Elder Ordination

 Today I was formally accepted as an Elder at Krugersdorp Baptist Church, for those that don't know this has been a long and sometimes difficult process.
Of course there were a few jokes about getting old to be an elder.
Honestly though while in one sense this is an honour the overwhelming thoughts in my head lie in the recognition of the solemn responsibility that goes with this. It's bad enough that I'm 'serious' a lot of the time anyway, now the 'officialness' of this privilege rests it's weight on top of that.


"For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it." (Titus 1:7-9 ESV)

If it sounds like I'm apprehensive well I am a bit, but in another sense I'm looking forward to serving the people of Krugersdorp Baptist in a more meaningful way. A week or so ago my boss posted a picture with two non overlapping circles, the smaller circle representing our comfort zone and a bigger circle labelled 'where the magic happens' Most of us just carry on living never reaching beyond what we know i.e. in our comfort zone, for all sorts of reasons this is not one of those for me, I'm going to be stretched and whilst I wouldn't use the word 'magic', and I will most definitely not be relying on only my own strength I know I'm reaching into that bigger circle.

Only God has made this possible, in His infinite wisdom he has brought me along a path, which includes a lot of mistakes and failures on my part, that has prepared me for this work, nothing I am or have done in my own strength has brought me here, only my absolute faith and hope (which He gives me anyway) in God through Christ and in the power granted by the Holy Spirit are going to carry me through. This I know "He who has begun a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Christ"

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

(Galatians 2:19-20 ESV)

Ride for a cause?

On 18 November 2012 I will be riding the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge again. I could just ride or I could use the opportunity to try and raise some funds for a cause. There are lot's of worthy causes around and some of which can be found here http://www.cyclechallenge.co.za/Home/CharityBonds . Out of those I've chosen three of the bigger ones to mention, all three related to supporting Cancer research and support.
http://www.thecows.co.za/facq.aspx http://www.pinkdrive.co.za/about-us/ http://www.pinkchicks.co.za/

A family related one: One of my nephews, Alex Mason, has Friedreich's Ataxia a neurological degenerative disease and makes use of services offered by Martins House in the UK http://www.martinhouse.org.uk/


I'm certain some of you will have other suggestions, and perhaps the opportunity can be used for more than one cause, but I wouldn't want to divide the spoils too much.



Help me choose by voting in the voting panel which should be near top right of this page.

So I haven't posted in a while, usually you just get the studies of 1John, the last one of which was a survey of 1 John and I just read some verses I wanted to highlight, now I need to choose what to do next for our Tuesday night prayer meeting messages.

Also I decided to do some of the free courses available at class central  http://www.class-central.com/ and have completed the first course CS101 which is a intro to Computer Science. 

Now trying to do ST101 Intro to Statistics and CS215 Algorithms  which I'm finding quite challenging. Doesn't help that I've got to review my high school maths as well to get through this.

After 6 weeks being off the baaiesukkel I decided to take up the challenge of riding every day of the Tour de France http://www.letour.fr , so far I've managed 285Km this past week at the woeful avg speed of 21Km/h with about 2300m of climbing HR avg 84% of max. Of course this is nothing to what those guys are doing around europe but for me it's good. I'm also sure I'll get my speed up a bit as  I go on.

Most of the rides have started and ended with this view from the front door (photo taken last october) at some ridiculously low temperatures (it's the middle of winter here). I've been navigating using Jupiter and Venus in the sky. If I'm going to go madder I might as well do it properly leaving at ~4:30am. I'm going to try and incorporate a bit more sanity this week doing more rides to/from work though.

Anyway it's late so I think that's enough from me for now.

