Hey God Part 1

Hey God, how are you going?

Allow me to be honest for a little while here, okay? I feel like crap. I haven’t felt this bad for a long time. My body feels really insecure… my stomach feels like it’s doing some sort of crazy limbo, and I’m not sure whether it’s going to empty itself up or down… my head feels like I’ve been too the hippies at school… my mind is a battlefield, debating whether this is from you, from the devil or because of something I’ve done/eaten/whatever…

But here’s what I know to be true… you are amazing. I was thinking last night (not too long before this weirdo sickness hit me) that you have put my life in the best position; not only for my personal growth and development, but also to influence and help other people. I know I’m still quite new at this job (can I even call it a job?), but I know that you’re teaching me a LOT and you’re using me to bless/lead/encourage/show love to others. I want you to know that I am super thankful for bringing me here… for the things you’ve shown me in the past that I can now teach others… for the amazing sense of satisfaction and fulfillment I’ve found here.

My question, though, is how people can live their lives without this. I’ve heard that the overwhelming majority of people working 9-5 hate their job… Now what is the point of that? I just … don’t … get it…?  I know I’ve said this before, but how can they not yearn for something more? How can they continue living terribly unsatisfying lives pretending that everything’s just groovy? I just don’t get it.

The moral of the story, though, is that I’m going to live my life in a way that screams ‘Jesus is the answer’. If that’s my message, any hint of self-righteousness flies out the window, because I know I’m absolutely nothing without you. Any fear of man should (and I’m praying it will) turns to dust because I’m not making myself out to be special or strong or courageous or valiant… every aspect of greatness in my life, again, is because of the work that you are doing in my life.

Hmm, that’s a pretty cool revelation, isn’t it? I’m pretty happy with that. Thanks.

Otherwise, I was really thinking about my mate. You know him, hey? I can see that he is in desperate need for relationship with you; and that everything in his life until this point has fallen apart. I know he’s looking for you- he searches youtube for things that are talking about you, he’s reading the bible trying to find you there, he’s asking questions about what truth is and isn’t… Please, God, would you show him who you are?

I know that you want to, and I know that he desperately needs you… so, God, what are you waiting for? Please, do something… I’m at a point where I’m completely dependent on you. I can’t change his thoughts or experiences. I can’t change what he’s heard. Honestly, I can’t really do anything to help him. But I know that you are willing, and more than able to. Please. Help him. Show him your love. Please, God. Please?

Dance Dance Revolutionaries

Revolution: /ˌrevəˈlo͞oSHən / (noun) a radical and pervasive change in society and social structure.

When I was going through High School, a bunch of my class-mates used to go down to Timezone (the local video arcade) and played this game called Dance Dance Revolution. Essentially it’s guitar hero with dancing. On the screen flashes an arrow, and you stomp on the corresponding arrow on the floor, replicating these awesome dance moves. The songs were various difficulties; some included spins, double steps, awesome combo moves… and my mates got pretty good at it. The moral of the story is that they dance whatever the music tells them to.

Although I never really got into it, my mates would probably play 4-5 afternoons per week, maybe 5-6 games per afternoon. At $2 a game, it probably racked up quite a cost.

I’m not sure what brought this to mind after so many years, but I had to draw a parallel between this arcade game and today’s youth culture… We do whatever the music tells us to do…

LMFAO tells us to shuffle, so we shuffle. Lady GaGa tells us to dress outrageously because that’s the best way to get noticed. Even sweet little Justin Bieber (and this really breaks my heart) is talking about hooking up with girls under the mistletoe.

Whether we know it or not, we are submitting to the music industry. They sell us the line ‘we are changing the world’… but they don’t tell us what we’re changing it into. We believe that these expressions will lead us to freedom, but they are destroying the way we relate to people, our standards of relationships and, consequently, the direction of our society as a whole. We brand ourselves as Dance Dance Revolutionaries, but we fail to realise the revolution we’re a part of.

I guess what I wanted to do today was to talk about another revolution… one that has been burning with incredible passion for a long, long time. It was started by this dude called Jesus of Nazareth. This is the revolution that I choose to be a part of. This is the cause that will result in a radical and pervasive change in society… not one that leads to the destruction of our relationships, but a change that’s for the better. Jesus said he came ‘that they (we) would have live, and have it to the fullest’. This means love, and joy, and peace, and acceptance. It means community, family, and belonging… all the things that we search and strive for. Let me tell you that Kanye West, Ke$ha and Katy Perry can’t offer us the enduring, satisfying and love that are found in Jesus.

There is only one thing I need to know … which revolution will you follow?

 

Also check out this hard-hitting post by my mate and co-staff member Bo Jones … called “The Passion of the Christ“.

