One of our members, Mel, has moved up to Kempsey and we all drove up to visit her and spend the weekend at Crescent Head.
It was fabulous to get out in nature, read the readings together, eat, play volleyball and tennis and even fit in a Spring swim! How blessed we are to live in such a beautiful country where we can enjoy God's creation whilst having the freedom to discuss His Word.
We're trying a new style of Bible Class, a little more informal to get people interacting more and to make it a bit more relaxed.
On Wednesday, we sat down in a circle, Bibles open on tables and looked at James. Apparently James has more allusions to Jesus than in the whole of the New Testament. It is written by Jesus' brother, who had a very close relationship with him and some fantastic insights to share. He addresses us as his brethren and shares his thoughts with the early ecclesias (churches) who began to loose their first joy with new issues and personality disagreements creeping in. It was a fabulous night looking at the value of 'counting it all joy when you meet trials' and discussing how we can do this, along with 'praying without doubting' in order to be 'steadfast under trial, for when we have stood the test, we will receive the crown of life'. Easy to say, hard to do.
Chapter 1 ends with one of the most famous verses, 'Religion that is pure and undefiled is to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world'. Let's go out and try and do more good this week.
Tonight at Bible class, Simon took us through the ‘Unsung Heroes’ of the Bible. It is interesting to look at these people and find out why they are mentioned by name and why we don’t know much about them.
Has anyone heard of Puah and Shiphrah? In Exodus 1:15-21, they were the midwives for the Israelites at the time of Pharaoh. Pharaoh is not mentioned by name, even though they are. You may be the wealthiest person alive, with the most power and influence but it doesn’t matter if you don’t fear God. V17 says that these midwives feared God.
For those who fear him, God says:
Isa 49:16 Behold, I have engraved you upon the palms of my hands.
Unsung hero #3 is Gedaliah. Jer 40:11-12 mentions that he is appointed governor and Johanan asks him if he wants him to kill Ishmael (who he doesn’t seem to trust). Maybe Gedaliah decides to give Ishmael the benefit of the doubt, which ultimately leads to his death. This is sad, but in the end, maybe he will be rewarded for his faith or ability to give second chances?
Isa 11:2-4 talks about when Jesus will return and he will “not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his eyes hear. But with righteousness he shall judge the poor.”
Onto the next unsung heroes in 2 Sam 17:27-29… Shobi, Barzillai and Machir. They are the men who bring beds, basins, food and crockery for David and his people. This is such a thoughtful gesture when David is running for his life.
Why did God decide in these cases that they only get a brief mention in the Bible? For another example, in Judges 3:31 Shamgar slew 600 Philistines with an ox goad but he only gets one verse! It’s interesting to think that there are so many inspiring people, maybe there are so many that the Bible would be twice as big if it was all recorded in detail. Maybe it’s like what John 21:25 mentions, “Jesus did many other things as well. If everyone of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”
It definitely gives us more people to add to our people-to-meet in the kingdom and more stories to look forward to hearing.
July has been a busy one! We've had a few cancelled Sunday mornings and bible classes due to some wonderful things that have been on. Sorry for the lack of blog posts but we have had so much on (including a lot of us travelling to Canada for a wedding of one of our members).
First of all, one of our friends from Sydney was baptised! It was so lovely to witness her beliefs and her faith as she chose life and chose God. She was baptised at home, in a simple bath, surrounded by trees.
Mark 16:16 whoever believes and is baptised will be saved
Later, a few of us went to Study Week, which was an absolutely inspiring week about not being ashamed of Jesus. It was a fantastic week discussing 1 Peter, having fun and singing great praise.
How far will God go to get his message across to us?
Tonight, one of our members (Andy) led us in some thoughts on Daniel 4. He began with the quote:
“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire, and the other is to gain it.”
This is a strange thing to say. Surely the whole point of life is to get our heart’s desire? We call people successful when they have achieved what they have always wanted. But even Bill Gates said, ‘Success is a lousy teacher, it seduces smart people into thinking they can do no wrong.’
In the Bible, God consistently uses sorrow, pain or loss to get messages across to His people. This is a tough thing for us to understand. Sometimes failure can be a gift from God, a chance to acknowledge that God is God, and we are not very much at all.
Reading this chapter in Daniel is like reading the King’s Diary. It is a story of a man who reaches his human goals; he is flying high in his empire…in human terms he had everything.
And yet, at the height of his power, he was not successful in God’s terms. God decided to let him learn the hard way:
You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like cattle…UNTIL you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes. (Daniel 4:25)
What had gone wrong? Well as the next verses say, King Nebuchadnezzar was walking along speaking to himself, “Isn’t this the great Babylon I have built, by MY mighty power and for the glory of ME”.
It is God who has put him into power and it is God that can take the power away. What does it take for this highly successful man to realise that none of his success is due to himself? This man went from being #1 ruler in the world to a Mogul-like creature.
None of our ‘successes’ are due to us, they are all from God. Pride is claiming credit for ourselves when it really belongs to God.
Pride is a problem for all of us. However, though our path may be full of ups and downs, God is not finished with us yet. He will continue to work with us until we realise that we can’t put our confidence in ourselves, our houses, our money, our jobs or ‘our’ anything. To God goes the glory.
We got a letter from our sponsored child!
If you are interested in sponsoring a child, you can do it through our Christadelphian charity Agape in Action.
Child sponsorship is an important focus of this charity. Sponsorship provides children with the basic needs necessary to support good health and an education. For $35 per month (or equivalent) a sponsored child will receive support for basic necessities.
Read her lovely letter below:
Last Sunday we all emptied out of our hall and went to visit Christadelphians in Taree. It was lovely to see them all as well as one of our own members (Mel) who recently moved to Port Stephens.
We had a fabulous talk on being content and trusting God in whatever situation we find ourselves in. Afterward, we all went out for lunch and played Kubb in the local park.
Thanks Taree for having us! We'll be back :)
On the last Wednesday of every month (during school terms), these women get together and knit blankets for widows in Kenya.
If you would like to join in, feel free to turn up with your knitting needles at 10.30 am (tea and coffee provided).
Watch this video to see how much it means to get one of these blankets:
One of our members has recently joined with a group of Charlestown Christadelphians who are involved in a fantastic project called Days for Girls.
In the website's words:
What if not having sanitary supplies meant DAYS without school? Days of isolation? Girls use leaves, mattress stuffing, newspaper, corn husks, rocks, anything they can find...but still miss up to 2 months of education and opportunity every year. It turns out this issue is a surprising but instrumental key to social change for women all over the world.
This group of ladies gets together once a month to make these life-changing kits. If you would like to get involved, please contact us.
So far, we sent 39 kits to Kenya, 36 to Tanna Island Vanuatu and we are currently doing some for Santos Island, Vanuatu and Kenya.
Every fortnight a bunch of ladies from our congregation get together in houses or at the Bible Education Centre. Members meet for a discussion around a spiritual book and enjoy lunch together.
Today, we had a lovely trip out, enjoyed a ferry ride and great laughs together.
If you are interested in coming along, please contact us, we would love to meet you!