1 John 5:18-21

We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

We see that John reminds us that all born of God do not keep sinning in other words they do not continue to live in sin, but that a specific one born of God I.e. Jesus will protect those who by his atoning work have also been born of God, he encourages us that we cannot be touched by the evil one, that of course does not mean we will not suffer as a result of satans wiles but I think rather that he cannot take hold of us and bring us under his control. He goes on to point out that we know that we are of God, this is so emphatic that I dare to say if we lack this confidence of  being from God we are not  saved, yes we may have short periods of doubt, but when it comes to the crunch if we are confident of our belonging we can find assurance of our election. We see also that the world, by which it seems John is referring to those who are not saved, lie in the power of satan, notice that this lying indicates a resignation or a lack of effort to escape, those in the world have no desire to move out of their 'comfort zone', and don't even realize the danger they are in, they simply lie in ignorance as their eyes remain closed.  On the other hand those who have been chosen by God have been given understanding by the Son of God , they no longer lie in ignorance but rather realizing the truth of their situation, find themselves knowing the one who is true, and thus being 'in him' taking on His very nature becoming holy, as he is holy. There has been some confusion regarding the use of grammar especially with regard as to which 'he' is being referred to in each phrase at the end of v20 I.e. is it the father or the son whom we know, who is eternal life, and in whom we find ourselves as a first cause, is this a proof statement of Jesus being the son also being God, I think we have enough evidence in other passages of John's writings that it can be taken as an and rather than an or, we know from elsewhere of the trinity, and we know that Christ being the son is also God, and God became man through the person of Christ, and that is Christs work on the cross that brings us into the presence of the father and the son as the bride and we know also that the spirit dwells in us and we in him, although we can't fully grasp the triunity of God and how we are brought into unity we can rest that we can know enough of the true God as foundation to trusting him alone for eternal life. John closes with an exhortation to keep ourselves from idols,  many have debated over the years about what John meant by this, some will argue that he meant merely the idols of ephesus, some will argue that he means statues or pictures of God, some will argue that he meant anything that could be used as a description or something that symbolises God. In the end I think elevating anything to more importance than God in our lives, even good things like family or church and also anything that reduces God to something we think we can comprehend amounts to worshipping something that is not the true God and is therefore an idol. We need to be aware that we need to submit to worshiping God in spirit and truth being in awe and wonder and fear of his unmeasurable qualities in all ways and not allowing anything to be a false image of Him.

1John 5v13-17

  13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.  14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.  15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.   16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.  17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. (ESV)

Again John reminds us why he is writing this epistle – that we may know we have eternal life. He has been doing this by contrasting the believers experience and behaviour to that of the unbeliever, and here he now focuses on prayer. He starts in v13-15 by encouraging us to pray, and that we can have confidence when we pray according to God’s will, that he will hear us and answer us.

Most of the commentators point out that the v16-17 is a difficult piece of scripture to understand clearly, but what I think John is saying to us here is that we need to pray for the sinner whilst discouraging the praying for people to be rescued from the just rewards of their sin. The sin that leads to death is the only sin that cannot be forgiven, the sin of rejecting Christs work on the cross, and the work of the Holy spirit in our lives.

He encourages us to pray for our brother, ‘our brother’ does not necessarily refer to a brother who already believes but by implication of the phrase ‘a sin not leading to death’ and the fact that all sin of the unredeemed leads to death, we can infer that John is speaking of the elect whether they have already come to know salvation or not. Similarly when John refers to the ‘sin that leads to death’ we can infer that he is referring to the kind of unrepentant sinfulness a nonbeliever is habitually committing. In other words we should be careful to pray for the life of those we see in sin but not necessarily just ask for relief from the consequences of their sin and that we understand that the non-elect will suffer the eternal punishment. That is not to say we shouldn't pray for physical healing, and relief from difficulties, we should, but we should pray more that these things be used to bring repentance and sanctification.

It is noteworthy that when we see a brother sinning, our response should be to pray for them, how often do we not do this but instead, despise, reject, gossip about the persons sin, instead of asking God to save the person or to work in that persons heart that they repent of their sin. Yes we do need to confront the sinner and rebuke their sin following Christs gudelines in Matt 18, but let us first turn to prayer and seek God’s direction through his word praying for their soul.

We can deduce, from what John is saying, that those who have been chosen by God to be saved will not continue in their sin but those who have been chosen by God for damnation will continue in their sinfulness. We can know we are saved if we are fighting against our sin which ‘does not lead to death’. 
Let us take comfort that whilst we fall, the fact that we battle against our sin is a sign that have eternal life.

My broken heart

First of all I need to say that I originally posted the unedited version at 3am this morning, but at 6am decided to delete it and have edited it slightly but I do need to explain my behaviour and apologise where hurt has been rendered. So here goes.

