If I could sing... Nobody's Fault but mine

Time for something loud. I'm in a loud rock mood this week. Todays song was originally by Blind Willie Jackson, got hijacked by Led Zepplin then perfected by The 77's.

The song is from the 77's album "drowning with Land in sight" and if it is currently unavailable at the 77's web site so try ebay.

So why have I picked this one today? Because I've been living too much in my fantasy world and as an answer to my prayer have had a shock to get me out of it, the pain I'm feeling - nobody's fault but mine...

Here is a youtube of them live - not the best audio but you get the swing of things. - following that the lyrics.

Nobody's Fault But Mine

from the album "Drowning With Land In Sight" (Jimmy Page/Robert Plant - apologies to Blind Willie Johnson) Nobody's fault but mine Nobody's fault but mine if I don't keep my soul alive it's nobody's fault but mine The devil he taught me to roll The devil he taught me to roll how to roll that invisible line well, it's nobody's fault but mine I've got a bible in my house I've got a bible in my house if I don't read it, my soul dies well, it's nobody's fault but mine My sister she taught me to read My sister she taught me to read I didn't read it, lost my life it's nobody's fault but mine If I don't read my soul to life well - nobody's fault but mine © 1976 Flames Of Albion Music (ASCAP)

Burn the fantasy

I live inside my head so much i found todays cartoon from xkcd ironically funny, in a telling me off sort of way. You may need to click to embiggen it to read it

Don't you sometimes just wish....

My first sermon - Jude

This was my first sermon - dated... a long time ago - around 2003ish. 'tis from the book of Jude

Jude had a problem. And it wasn't that The Beatles were writing catchy songs about him either....

A church that he cared about had been infiltrated. "Certain men" had snuck into the congregation had had started to pervert God's work that was going on there. They had been leading the Christians there away from the Lord and his desire for us to be Holy and leading them to immorality, licentiousness and sinful desires and worse they had been denying that Jesus Christ is our only Sovereign and Lord.

And there is the crux of Judes problem. People he loved, people he may have brought to the Lord himself were being told - and some were believing - that Jesus Christ was not God. Perhaps they were saying he was a just a good teacher, - someone whose teaching we can aspire to follow, perhaps they said Jesus is not the only way to God, perhaps they were saying he was not the sacrifice for our sins once and for all and perhaps they were saying he did not rise from the dead.

Look around the Church today - in all it's denominations - and you will see that Judes problem is our problem as well. There are priests, pastors, bishops and people who just leap on the band wagon to sell a book or two who say "Jesus was not resurrected!"

Jude stood up to these people and condemned them for their heresy... are we doing that today? Or do we just say - to each his own - what's true for me may not be true to you - we weren't there how can we be sure what did happen? Why are the people who do stand up to the heritcs scorned and laughed at and called narrow minded?

When you see a person drowning, or even being held under the water by another - do you ask that person do you want to be saved? Do you think that the aggressor is just expressing himself and it's not our place to judge his murderous lifestyle - just because it is different to our choices. Well just as the victims physical life is being destroyed so is the spiritual life of those who fall to the lie that Jesus Christ is not our only Sovereign and Lord.

Jude had a problem... Jude had an answer...

Firstly he stood up and condemned the godless men and then he told those who are still faithful to be strong, to rescue those who stray and to focus on Jesus - our God our Saviour.

I will now like to home in on Judes advice to the Christians who were in this situation.

Jude told them that they are to build themselves up in their holy faith and to pray in the Holy Spirit. They were to keep themselves in God's Love and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring us to eternal life.

They had to strengthen themselves in their holy faith. They had to know what they believed. When we know what we believe and a heretic comes to us and says something different then we know not only that they are wrong but why. We can confidently say,if we wanted to, "The Lord rebuke you" and leave it at that. It is not enough however just to know a lot of theology. After all a lot of the heretics today are very well versed in doctrine and the bible yet they choose to divert from it.