The Relevant Church Part 2

I posted a blog a little while ago about a book I was reading called “The Relevant Church”… and I came to the conclusion that the churches that spend their time and effort trying to be relevant are the same churches that miss the point of the church entirely.

I recently finished the book (after I let it gather dust on the bookshelf for a month), and I wanted to give a really great example of the church (or at least a part of it) functioning as it was designed to function. And I’ll throw in a few excerpts from the book to illustrate my point…

Christian faith reduced to belief statements and political affiliation betrays the hunger we feel when we hear the Nazarene says, “I have come that they may have life to the full”

This post is about my dear friend, Jeremy Barry Randall. He, more than anyone I know, exemplifies a follower of Jesus. This man is not confined by his current understanding of who Jesus is or what the church should look like, but he is continues to seek the TRUTH of who Jesus is. He is committed to living life in a way that says “What is the most that life offers, and how can I grab a hold of it?!”. He’s found that the answer is Jesus, and he’s seeking Him whole-heartedly.

We may find that the best way to be relevant is to be irrelevantly consumed with loving the Creator and creation.

If you know Jez, you’ll know that he is a rather strange individual. He is over the top, fully loving, and in your face. He is not overly concerned with wanting to force new relationships, or preach from the pulpit. He is seeking Jesus. It is that pursuit that leads him to love others. It is that pursuit that leads him head-long into a life of amazing impact. It is that pursuit that leads him to relevance, not his pursuit of relevance itself.

I form the closest relationships with people who are in pursuit of similar dreams.

We have been roommates for three months, and it is already clear that we are both chasing the same goal; to know the REAL Jesus, and explore what that means to us. Of course a consequence of that is sharpening, equipping and leading others, which is cool too. I have no doubt that this is going to be one of those “iron sharpening iron” relationships (proverbs 27:17), and I hope it lasts for many moons yet.

Friendship gives a person greater courage.

My friendship with Jeremy gives me the courage to be myself. He teaches me that the most important thing is not what the people around me think. He sings really loud, air-guitars like a pro, dances like no-one’s watching, and generally has an amazing time. I don’t know anyone that meshes a care-free spirit with a deep love and care for people that gladly accepts their burdens, even if to only carry them for a few meters along the journey of life. He’s the kind of guy that would lend you his undies if you needed them.

I believe that we are placed among the people in our lives- extended family, roommates, coworkers, neighbours, and friends- in order to learn how to love. And isn’t love what we were made for?

My roommate teaches me how to love… He doesn’t just ignore peoples faults or failures, but embraces them and loves the person anyway. I know I’m not perfect, but at 6:00am he makes me feel as close as humanly possible… and then some. Love is the purpose of his life and the very reason for his being.

Wise king Solomon once said that if a person lives right with God, they are able to find pleasure in their food, their work and their relationships.

The way he enjoys his life (music, relationships, food, soccer, writing, singing, dancing, and the list goes on) is a real indication that he has things right with God.

Truth presented through transparency empowers and encourages a generation hungry for clarity.

There are no hidden motives, no secrets, no skeletons in the closet. His transparency encourages others to be the same; real, honest, authentic. He encourages people to be real, even if everyone around them is fake (a problem that seems to be rampant in many churches today).

The dream of being a healthy human is stolen by our media culture, distorting and dehumanizing souls until women are good only in as much as they are sexy, and men are successful and strong or nothing at all. A good church articulates Christ giving the dream of living back. Encountering Him is how we stay afloat amid a culture that is anesthetizing our souls to death.

Jeremy is very active in fighting the image of ‘beauty’, ‘value’ and ‘worth’ that are presented by media. He is well informed and unafraid to speak his mind. Everything in the world seems to be numbing; violence in movies and computer games, sex and pornography plastered on every corner of the internet, every magazine, every advertisement, divorce mentioned in every aspect of entertainment. All these things numb us to the spiritual severity of the decay around us. We think because these things are normal (as we perceive ‘normal’, at least), that they must be okay. Jez is very active in fighting these things, and instilling value, worth and dignity in the people around him. To be honest, I don’t think he even makes a conscious effort to do that, but it’s just become so ingrained into his character that he can’t help but do it…

So this man, Jeremy Barry Randall, is one example of ‘the church’ working well, and fulfilling the purpose that God created it for- pointing people back to the life-changing and breath-taking reality of God.

Jeremy, thank you for allowing God to shine so brightly through you. Thank you for inspiring me toward a deeper relationship with Jesus. Thank you for cutting the crap and being real with people. Thank you for being you, and encouraging people to be themselves; setting them free from the need to please others and releasing them into their God-given destiny.

I love you, bro.

Christmas Update, 2011

This is a glimpse at the year of 2011 at YWAM Newcastle! Check this out, and I’d love to hear some feedback.