I am going to try and write a confession of sorts, it's probably going to sound a bit like an excuse in some ways, and to some extent a justification, but I truly hope that in getting this out I will find the beginning of a healing process (otherwise known as sanctification). I want to preface with a 'disclaimer' of sorts. It may seem that I'm pointing fingers of blame at certain individuals, please be assured, if you feel I'm talking about you, that I hold no malice towards you, and that despite whether you believe as I do or not I see the hand of God working through the people around me to effect sanctification in me. Sanctification according to scripture is a process akin to refining of gold through fire, or as cutting and kneading of clay to remove air and other impurities, it is not comfortable, but it is necesary. I am also aware that as I am being sanctified by those around me there is an equivalent effect of me being used to sanctify those who have received salvation so before you start praising yourself for your part in my sanctification, examine your own heart, and turn to our Father who is waiting for you to confess your sins and turn from your wicked ways, and then praise the only One who truly deserves praise.  Secondly my opinions and thoughts as at now are subject to correction by the Holy Spirit through the Word, so please study scripture yourself, if necesary correction and reproof is valuable to me, I will try to accept it graciously and with intent to correct.

Recently (and not so recently on many occasions) I have found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to have 'fun' amongst my fellowship of believers, 99% of you, if not more, will probably find that confession a rather strange statement. As strange as it may seem I do not find fun in games, I am only occasionally mildly entertained observing others enjoy themselves in games, it is even worse for me when these games are made into a competition. Although there have been occasions where I appear to have joined in and had fun, most of those times have been an effort for me and usually involve putting on a mask, a dishonest chore at the least. However the reaction is usually worse when I can't face putting on the masks and try to decline participation or when having participated anyway I afterwards admit that I did not enjoy myself, and would rather have been doing something else 'more useful'. Unfortunately trying to force me against my will is rarely successful, I'm really stubborn, and some of you have been hurt by a coldly toned retort, usually along the lines of 'leave me alone' I sincerely apologise and ask for forgiveness. 

Most times in the past I have considered myself in the right and just left it at that, life is after all a serious matter, and eternal life and our purpose here even more so is it not? To be honest I'm finding it difficult not to think like that right now. In a blog post not so long ago I wondered how much time for fun (holidays) Paul had in between the beatings and being chained to guards, or how much relaxation (leave) time Peter had while feeding the sheep. But as now there have been the odd occasions where I wonder if I am in the wrong.

As I sat contemplating and praying, and evaluating, and praying, and watching, and yes, praying, and as I continue to do so now as I write this I have little idea of how I might have gotten the way I am. As one school colleague pointed out to me a little while ago  'I see you are still so serious'. As I look back over my life and try to work out when I got this way, I struggle to find a time when I wasn't. Two images came to mind tonight. The first image was of a flower, and as I thought about how I tend to see flowers I realized that instead of just finding appreciation in the beauty of a flower I have the inclination to pull it apart to figure out what it's bits are, examine those bits under a microscope and find wonder in the complexities and intricacies, in the process the plain beauty of the whole is lost to me. The second image is of a human body, and again instead of just looking at the outer I want to dig in both on a physical, and for lack of a better word, a psychological level and analyse it to pieces, yes I appreciate the wonder of the inside workings but I lose an appreciation of the outer beauty in the process. When I now look these two illustrations of my actions I see an inkling of what's in my life that causes me to dig right in and pull apart and analyse and think and contemplate, instead of simply appreciating the beauty. The problem that I seem to have with the kind of fun I struggle with, is that due to analysing and pulling it apart I have come to the conclusion, that it is a form of escapism from reality i.e.not taking every thought captive, or alternatively a digression from where we should find our true joy and full satisfaction. I'm afraid I haven't found anything to counter this conclusion. When people use scripture to justify having fun they point to the (en)joy passages nearly all of which tell us our joy is to be found in God and activities of worship, including acts of love and fellowship torwards one another, not in games, naturally some will say that enjoying games is a form of worship or fellowship, perhaps so, but if that is the case it is so covered by the competitive prideful desire to be better i.e. to win that I fail to see it that way, the message of finding our ultimate enjoyment in Christ is completely lost when we enthrall in being better than our brother. What seems to me worse is the taunting teasing attitude, and goading self praise a competitor or team engages in both during and after the game.

Please note I have taken the view that this is my issue, most people probably do not conclude as I do and are perfectly comfortable with games I am not comfortable with, I don't hold it against people that they are not of the same mind on this as me, which is why I usually come to these gatherings to at least show some interest even when I am not up to participating and perhaps one day my mind will be changed.