We need to have the Holy Spirit in out lives. The Holy Spirit - that mysterious third part of the trinity - enters believers on conversation and connects their spirit with God's. The Holy Spirit guides and leads us, he is our counselor - not just as the emotional healer but as legal - telling us where we have gone wrong and need work on. The Holy Spirit also leads us in our prayer. Prayer... that personal and at times intimate conversation with God. In that conversation we are communing with the one who is the centre of our faith and He will not let us fall He will strengthen us in Him to be the people He wants us to be. Within that loving (yet broken) relationship we can wait for the time when due to God's mercy on our sins we are with Him face to Face.

Those who have the strong faith - Jude tells us- are to go and rescue those who have not. So do we go up to those who waver and scream in their face like some sort of Boot Camp drill sargent. Ahhh. no... Jude tells us to be merciful. We all have doubt we all are human. But when we are together - and housegroups are wonderful for this - we can strengthen the weaker brother (or sister as the case may be). We are a family after all and that's what families do (well working ones anyway).

I became a Christian in 1989 after being brought up as an atheist. In the late mid to late 90's I was so unsure and so full of doubts that I was ready to pack it all in and become a real apostate. No Christian came to snatch me from the flames - mind you I had had such a bad experience with the Pentecostal church I had been attending I don't think I would have listened anyway. My life and marriage broke down and at the hearth of the fire I called out to God and he rescued me. Remind ourselves - there but the grace of God go I. Be on the lookout for those who are beyond just doubting. I have no cover all guidelines for those people as each person is an individual and we have to love them as such.

And to the heretics? Jude tells us we should still be merciful to them - but fear them. If there is a chance of bringing them back to the kingdom -do so but don't trust their teaching and - just us you wouldn't allow your children to meet alone with a convicted pedophile don't let the weaker Christians access to heretics.

Jude concludes his letter with a burst of praise. But it is praise with a meaning.

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Amen all right. It is Jesus who we focus our faith on, it is Jesus who strengthens us through His spirit, It is Jesus who was the sacrifice for our sins, it is Jesus who rose from the dead as proof He is God and our sins are cleansed. It is Jesus who will bring us before the Throne to the our heavenly Father, our creator our God. It is Jesus these people deny.

Jude shows that by focusing on Jesus and giving Him the praise He is due, by keeping our weaker brothers and sisters focussed on Jesus those who seek to be like sheepherders feeding on their own flocks will just be autumn tress uprooted and falled - twice dead. Those who have the relationship with Jesus however - though they die once yet shall they live.

Jude had a problem - Jesus is the answer.

Are elephants scared of mice?

Well are they?

Every timeI see this I am just amazed!

For the fans of...

The TV shows I enjoy just got mashed. (mixed together for the un-hip speaking people)

Lost, Battlestar Gallactica and Smallville

Enjoy

If I could sing - with arms wide open

I'm back with my "If I could sing" series, it is supposed to be on a Wednesday but hey - cope with it OK?!

The first song of Creed I paid attention to was "With Arms Wide Open", I love the guitars, the singing, the energy and emotion put into the song. The prayer and hopes of a father as he sees his child for the first time. I can relate to that. I still have hopes and prayers for my sons and they have been around for over a decade each.

It's is a love song, but this one is directed at children as a parent so I have no need to go off and be manly, because there is nothing more manly than being a best father you can be.

Here is the video, and below that the lyrics.

"With Arms Wide Open"

Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is going to change
I closed my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open

Well I don't know if I'm ready
To be the man I have to be
I'll take a breath, I'll take her by my side
We stand in awe, we've created life

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I'll show you love
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open
I'll show you everything ...oh yeah
With arms wide open..wide open

[Guitar Break]

If I had just one wish
Only one demand
I hope he's not like me
I hope he understands
That he can take this life
And hold it by the hand
And he can greet the world
With arms wide open...

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I'll show you love
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open
I'll show you everything..oh yeah
With arms wide open....wide open

The Ice Admiral

As I mentioned previously, my uncle was an author and I've been picking up his books to own and to read. Three have arrived and so far I have not found anyone on TradeMe offering Moving Target. I also mentioned I'd give a review. I'm not the best reviewer or perhaps the best at expressing my opinions but I am opinionated that's a fact.

