In Him

I was just reading today’s devotion Kids4Truth and noticed today’s “Big Christian Word” is one that is used often in Christian circles, but not outside of them.

Sanctification - (sank-ta-fa-kay-shun)

Sanctification is a term used to show a continual growth to become more and more like Christ. Once we are “born again” we begin a process of growth that continues until the day we are face to face with Christ. (John 17:17) “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

On a side note being “born again” is something that is the key to becoming a Christian.  I was reading another devotion the last night (Our Daily Bread) which listed three scriptures which may help you to understand more.  I found it interesting to read them together, following one another.

Romans 3:23, Romans 5:8, and Romans 10:13.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Once you call on the name of the Lord (pray to Jesus to save you), you become a Christian and your life begins again, so you are born-again.  You don’t stay as a new born baby, you grow and gradually become sanctified (see above “big word”!).  This process is gradual and continues throughout your life on earth, this generally why people read the bible and go to church, to learn how to become more Christ-like.  Then comes the really good bit - because you CHOSE to enter into a relationship with God, you get to live with Him, forever.

Today’s excerpt is from Kids4Truth devotional.  I’ve been reading their devotional for a few weeks and this section spoke to me because this was the thing that instantly changed for me when I became a Christian.  I always ALWAYS felt lonely before - even when I was with people.  But since 9th January 1994 I have never NEVER felt lonely - even when I’m alone.

God is the best friend we can have. Do you have a best friend? As a kid, I always wanted a best friend and wanted to be someone’s best friend. Proverbs 18:24 says, “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” God proved that He is that friend when He said, “I am with you always” and “I will never leave you or forsake you.” No matter what is happening in your life, God will always be there for you. You cannot travel to a place on this earth where God will not be. You can’t hide from God. He is always there and will never leave you. He is the best friend you can have. Kids4Truth

Recently I received another group of some photos of church signs pasted together into an email and I thought I’d create a fun section to display them periodically.  Hope they make you smile or think, whichever is appropriate.

Hope you have a great day/night.

God Bless

Why do we move out of the loving embrace of our heavenly Father?  Why do we get dazzled by the sights and experiences of the empty world?  Why don’t we stay where we can be eternally fulfilled?  Today I was listening to the Todd Agnew CD - Grace Like Rain.  One part of the song Still Here Waiting struck me.  Perhaps it will you too.

I don’t know where I turned around

From chasing what I always found completed me

More than I could dream

I don’t know why I can’t remain

Safe here where I always came to meet with you

And You always met with me

And you’re still here waiting

He never moves.  He never leaves.  He never forsakes.  He waits.  He listens.  He forgives.  He loves.

I just finished eating dinner, one that the whole family ate, without complaining, all gone.  A WINNER!

Serves 3 adults or 2 adults and 2 children (hubby wanted more!)

Put 1/3 - 1/2 of 500g packet uncooked tri-colour vegetable spiral pasta in a casserole (3L).  Drain a 420g tin tuna (in springwater), break up with a fork to desired size of chunks then mix in a can of cream of celery soup, 250ml cheese sauce and some pepper.  Pour over pasta and add a little water to make sure pasta is completely wet.  Grate some cheese over (about a cup if you want it really cheesey).  Add 1/2 to 1 cup of mixed frozen veg (or just peas and corn if you prefer - basically getting some veg in there, improvise!) Bake in 180.c/350.f oven with lid on for 45min remove lid and bake for a further 15min.  Serve up and dig in!

Everyone is looking for peace or to live in peace.  What is peace?  Does peace mean the same thing to you as it does to me, or to God for that matter?  How can we live in peace?  Does having peace mean that everything will go right for you all the time?

I looked up peace in the dictionary and it has many meanings - so it’s a complex thing.

peace [pees] -

1 the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world.

2 (often initial capital letter) an agreement or treaty between warring or antagonistic nations, groups, etc., to end hostilities and abstain from further fighting or antagonism: the Peace of Ryswick.

3 a state of mutual harmony between people or groups, esp. in personal relations: Try to live in peace with your neighbors.

4 the normal freedom from civil commotion and violence of a community; public order and security: He was arrested for being drunk and disturbing the peace.

5 cessation of or freedom from any strife or dissension.

6 freedom of the mind from annoyance, distraction, anxiety, an obsession, etc.; tranquillity; serenity.

7 a state of tranquillity or serenity: May he rest in peace.

8 a state or condition conducive to, proceeding from, or characterized by tranquillity: the peace of a mountain resort.

