation for disadvantaged young people, primarily 10-15 year olds, for the purpose of improving their lifestyle by providing alternatives, which will give them a sense of achievement and self esteem.
The guys who run it are Christians who love Jesus and have a heart for disadvantaged kids.
Very recently they purchased a property to be used as a camp-site. A beautiful patch of land in the Victorian bush, just outside Buxton… The same Buxton that was burning out of control a couple of weeks ago.
Below is a series of short videos taken by a couple of the Breakaway Camps guys after the fire had passed through the property. Amazingly, no, miraculously the fire burned right up to the buildings and then stopped dead!
See for yourself:
“Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.”
Butchery
I love butchery!
It’s a great stress-reliever to take a whole cut of meat and slice n’ dice till it’s dinner material…
Which is why I was stoked when my father-in-law showed up with a full rump o’ cow last weekend.
He runs a property the size of a small European nation in Queensland, so whenever he comes down to visit his daughters, he invariably brings a sampling of the fruit of his labours.
On this occasion it was a 6kg slab of freshly slaughtered cow.
Here’s the scene in my kitchen after I let loose with my Mundial Chef’s Knife:
(Click to enlarge)
Praise the Lord for making us Meat-Eaters!
Possessed by Gold
My younger brother and sister have been trekking around Peru recently… It sounds like an incredible place.
In doing some research on their journey, I came across this great post at The Blazing Center blog.
Gold!
The Poor
Just saw this video over at the Fractured Saints blog.
It got my attention because at my church we’re working on “a new loving, merciful and grace‐filled ministry seeking to serve people in need in our local community and beyond”.
I’m convinced that the solid, Bible focused, evangelical churches that I’ve attended in past haven’t been committed enough to issues of social justice. I also see in myself a lack of zeal to see the poor liberated and the oppressed released. (See the book of Amos for God’s heart on the matter!)
As Director of the ministry we have a great Christian gal named Georgie who has a heart for the poor and a passion to see the people of our church IMPACT the community around us for Jesus’ sake. It’s gonna be great to see God raise-up like-minded Christians who are fired-up for this kind of ministry.
I guess this video is one of a million that I could have posted as I reflect on this aspect of ministry… Anyway, click here for Radiohead.
Paul Barker on the Vic Bushfires
Here’s the latest audio from HTD’s Senior Pastor. His sermon, titled “My Days Pass Away Like Smoke” was preached in response to the tragic Victoria Bushfires:
Free Sex
(I knew that title would get you here…)
Mark Driscoll has been writing some darn good posts on “Spiritual Disciplines”. Here’s an excerpt from his latest one on the spiritual discipline of Lovemaking:
“Married couples who do not have free and frequent intimacy together are warned by Paul that they are leaving themselves vulnerable to Satan’s temptations to either sexual sin or bitterness. Therefore, God’s answer to our desire for oneness and pleasure is to overcome our shame and fear through the gospel so that we can give ourselves in every way to our spouse, and also receive them as God’s gift to us.”
The Quotable Lewis: The End of the World
Currently putting together my sermon for Sunday night on Luke 21.
Lewis has been helpful…
The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph.
The doctrine of the Second Coming has failed, so far as we are concerned, if it does not make us realize that at every moment of every year in our lives Donne’s question “What if this present were the world’s last night?” is equally relevant.
Frantic administration of panaceas to the world is certainly discouraged by the reflection that “this present” might be “the world’s last night”; sober work for the future, within the limits of ordinary morality and prudence, is not.
For what comes is Judgment: happy are those whom it finds labouring in their vocations, whether they were merely going out to feed the pigs or laying good plans to deliver humanity a hundred years hence from some great evil. The curtain has indeed now fallen. Those pigs will never in fact be fed, the great campaign against White Slavery or Governmental Tyranny will never in fact proceed to victory. No matter; you were at your post when the Inspection came.
C. S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night, (1952)
Driscoll on CNN
All-time hero, Mark Driscoll, interviewed by D. L. Hughley.
Good stuff.
Embedded video from CNN Video
The Quotable Lewis: Modern Men (The death of manliness cont.)
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)
Is Manliness Obsolete?
A good article over at the (secular) blog: The Art of Manliness for those who, like me, mourn the death of good, godly, chivalrous, self-sacrificial, biblical masculinity.
The Quotable Lewis: Pain
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (1940)