>> Christmas 2011 <<

Thanks for your continued support.
Merry Christmas, everyone! =]

Also, special shout out to the legend Rob Dowley.

Discipleship, 2 Timothy Style!

“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful me who will be able to teach others also” 2 Timothy 2

Everyone is learning something. I’ve found that it is very rare to go through a day without picking up something from the people around me. Some days it will be about God (His character, the way He works, what He likes, how He shows love…), sometimes it will be about me (my character, how I’m going as a leader, what I need to work on), other times it will be about the people around me…  I’m sure you know what I mean.

The first question I have to ask is “What do I have in my hands that I can give to someone else?“. This is what the verse in second Timothy is talking about. Let me paraphrase that verse to illustrate my point …

What you have learnt, pass on to people that are able to pass that on, who can in turn pass on to others.

If you’re not sure what you have in your hand, maybe ask the second question; “What am I most passionate about?“. I heard this morning that ‘the things that you have the greatest spiritual conviction about; that you can impart‘. Do you realise that God created every person differently? People have different beliefs, experiences, backgrounds, desires, circles of influence… The passions you have are an generally an indication as to where God is leading you.

The third question I want to ask (and I’m asking myself the same things) is “Who will I pass it on to?”. Everyone has a message that someone needs to hear. For me, that message is sexual purity in a fallen world. Because of my past experiences, God has used me to set people free from the addictions of pornography and masturbation; areas of a great deal of shame (especially in the church!). If you’ve read much of my blog you will see that very clearly.

What do I have in my hands: Purity, Holiness, Hope and Love.
What am I passionate about: Men being men, Smashing the chains of sexual sin, Women being treated well,  People seeing freedom and imparting that to others.
Who am I passing that on to: Jonathan, Dan, Jason, Andrew, Darren, Tim, John … I believe with all my heart that these people have what it takes to carry the message (and action) of purity in this world.

If I expect to have any impact in the world (and you’d better believe that I do!), I’m not looking to share this message with one or two guys… I’m looking to share is with 10, 20, ,50, a hundred people- all of who (through walking out this teaching) will be qualified to  teach others (10, 20, 50 or a hundred each).

There is a whole world that needs to hear a message of HOPE. The story of hope that I am bringing is FREEDOM IN JESUS CHRIST.

@_cookiemate

What do I have in my hands to give?
What am I passionate about?
Who will I pass that on to?

The Birthday Story …

8 pieces of KFC was probably one too many...

Yes, today is my birthday! It has been so epic and amazing, and I have so much to be thankful for. I wanted to share a bit of the story from the last two days or so, just to let you know how amazing God is, and how he definitely loves to look after me. This is the God I know- the kind of God to bless me with little things here and there, just to remind me that He LOVES me HEAPS.

I was trying to make it really poetic and thought-provoking (if you’ve read any of my previous posts you’ll know that’s what I like to do!), but I decided to just keep this one suuuuper simple. Here goes!

Friday:

• Drive from Newcastle to Sydney Airport, with Kel and Krystin Steiner and our speaker for the previous week on Evangelism (find some thoughts on that here). Drive from Sydney Airport to my parents house in Hornsby; a very familiar drive which brought back a LOT of really fond memories.
• Birthday dinner; If you’ve met my mum you’ll appreciate that she’s the kind of woman who loves to go all out when making food. She also knows exactly the type and quantity of food I like. One of the ways she expresses love is through Pavlova. So this dinner included turkey (my fave!), roast potatoes and kumera and some other little vegetables that were surprisingly tasty. And then more Pavlova than you could ever imagine.
• Conversations: Kel and Krystin really clicked with my parents, and they shared some pretty wild #keltales type stories- from various mission adventures to discovering supposedly fictitious people groups.

Saturday:

• Woke up rather confused, but snuggled up in the worlds largest bed. Thanks again, mum!
• Suit up, ready for my mate’s wedding.
• Birthday shopping. Mum treated me to some new jocks and socks, some snappy dress shirts and a belt. Very classy.
• Hit up the wedding in fine style; reconnected with some old friends, talked about Jesus, felt emotional, wanted to get married, ate some pavlovas, heard someone playing bagpipes in the middle of a cemetery… (he must have been dying to get some good practice time).
• Take two at a birthday dinner; Absolute Thai with Mark, Jacqui, Rob and my parents. Stuffed myself full of Pad Kee Mao (Chicken plus Tofu, obviously). Various adventures with toilets and cleaners and whatnot.
• Parents decided to be total and absolute legends and drive me back to Newcastle. They stayed and met a few of my good mates at YWAM Newcastle.
• Stayed up late and celebrating my birthday on the stroke of five-minutes-past-midnight. Got some cuddles and some cards and wonderfulness.