The first thing about it would be... yes it could be made into a movie. I'm going to give the whole plot here, I hate giving away ending but I guess you most of you won't get a chance to read this so here we go.

It opens just after the attack on Pearl Harbour and a US army team is arriving in Antarctica. There is no base and so they have to get all equipment off the ship and set up the base themselves. They are on a mission to take aerial photographs of the continent for future expeditions. To aid in this they set up a satellite base to report on the weather so the planes know if they should take off or not. Life in both these bases is shown positively with the wise commanders being able to stop everyone going stir crazy. There is one humourous scene where after a lecture on frost bite and what to do (if you see it start as a small white patch then rub, rub rub the skin warm), with the lecture fresh in their minds the guys have to take a leak, and one guy who is going like Niagara Falls is told he has a white spot "on the end of his wonk".
In this satellite base the leader gets appendicitis and has to be flown out, Commander Canris take a a plane from the main base there but due to weather cannot land and is injured himself. The guy dies.

Flash forward to at least the 1950's it's winter and Commander Canaris is now Admiral. He arrives in Christchurch New Zealand and has decided that they have to make a night flight down to Antarctica to rescue a crewman with a brain tumour. The US PR machine is at work as it will be history making, but apart from his loyal subordinates nearly everyone is against him and the flight overall. They have to show the evil Russians that the US can get to any of their bases, where ever they are and when ever needed.

Down in the dark they have to cut, the ice to make a runway, argue with each other and just follow orders. In Christchurch they bonk their wives and girlfreinds (the sex scenes are about 1 sentence long - but you can bet Hollywood would make them 10 minutes...), meet with the press and argue.

In the end it comes down to that they have to remember it is a human being, a friend they are doing this for. During the cutting of the run ways one of the tractors gets lost and falls through the ice.

The plane takes off, the Admiral can't go as by his own rule anyone with a cold can't go (previously nearly the whole base was laid low by a cold a visitor brought). The weather gets bad and the plane can't land, they decide to try an iceberg with a flat top, that had broken off earlier in the story, but it crashes with full loss of life.

The second plane goes, with the Admiral this time, lands, gets the guys and leaves. The last words though are form the doctor who points out the guy is so bad he won;t live long enough to make it back to Christchurch.

Now the opinions.
I found the style and prose to be good, it kept me wanting to read, especially as this is not normally the style of book I'd read. A problem I did have was that every now and again the story would jump and they would talk about an event that happened in between and the reader has to work out what it was. (Maybe I'm just lazy after reading 800 page epics that count the leaves on the tree for you while describing things). Also I'm used to the convention that in a chapter if you jump to a new scene or character to leave a small gap, this is not used here and so I was confused a couple times and had to go back to work out why the guy with the 19 year old lover was now opening curtains with his wife.

Overall a good enjoyable read that left me with the important thought that no matter what the cost, when a human is in need you do what it takes.

Santana ft. Rob Thomas - Smooth

I stopped in at *ahem* Burger King last night for... umm... for no particular reason at all, but they have a TV showing videos and I caught a bit of this and thought I have not heard this in ages. On the off chance that you haven't either - here you go.

The Body of Christ

The church Paul explains in Corinthians is like a body. And we as Christians are part of that body. Jesus is the head, the head that controls and instructs the body to do that which is needed.

And if in our bodies we loose connection with our heads... needless to say our life expectancy is not very long.

But if we do have a tenuous connection to our head, we may be alive but useless, paralyzed. While our legs once could run and jump and walk, now they sit atrophied and just using up the strength of the rest of the body

With Jesus our whole body is supported and held together, controlled and guided.

So Jesus is God, Jesus is the foundation (the roots) of our faith, Jesus is our centre, Jesus is our head and guide. Jesus is all that is needed for our salvation.

Why then do we try to change things?

It is because we are still affected by our own sin. We are affected by the sin of the world around us and we are affected by the sin of the Devil and his tempting attempts to lead us into further sin.

Paul in the book of First Timothy warns of people whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. When your flesh is seared then that area tends to lose the ability to feel and the nerve endings die off.

