Giving

This map of Israel shows the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee at the top is fed by a river & the overflow goes down the Jordan River into the Dead Sea at the bottom of the map. Because of this “flow through” of water the Sea of Galilee is a “living Sea”, well stocked with fish, The water in the Jordan River is healthy too because it is flowing, however the Dead Sea which receives “in flow” from the Jordan has no “out flow” so is dead, as its name implies.

This is just a parable of life; In the New Testament, Jesus said, (as recorded by Luke in chapter 6 and verse 38) “Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over...” That is the Authorised version. To put it into modern English the New Living Translation expresses it like this: “Give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over....” These are translations of Jesus words which describe a God given principle that applies to everything including the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River the Dead Sea and You and Me!

I started thinking about this after a lady came to me in the Mall and told me that she has become the carer for her father who has lost his ability to care for himself, and she said what a blessing that has been to her, you see she is giving her time and ability out of loving concern and is therefore blessed. When we talk of giving we often think of money, but there are lots of things to give and lots of ways to give that don’t necessarily involve money and are probably a far greater blessing to the receivers, and interestingly Jesus said (Acts 20:35)“It is more blessed to give than to receive”.  I’m not ignoring money as it too can be used to bless someone but it certainly isn’t the only thing nor is it the most important. Paul tells young Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:10 that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Oh I know it can be a wonderful thing if we are generous with it however it can also become a “god”, there are scores of people stacking it away selfishly. Peter and John were going to worship in the temple when a crippled man lying there asked them for money however these two apostles had probably already given away all they had so Peter said “I don’t have any Silver or Gold but what I do have I will give you; In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” and he took him by the right hand and the man stood up completely healed (Acts 3:6).  Now my guess is that the man who was cured didn’t give their lack of money one more thought as “he went walking and leaping and praising God”. Never feel inadequate if you haven’t any money to share, give what you do have, things like friendship, time to listen, encouragement and so on. We can all do that.

A man was on his way to church with his family and was running late when he came up to another man who had a flat tyre on his car and was having trouble changing it.  One of the children said “dad can’t we stop and help him, he looks to be in trouble” but Dad replied “I would like to son, but we are already late for church ”so he kept going. Now it was lovely that he was taking his family to church to worship Jesus, however it was Jesus who said we should “love our neighbour as we love ourselves” and if we even “give a cup of water in his name as far as he is concerned it is the same as if we did it to him” and 1 John 3:17 says that he who has the wherewithal to help someone and doesn’t do so “how dwells the love of God in him?”.

When writing to the Ephesian Christians, Paul clarifies an interesting point here when he says in chapter 2 verses 8 & 9: “God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago”. Wherever I go I see lonely people. We shouldn’t be too busy to stop and have a chat. Some day if you and I are old and looking at the ceiling, for hours on end, in an Aged Care Home we will wonder why people are too busy to come and have a chat with us, and how it was that we couldn’t spare a few minutes to have a chat to those lonely people we saw. According to Jesus, five minutes spent in loving concern would not be 5 minutes lost, but 5 minutes invested that will return with interest.

“Give and it shall be given unto you”. Some food for thought. Regards, Tom.

Deceptive silt

In Western N.S.W.  Australia, where I was born and lived for most of my working life  there are millions of acres or hectares of country that are used mainly for grazing sheep, cattle or goats.

Crops are sometimes grown in the more Eastern parts but the average rainfall is very low and unreliable and there are frequent droughts that sometimes last for years
When wool was a popular fibre it was looked on as ideal Merino wool growing country
The truck in the photo is carting wool from the“Curraweena” woolshed 80 km from Bourke N.S.W.in1951. In the 1890s, 32 blade-shearers were employed to shear 40, 000 merinos in this shed.
Most of the properties that don’t have bore water have no access to reliable rivers where livestock could drink, so contractors known as “Tank Sinkers” are engaged to excavate large holes in the ground for the storage of rain water. These excavations are called“Tanks” not “Dams” as a dam is associated with a creek or river whilst the tanks collect their water when it runs off small hills or undulations.
The photo here shows some cattle watering at a tank on “Carramar” near Gilgandra. On our property at Nyngan we were determined to not run short of water so had 3 tanks sunk that were 22 feet deep (about 7 metres) and were each 10,000 cubic yards capacity (8 mega litres) as well as some smaller ones.
Twelve years after sinking the first large one near our house we had a very prolonged drought but I felt confident until one day the pump stopped pumping water and I found that there was nothing left in the tank but mud. I shouldn’t have been caught unawares but I had miscalculated, not fully realising that on our soil type about 6 inches of soil containing leaves and dry grass is washed into the tank annually so the bottom 1/3 of the storage was just mud and rotting vegetation or “silt” as it is commonly known. Consequently a third of our water was missing.