Now having said that, I must get to another related failing, which is a lack of being close to my brothers and sisters in Christ. This results in misunderstanding, my refusal to participate appears to be a refusal to commune, which in a sense it is, because I have estranged myself from people in general, and find it difficult to engage with even those close to me, my not wanting to put on a mask of pretense, shows up a wall of seperation that is real because I do not open up enough to those around me. In addition to this is a lack of expressiveness in things where I do find joy, and for that matter sadness, love, hurt, anger, and all other thought processes and actions we call emotions. My problem in summary boils down to a failure to communicate my inner thoughts. I have no problem communicating ideas in general as long as it does not affect what my perception is of what people think of me and vice versa. In other words I find it difficult to get personal, both in giving out personal information and asking for it from others. Because of many painful experiences along the way of growing up I built walls of defense that I find difficult to knock through. Those who have gotten to know me better might think I'm talking nonsense here, but they fall into two categories, first there are those who think they know me but have only scratched the surface, and second  those who I trust well who I am more open with and there are very few of these. I am aware of this sin which is perhaps an evidence of a lack of sufficient love, and I can only ask you to believe me when I say I am working hard to overcome, but over and way above that, the Lord is forcing me to take it on by circumstances, I keep telling people I need a fire lit under me to make me move, well there are fires getting lit all around me right now, I know and trust the Lord that allowing those fires to refine me will equip me, to face the next challenge on the racetrack to holiness. A racetrack which does not involve being the first to the finish line but only that we reach it. This of course means I need to make my way through these fires, not by putting them out or going around them, but by allowing them to burn away the dross and cause those walls of defense I mentioned earlier to collapse.

Pray for me I need it.

1 John 5:6-12

I'm publishing this a bit late, mainly because I needed to complete ideas that were in my head but I hadn't noted down.
6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. 9 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar,  because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (ESV)
In v6-8 We are told that Jesus came by the water and the blood, commentators agree that it is difficult to understand what John meant here and therefore differ on the meaning of this some refer to Johns gospel and the fact that he witnessed water and blood flowing from Jesus side when the spear was thrust in, some understand it is referring to water which cleanses us from sin and blood which gives us new life. Others draw an inference of the water to Jesus' baptism where the Spirit came upon him and the blood referrring to his death on the cross. I've always understood it as pointing to the fact that Jesus was born as a man in the virgin birth (through water as we are all born), and through his blood and death and resurection became the firstborn of many by His blood. John is using phraseology here which was understood clearly at the time of writing, and since it is God's word is meant for then and now, but although the meaning of the water and blood may not be perfectly clear to us what is clear is that somehow there is a threefold testimony, the Spirit the water and the blood. I just want to point out that whilst we look now through this lense dimly, if we trust what is written, we can know that in time to come we shall see clearly and understand.
In v 9-12 we are shown that the testimony of God regarding our belief in Christ, and therefore our eternal life, is given to us by himself, yes he may use men as agents of bringing us to a realization of faith, but the belief we find in ourselves is something He puts there and if it is He that testifies these things we can have complete assurance that they are true. Conversely if we do not believe this testimony we are viewing God as a liar, in other words if we do not believe we are sinning. Matthew Henry notes of such an unbeliever: "He must believe that God did not send his Son into the world, when he has given us such manifold evidence that he did, or that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God, when all that evidence relates to and terminates upon him, or that he sent his Son to deceive the world and to lead it into error and misery, or that he permits men to devise a religion which, in all the parts of it, is a pure, holy, heavenly, undefiled institution, and so worthy to be embraced by the reason of mankind, and yet is but a delusion and a lie, and then lends them his Spirit and power to recommend and obtrude it upon the world, which is to make God the Father, the author and abettor, of the lie." We need to recognise that unbelievers actively disbelieve, it isn't some kind of accident that happens to them, that we should pity, but it is a deliberate choice they make, a deliberate choice that calls God a liar, a choice that in their own eyes makes them wiser than God, and therefore is pure idolatry putting oneself in the place of God. Plainly and clearly in v11 and 12 we are told that the only way to have life is through God's one and only Son, Jesus Christ, any other way is false and by implication leads to death. But Oh the glorious realisation that if God gives us this testimony, and His son is given to us, it is for eternity and cannot be taken away. If you haven't already, I plead with you now, accept God's testimony, and His son, and recieve the life He means for you to have.