When our consciences, our ability to make moral choices becomes seared, by our sins, then we too will loose the ability to think things are sins or not. It is easier to continue into deeper and deeper sin.

Once you’ve done it once it’s easier to do it again and worse the next time.

The answer is that as the disciple John said in His gospel. If the Son sets you free you are free indeed.

Prayer to Jesus our saviour, our Lord, He will set us free.

The only way to come to Jesus is prayer. If you don’t know what to say then ask him to teach you.
The disciples who walked with him for three years had to ask him why should you be any different?

Open up and speak with Him. Break the ice and let him in.


Then read your Bibles.

While God could speak to us audibly, or arrange signs to show us his will, or make the clouds into words and pictures, there is always the strong likelihood that our desires our clouding our judgement.

The Bible is the authoritative way in which he speaks to us today. And if you don’t go to it then how else can you hear back from him after prayer?

Remember, with such importance, the enemy struggles to keep us from the Bible. You are never too busy, too tired, or too stupid to be able to read God’s word.

The world also tries to tell us not to read it – that it is unreliable or tainted or old and outdated. The fact is they are wrong…

What ever excuse is keeping you from the bible – ignore it, pick a Bible up and read the gospel of Mathew.

Go on I dare you. You have a month.

I have a hobby...

I have this hobby which after watching the Lord of the rings extended versions a couple of weeks ago, I'm determined to get back into.

Way back in the 80's at high school, when I was the geek's geek I played Dungeons and Dragons - no sorry Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The game was sort of fun, I enjoyed more the hanging out with friends but mostly the bit I enjoyed was painting the miniature monsters and knights and stuff we used.

So a few years ago, a magazine was released which offered Lord of the Rings characters to paint, with instructions on how to do so. It showed as well how to build scenery to put them in. It also had a game to play but I was not interested in that bit.

91 issues later I have hundreds of miniatures to paint, have bought extra ones and really have enough to last a long long time.

Here is a picture of some I have done. For scale - a human is around 25mm (1 inch) and the blurry bit of plastic in left hand corner is the tip of a ball point pen. (click image to embiggen it)

Potter Puppet Pals in "The Mysterious Ticking Noise"

Heh heh heh...

Mawwage - is a bwessed awaingment... Colossians 3:18-19

Who am I to preach/teach/blog on marriage? After all I am divorced… and while it had many good things my marriage was a bit of a disaster.

The answer to that one I suppose is that it is similar to how all good preachers preach on morality and holy living while also admitting that we are sinners in need of a saviour. It’s the whole learning from your mistakes kind of thing. I’m not being a hypocrite; I admit my mistakes in my marriage and from it have learnt, one day God willing I’ll be able to use that knowledge in a practical way but tonight I’ll try to impart a little on what I think this passage of God-breathed scripture is saying.

So let us begin…

Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. If this was the only verse in the Bible that talked about a wives place in a marriage or in society then I for one would agree with those who hate this verse with a passion. That word submit has caused a lot of problems and a lot of abuse. Abuse that is despicable and sinful and is not what God intends.

A wife submitting is not slavery, it is not to treat the husband like he is their lord and master. It is also not agreeing with them when they actually are in the wrong.

How is the wife supposed to submit? Not being a wife myself I can’t honestly say… but I do not think it would be any different from the way in Ephesians 5:21 where we all as a church are instructed that we need to submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.

The word submit that used for how wives are to interact with their husbands is the same word used to instruct me how to interact with you, and how you are to interact with the person sitting next to you, behind you or in fact any Christian you meet.

The Greek word submit has a few meanings but the key one I think applies is this ”To yield to someone’s admonition or advice” Admonition meaning, warning or correction.

I am told to listen to and follow you when you have correction or advice for me. As so it is for wives. If a husband has correction or advice for them then they are to listen and to yield, to give way to their advice.

Husbands of course had better make sure they are correct and not abusing their “authority” Paul recognizes this as the very next verse.

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

Paul expands on a Husbands responsibility in Ephesians that us men have to love our wife just as Christ loved the Church. Now as Christ died for the church!... that is a lot of love men have to give.