This week I was reminded of this when reading a statement made years ago by the evangelist D.L Moody where he pointed out how our minds can become full of worthless things and thus have no room for God. He said “if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there is no room for The Spirit of God”. But he also said “I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God’s law, The Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts”.

If we don’t filter the information and thoughts that are constantly fed into our minds, we become like our house tank; so full of rubbish that there is no room for the “water of life”. With the tank we had no choice but to let the silt come in with the water, even a silt tank in front was of little use, therefore I should have used a silt scoop to clean the tank out more frequently than I did even though the cost would have been considerable.

In our lives there is a parallel to this as Jesus came to “Cleanse us from all sin” (1 John 1:7) and when we accept that “cleansing” (that was also very costly to God) we should then endeavour to filter what comes into our minds afterwards, by obeying the instructions in Philippians 4:8 where Paul says “Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” As a matter of interest, how many T.V. programs have you watched that measure up to these standards?
The decision is ours: are we prepared to be very critical of the T.V. & internet we watch and what we read and listen to and say? If so then (as D.L Moody says) there will be room in our hearts for the Holy Spirit or alternatively, will we ignore Paul’s warning and fill our minds up with the “silt” that comes with the media thus excluding The Holy Spirit and by so doing say “good bye” to The Kingdom of Heaven? Matthew chapter 7 verse 20 is worth reading regarding this as it points out how critical it is for us to do the will of God in preference to our own will. Best wishes, as you consider this, Tom.

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Vehicles Deteriorate

A few years after Audrey and I were married we acquired some sheep and cattle grazing land. However one side of the property had no boundary fence so in order to keep the stock in, and the rabbits out, we had to fence it with a rabbit netting fence and as the bottom 6 inches of the netting had to be buried in the ground we had to plough a furrow.  We couldn’t afford a tractor so we used our model M.B. Army Jeep. Audrey drove it in first gear, low range and four wheel drive whilst I handled the Britstand road plough behind it for a couple of miles. That Jeep was a remarkable vehicle, built in the U.S.A. in 1942 it was almost unstoppable. However time has taken its toll on both it and me. It cannot now pull a plough and I cannot now control a plough either, as my heart would object.

With a lot of repair the Jeep could still be useful and is certainly a collector’s item. I’m afraid the same cannot be said of me though; with some repairs, from time to time, I can still be of some use but some day I will have no choice but to abandon my worn out frame. Eventually the same will apply to you too, And we won’t be collector’s items either, but to use a modern expression, “it’s all good” (as far as I’m concerned anyway) because I’ve got a new Spiritual body waiting for me and I’m booked into a place in Heaven.  (My hope is that you have sorted this out too because it is very comfortable to know that your future is assured).The bible puts it like this: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”1 Corinthians 2:9 & Isaiah 64:4). When we accept God’s forgiveness through Jesus we know that when this “vehicle” we are travelling in “gives up” it will be replaced by a better one. Now that is a good outcome.

We all need to get our priorities and relative values right. The Jeep was for my benefit around the farm so I fuelled it, oiled it, greased it and serviced it so that it would operate satisfactorily and that was commonsense. However, if I had spent every moment of each day doing that and studying a mechanics course to the extent that I forgot to eat, and neglected my own health, people would have described me as some sort of weird fanatic. And they would have been right, after all the Jeep was there to serve me; I wasn’t there to serve it.

Similarly my physical body was given to me as my mode of transport for my soul (the real me, the one who is using this body to type this page). Now, as I am confined to this body for the present it is logical that I feed it and generally try to keep it in good order, (as I did with the Jeep). Nevertheless it is just a temporary mode of transport so to spend all my time thinking about and looking after it whilst neglecting the real me inside it, would also be the action of a weird fanatic.

What is the answer then? Well early in life I had my priorities wrong and had broken God’s Commandments whilst in this physical body and that is called sin, and sinners don’t get outfitted with a Spiritual body that will make it to Heaven. Indeed “The wages of sin is death”, (Romans 6:23) But thank God “The gift of God is Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Therefore I have decided to get my priorities right, by asking God for forgiveness, and am looking after the real me (my Soul) by endeavouring to do, and think the way the New Testament tells me to, (which is really what the word “Repenting” amounts to), because of that I am assured of Eternal life (not as a “Collector’s item” either) but as a Citizen in The Kingdom of God.