Sunday:

• 30 Rock with Jeremy Randall of Legs 11 (That’s the name of our room at YWAM)
• Sports DTS staff hangout and prayer session with the guys. Also, grabbed a BUCKET of KFC (“it comes in a real bucket now!”) and played some hectic Guitar Hero.
• Rocked out the house-warming/Christmas/birthday party of the boys down the street.
• This amazing guy Stevie Lujan sung some songs for me. Has anyone heard of this band “Thrice”? They’re amazing. Check them out on Youtube! This song is even better when Stevie sings it… He puts SOOO much soul into it. What a legend!
• Manchester United vs QPR at Stevie’s house.

Essentially what I’m trying to say is this …

God knows you.
He knows what you like.
He knows what makes you smile.
He knows what makes you.
He knows what makes you tick.
He knows what makes you feel loved.
He loves you.
He cares for you.
He wants to pour out this affection on you…

God rejoices over you.
God takes great delight in you.
God thinks you are really cute.
God likes you.

This is not a message we hear in the world too much these days. It seems that everyone presents God as full of wrath and violence and fury. As I reflect on the last three days, I’ve seen that God really knows what I like, and on an occassion like this He likes to show off that fact. So, as I start my 25th year of life I am meditating on the GOODNESS of God, his faithfulness and LOVE. It is my honest hope and prayer that God would reveal himself to you in this way.

With love and affection,
@_cookiemate

We Worship Paper Idols

We were learning about a few of the different world religions this week. We looked at Islam, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism, all of which I knew a little a bit about. It was really interesting to expand my understanding of those things, as well as answer a few questions I had previously come up with.

We also spoke about the ancient chinese religion ‘Taoism’ (Daoism), which is still practiced in many parts of China as well as Malaysia and Singapore. Taoism is based on the concept of establishing harmony with the Tao, the mechanism of everything that exists. According to the speaker, this religion involves some very interesting rituals and ceremonial practices regarding the afterlife.

During certain festivals and ceremonies, food is sacrificed to the spirits of the deceased. Others participate in the burning of Joss Paper (Hell Bank notes), which is based on the assumption that anything consumed by fire will reappear (as the actual item) in the spirit world, and will become available to the spirits of those gone before. These include money (used to bribe the spirit guards of the afterlife) and daily objects to be used in the afterlife (such as scissors, shoes etc).

We were also learning last week about what Jesus had to say about money, as seen in Matthew 6:24. This is probably a pretty common verse when Christians come to talking about money. I’d like to talk a little about a common misinterpretation in this verse… Most translations of this verse say

 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money”

We were learning that what Jesus actually said was this …

 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon” (emphasis added)

This Aramaic word “mammon” refers to the demonic spirit that deceives people into worshipping money, and influences us to love and serve money in the physical realm instead of God. 1 Timothy 6:10 says that “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”, which suggests that when we love money, we separate ourselves from God by our selfish pursuits and deeds. Sounds about right, doesn’t it? Essentially, the role of Mammon (a demonic spirit) is to draw our focus TOWARD money and, consequently, AWAY from God.

This got me into some serious thinking about the condition of the world that we’re living in. If you think about it for more than 5 seconds you will realize that our whole world is under the influence of Mammon, and it is falling apart as a result. Think about the massive debt incurred by the US government in recent times… think about (dare I say it) the war in the middle east… think about the economic crisis in the European Union (EU)…

The generation that I’m living in is consumed by the “I have to have everything now” mentality. We see people maxing their credit cards, incurring and then drowning in huge debts and ludicrous interest rates. Families are falling apart because parents are working so hard to earn money to buy a fifth new car to keep their “I want it” children happy…

Really, though… think about it. This is what we’re modeling for the future of this world. This is the life that we are living. Do you see what’s going on here? We are polluting every relationship, every corner of society, every human heart… We worship paper idols hoping that they will save us, but we have all seen that there is no hope in it… It is, in fact, entirely pointless.

Even in Christian circles, I’ve seen people comparing and competing, lusting and drooling over the latest gadgets; iPhones and Samsung Galaxies and whatnot. If we’re serious about serving God and advancing His Kingdom here on earth we need to get serious about ridding ourselves of this spirit of Mammon.

Are you with me on this?

I’ll finish with a verse that God spoke to me a few months ago, which I’ve been thinking about this week. It pretty much summarises what the love of money is all about, and how we should respond. Hebrews 13:5 says

Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for He has said “I will never leave you nor forsake you”.

Effectively what the love of money boils down to is this … “God, you are not enough for me”. Are you happy living that life, or do you need to do some serious re-aligning? Are you comparing yourself with those people around you and trying to compete with them? Right now, I am making a decision to check myself with God’s word, and live up to that standard…

I am content with that.

@_cookiemate