Woman are expected to follow their husbands correction and advice, husbands are expected to be willing to die for their wives. This is not much of an exaggeration and it is one that would not come into play often.

With Christ as our Lord and Master He has every right to force us to His will and do that which we hate – He does not do so. Our lives are guided by Him, His advice is the best we can ever get and He does not abuse us. Husbands be the same. The call for a wives submission is not a call for you to be He-Man master of the Universe, but to be Christ’s love to her, to give your life and actions to her well being.

This way a husband should act is not really anything new to us today but let’s look at how a wife was considered to the people Paul was writing to.

William Barclay wrote

Under Jewish law a woman was a thing, the possession of her husband, just as much as his house or his flocks or his material goods. She had no legal rights whatever. For instance, under Jewish law, a husband could divorce his wife for any cause, while a wife had no rights whatever in the initiation of divorce; and the only grounds on which a divorce might be awarded her were if her husband developed leprosy, became an apostate or ravished a virgin. In Greek society a respectable woman lived a life of entire seclusion. She never appeared on the streets alone, not even to go marketing. She lived in the women's apartments and did not join her menfolk even for meals. From her there was demanded complete servitude and chastity; but her husband could go out as much as he chose and could enter into as many relationships outside marriage as he liked without incurring any stigma. Under both Jewish and Greek laws and custom all the privileges belong to the husband and all the duties to the wife

Let me repeat “Under both Jewish and Greek laws and custom all the privileges belong to the husband and all the duties to the wife.”

Paul here is saying the Husband now has a duty to His wife. To love her and not be harsh.

We read elsewhere in Pauls writing, also in Acts and with Jesus, equality is being shown between Men and Women. Jesus met with a Samaritan woman and gave her the news of Salvation.

Women not men were first to see the resurrected Jesus. Paul preached to Lydia and the church ofPhilippi was started.

Paul thanks the women who have churches meet in their homes. Things that would have been abhorrent to the men reading them back then, but today we don’t even notice their significance.

Women were being treated by God and by the apostles as the equals of men. I’m not saying the apostles got it right all the time, they had after all a lot of culture to fight against, but the beginnings were there.

I have noticed something about human nature. I call it the pendulum effect.

If a person is trapped in a lifestyle or line of thought, when they are freed they will often go to the opposite extreme. They may swing back and forth between the two extremes until they reach equilibrium. I have an idea that in Pauls days with the woman who were like slave were now being treated equally and with love by their husbands then some of them may have swung to the other end of the scale and tried to be the boss and make the husband submit, and not just submitting to advice but in the abusive type of submission we all fear. In this case it is wise for Paul to tell wives to listen to the husbands. To bring a balance.

With two short sentences Paul writes a doctrine to free women from the slavery of their husbands and to curb the sinful nature of the men and so to truly love and cherish the one that God has joined them to.

Mind blowing stuff – I just wish more marriages could live up to Pauls and Gods expectations.

Steve Taylor - Cash Cow

I has never sen the video to this until today. On a whim I decided to do a you-tube search for Steve Taylor and lo-and-behold look what is there. It's from Steve last solo album Squint, and is the last track on it.

This says it all...

Where's Wally (aka Waldo) all you Google Earthers?

Canadian artist Melanie Coles has painted a 55-foot image of Wally on an undisclosed rooftop in Vancouver, British Columbia. The game now is to figure out where Wally is and to be the first to spot him when he eventually turns up on Google Earth. It's a game of chance because the company does not reveal how often it updates its images, and it doesn't take its own satellite images in the first place, it licences them from a third party.
Coles publicised the project on her blog www.whereonearthiswaldo.com, and is encouraging others to follow her lead and create a network of Google Earth Wallys across the world.

Thanks to PC world for this one.

My uncle the author

I have started picking up the books my Uncle Jack McClenaghan wrote during the 60's and 70's. I have three of the four, Ice Admiral, Travelling Man and Fiordland, I would really like to find Moving Target.

Ice Admiral, Travelling Man and Moving target are fiction and Fiordland non-fiction.