I’m Just writing this to remind anyone who may not have considered it, that we should all do this as the Bible says “It is not His will that any person should perish”.  Isn’t that great? But Jesus also said “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it”. (Matthew 7:13). Now of all the sad things there are, that has to be the saddest, because to “enter the narrow gateway” is so simple. We just have to “believe on the Lord Jesus,” (Acts 16:31) and then accept the way of life that is set out in the New Testament because doing that confirms our sincerity, and really gives meaning to our present life. On the other hand, to refuse to enter that “narrow gate” (for whatever reason) is spiritual suicide.

Best wishes as you think about that, if you haven’t already done so.  Tom.

 

Benefits

Recently I wrote an article pointing out that the good things we enjoy in Australia are here because our constitution and ethical standards are based on the Christian principles of “Love God and love your neighbour as yourself”, and that is why we are far ahead of other countries that don’t follow Christian principles. The Bunning’s Hardware Store’s motto is “Lower prices are just the beginning” by which they mean that they supply advice and “backup” and so on, which makes them more than just a retail outlet. Similarly anyone looking at the good things we enjoy here in Australia needs to realise that these advantages “are just the beginning” and are really the “side effects” of Christianity in people’s lives where there is biblical advice & Spiritual backup.

The New Testament tells us that “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, old things are passed away, behold all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). A new comer reading that would be justified in asking “what on earth are they talking about?” Well my answer would be: “nothing at all on earth”, because what they are talking about is a Spiritual change, not a physical change. In some respects it is like falling in love. I bought this mug at Dubbo Culinary & Homewares,

it says: “It takes three seconds to say I love you, three hours to explain it and a lifetime to prove it”. I like that, except that I don’t believe you can explain love in 3 hours; I have loved my wife for 64 years and I still can’t explain it. If that baffles you then can you explain why a mother loves her baby even though it keeps her up half the night, cries and wants its nappy changed? It is because love is more spiritual than physical. That is why! “God is love” and we should reflect that (1John 4:8).

When I realised God’s love for me I was challenged to make a decision regarding Christ’s offer of Salvation and I was very hesitant as I was very proud, independent and self-righteous and it took a lot of doing to admit that I was in need of Jesus forgiveness but the alternative was to eventually end up in Hell, (and I don’t even like global warming!) However I gave the angels in Heaven joy that day as in Luke 15:10 Jesus says “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” (how lovely is that?) and now, of course “He gives His angels charge over me” (psalm 91), (probably the same angels) and I understand that on that day I was being offered a Spiritual experience that is Eternal. It commenced with the terrific relief that I felt when I realised that, (as the hymn writer put it): “I owed a debt I couldn’t pay, He paid a debt He didn’t owe, Christ Jesus washed my sins away.” (John 3:16). When we accept that, we can then look forward to a unique relationship with God through Jesus and God’s Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says “what, know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” and as Jesus said the Holy Spirit “will bring all things to your remberance whatsoever I have told you” (John 14:26). This relationship we have with God through what Jesus did is like the love I spoke about above; it is Spiritual and impossible to explain, one has to experience it. The disciples and countless Christians since them have accepted death rather than forsake this relationship once they have tried it. It offers life changing experiences, for example when, in prayer, we invite the Holy Spirit to use our bodies as His temple we will find that the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22), love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness & self control will start to replace our former negative attitudes. We also find that in the “storms of life” we will have a “peace that is hard to understand” (Philippians 4:7) and our needs are supplied in unusual ways (Philippians 4:19). Furthermore, troubles that would normally cause us anxiety lose their power as He has promised to be with us in trouble, honour us and deliver us.

When I commenced Aged Care Nursing (because my wife had dementia and had to be looked after in a safe environment) I soon realised that I could do the job more efficiently if I studied the subject, so I accepted advice and got my certificate 3 in Aged care, Certificate 3 in Home and Community Care and Certificate 4 in Aged Care. Now I didn’t have to do all that but it certainly was worthwhile. Likewise when I became a Christian I was determined to understand what Jesus did, and wanted me to do, so I “down loaded” the New Testament into my brain to the best of my ability by reading and re-reading it. This certainly increased my faith, as Romans 10:17 said it would, and it has helped me to have a closer walk with God, so I highly recommend doing that to anyone who hasn’t done so. Let’s face it, if it is worthwhile studying for our earthly job that is temporary, it must be worthwhile to “study to show yourself approved” (2 Timothy 2:15) for our God Ordained Eternal life promoting job.             “Food for Thought”. Best wishes, Tom.