The general plot run down is as follows:

Travelling Man (did not really enjoy this when I read it at age 19, maybe when I re-read it later on.)
Our main character is just a guy who wanders around New Zealand during the depression, he does odd jobs, and encounters people around the country, for a while he is a whiskey runner in Invercargill during the prohibition.

Ice Admiral. (I enjoyed this one) The titular Admiral Canaris, is assigned to McMurdo base in Antarctica. During winter one of the guys gets appendicitis and needs to be flown out. In the 60's this was rather dangerous and so the tension grows.

Moving Target. (Loved this one) The movie rights for this were sold but nothing came of it. Back in the war war 2 days a good old kiwi bloke joins up but get annoyed at the yelling and pointless nature of the training so he leaves and goes bush. Deciding to make an example of him so no others go AWOL they army hunt him down. Parts of it sort of reminds me of Rambo - First Blood except without the killing and explosions and stuff.

Fiordland is as you'd guess is a book on the history and the province of Fiordland.

I'll write some more detailed reviews after reading each book, at the moment I'm on Ice Admiral.

Have a read of Colossians Chapter 1: 15 to 23

In tonight’s reading from Colossians Paul lays it all simply and , clear to the church at Colosse Jesus is the image of the invisible God, Jesus is the creator of all things, Jesus is the one who holds all things together, Jesus is the one in whom was God’s fullness dwelt and Jesus is the one in whom we were reconciled to God by.

Paul here lays out very clear and very blatant truths about Jesus. When you read it you get the impression that it came out of him as worship, natural and heartfelt and to the one who was worthy to receive such worship. Very different from the person who once tried to kill any who worshiped Jesus. Paul now knows the truth about Jesus, it brings joy to him and consumes him to tell all others about it. Also very different from the person on the road to Damascus who looked up at the resurrected Jesus and said ‘who are you?’ Let us know have a look at some of these truths.

• Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

The word image here is the Greek word eikon (i-kone) and means an image, figure or likeness. That same word is used in Matthew 22:20 when Jesus is given a roman coin and says. “Whose portrait is this?” It was Ceasers, it was not Ceaser him self but his image if you had seen that coin then you would know what Ceaser looked like, if you had seen Jesus then you would know what God looked like. Jesus was the portrait of the invisible God.

In Hebrews we learn that Jesus is the radiance of god’s glory and the exact representation of His being.

In 2^nd Corinthians we again have Jesus being described as the image of God

From these passages we learn that Jesus accurately and fully expresses the being and perfection of God. Today by looking at Jesus as he is reveled in the Bible we can know the invisible god. We don’t have to go searching for God he has made himself clearly visible.

In the Bible we read of other peoples encounters with God. Ezekiel saw a man who looked like he was glowing metal, surrounded by creatures with many wings and eyes and devices that were wheels within wheels. John in revelation saw a man with hair like wool, eyes on fire, feet of bronze and a voice like rushing water. Moses was not allowed to see God fully but only saw his back – yet Moses face glowed and he had to wear a veil as the glowing upset the Israelites.

Here though we have Jesus who shows what God is like without the need to metaphors or similes. Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

Next we read on that Jesus is…

• Jesus is the firstborn of all creation.

From this word firstborn some have incorrectly theorized that Jesus is a created being. But this is opposed to all the rest of what Scripture has to say about Jesus, in fact it is opposed to the very next sentence Paul writes about Jesus. The Jehovahs Witnesses leap upon this verse and in their travesty of a translation they add words into that sentence to make it fit. Paul wrote that All things were created on Heaven and on earth and that Jesus is before all things and he holds all things together. If Jesus was created then ALL things could not have been created by him as He is a thing. The witnesses add the word other after the word all to tie up with their heresy.

Firstborn is used elsewhere in Scripture as a metaphor to describe the rank and privilege as being the one who is first born without actually being the firstborn. Unlike today when our kids ask us who you love the most and we answer we love you both just the same. In the Bible times while the love may have been the same the firstborn certainly had more rights and power than the younger siblings.

So as a metaphor the National of Israel was called the Lords firstborn in Exodus 4:22 although they were not the first nation to exist, in Psalm 89 King David who was the youngest of 8 was called the firstborn, and he was not the first King either.

Here by Paul calling Jesus the firstborn over all creation, he is not saying He was created first but that Jesus is above all creation and has the rights “as if he was the firstborn”

We continue with what Paul wrote and as mentioned before we see that

• Jesus is the Creator of all things.

And when I say all things I mean ALL things, nothing exists that He did not create – and that includes you and me. I love astronomy and am constantly amazed by he beauty that Jesus has put into the heavens and in the world around us

• All things were created for Jesus

This is interesting because according to this not only did Jesus create all things – but all things were created for Him – we are not the reason for creation – Jesus is! Bit of a blow to the ego but it is a truth we must all remember Jesus is the centre of all.

• In him all things hold together.

He keeps the universe together and with out him all things would fall into chaos or worse fall back into nothingness and void. The laws of physics gravity, the dance of the planets, molecules and atoms He is the one who keeps it all going. Without him we would truly have and indeed be nothing.

• He is the head of the church.

Not just our resp, not just the Anglican denomination but the whole church, every Christian everywhere, the universal church. Every believer that is and was and ever will be he is the head, the one who has the rank and authority over us all. As you would expect from the one we call our Lord.

• The beginning and the firstborn from the dead.

Again that word firstborn. Jesus was not the first to rise from the dead Lazarus was brought back to life for starters – but Jesus was the first – the beginning of the Resurrection. Resurrection is not just a resuscitation back to life – Lazarus did indeed die again – it is the changing of our physical bodies which perish into our spiritual bodies which are eternal. Jesus in 1 Corinthians is called the first fruits – the cream of the crop – of the resurrection – he is the beginning and has the authority and rights to it as the firstborn.

And now we come to verse 19 – one of the most awesome statements about Jesus ever – the one that puts away all confusion about him and just lays it out flat.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,

This goes beyond Jesus being an image or portrait of god – this lays it out clear. God’s fullness dwelt in Jesus. God did not partly inhabit Jesus, Jesus was 100% God incarnate – God in human form. Born, lived, died God at all times in a physical body. Yet still something was being dwelt in –Jesus was still a human. He was 100% human and 100% God. I know that adds up to 200% but that is the miracle of the incarnation.

And what did this God do? What purpose did God make himself in human form?

He came according to verse 20, he came so that through him all things may be reconciled to himself by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

Jesus who is the very portrait of God, Jesus who is the creator of all, Jesus who is above all things and holds all things together by his power, Jesus who has the rank and authority and rights to the church, the world, the universe to the spiritual realms, Jesus became incarnated as a human being in order to die, to pay the price of all of our sins with his blood on the cross.

Paul continues to the church at Colosse but he might as well have been speaking directly to us – We all were once enemies of god, shut out of intimacy from him like a prisoner transported from England to Australia was shut out from their home. In our minds and in our behavior we showed how much we were against God – and as God can see all things he knows how much we were against him yet he came into a physical body just so it could die in order to re-unite us with him.

During communion, with the bread we remember the physical body of Jesus that died for us, with the wine and juice we remember the blood that was shed on the cross. Remember… remember what Christ is – the firstborn, the creator, God himself, Remember what he did for you – the whipping, the beating the dieing. Remember what it is that you have done that has caused this to be needed and be thankful – be so thankful that he loved us all enough that while we were enemies, while we were alienated while we were still sinners he died for us.

His death paid the price for our sin. Nothing but the blood of Jesus could do it.

Eat, drink and be thankful, for our tomorrows he died.

Peggle,...

I did not get a song done yesterday as I spent 5 hours last night playing peggle....


Peggle is an insanely simple, excruciatingly addictive little game (15meg!).

The concept of the game is like this, you have 10 balls that get fired out of your cannon in the top middle of the screen, you have to hit all of the orange pegs and blocks. The purple blocks and pegs are bonus points and the green ones give special powers (like fireball). That's it! and it took up 5 hours of my life last night and some more tonight too I bet.

This youtube video shows someone getting 13.5 million on one shot - I was happy with the few hundred thousand I was getting.