9 silence; stillness: The cawing of a crow broke the afternoon’s peace.

In John14:26,27 peace is the central theme.  Jesus is speaking these words to his disciples.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Which peace is he talking about?  The third sentence points us to the peace that is described as freedom of the mind from annoyance, distraction, anxiety or an obsession. Tranquillity or serenity (no 6).  I have experienced this peace, most recently last night.

My neighbour is quite deaf and seems to think that his loud music is okay for over an hour at a time blaring so loud it hurts my ears while I’m inside my bedroom with all the windows closed.  I am not one to listen to the radio because of the talking inbetween, I find it irritating, so I stick to CD’s or tapes. Last I was trying to get to sleep early last night as I wasn’t feeling well.  He turned on his music.  The radio.  It was not late as I’ve been going to bed early, but it was just so loud.  I prayed for something that would make it to stop.  Somehow.  It kept on going.  In the end I just had to thank God for the ability to hear, for the amazing technology we have at our fingetips, that I could choose to go to bed early in a comfy bed.  I then prayed for my all my family and friends and whatever else the Holy Spirit led me to pray.  In the end I was most focussed on God, not the music or my annoyance.  Guess what, I had a peace in my spirit and soul that let me be able to fall asleep.

Another example is when I’m very angry with something or I might be anxious or confused.  If I set my mind on God, His Word or things about His Kingdom, not the situation, God comes in and calms me.  He truly gives me His peace, not the world’s.

There is another aspect to God’s peace - it’s the second definition from above - treaty.  When we become aware of and accept the fact that we have wronged God with our sins and turn to Him, asking for forgiveness, we are ceasing our warring with Him.  We are entering into a treaty or a peaceful pact with God. When we enter into His pact we also seem to receive many more of the different definitions of peace.  I’m not saying life will be perfect, pain free with no trouble, but that He helps us to be able to handle life better.

In  John 14:15-31  Jesus is speaking about the Holy Spirit whom the Father was going to send (which He did).  He referred to Him as the Comforter or Counsellor.  Someone who brings peace.

My prayer for you today is that you will know God’s peace and have that tranquillity in your mind and spirit, even in the midst of a busy, chaotic, stressful world.  Peace that only He can give.

If you don’t know God or want the peace I’m talking about please look at Steps to Peace with God.
Steps to Peace with God was a small pamphlet written by Bill Bright many years ago, it has been put into digital form now and can be accessed by clicking on this link.

I was reading Our Daily Bread this morning as a part of my morning devotions.  The writer was highlighting the ancient city of Sodom whose people suffered God’s judgement, in part because they embraced a self-indulgent lifestyle. “This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.  And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit” Ezekiel 16:49-50. Basically they were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned.

If we are honest with ourselves, we can see many similarities with today’s western lifestyle.

Most people are proud of their cars, houses and other things. (Pride)
Most people don’t have to struggle and toil to put food on the table. (Overfed)
Most people, while not at a paid job, don’t generally do anything to overtaxing. (Idleness)
Most people don’t think of the severe injustice and lack of choice and freedom that the poorest of poor people all over the world and in our country have to face every day. (not strengthening the poor/needy)

This makes me think that perhaps God isn’t too happy with the way we choose to spend our time.  Perhaps he has a better way that would profit us as well as Him.  In Philippians 2:4 Paul tells us to serve others and desire to please God, this is the antidote to the poison of self-indulgence.

At the bottom of each page in Our Daily Bread is a verse and a summary line.  Here are today’s.

Some are discouraged and weary in heart,
Help somebody today!
Someone the journey to heaven should start,
Help somebody today! –Breck

The more we serve Christ, the less we serve self.

I’ve been waking earlier the past couple of days.  I am famous in my family for sleeping in - 10hrs of sleep is nothing (just look at me in the morning and that’ll proove it!).

Recently I’ve been pretty busy with our annual homeschooling moderator visit, possibly fighting a mild virus and just general lack of energy/motivation.  So I found myself struggling to stay awake at about 7pm a few nights ago and thought, I’ll go to bed early and read for a bit. (I’m currently reading a Wanda E Brunstetter series - The Brides of Webster County).  A hour and a few chapters later I felt my eyes drooping and I was yawning like nobody’s businees, so I switched off my light.  I woke about 12 hours later.

I felt pretty good, not dragging around, but still tired.  I felt the need to go to bed early again that evening, so I hopped into bed around 8pm again, read a few chapters and had my light out by 8.30pm.  Again 11hrs later awoke to a new day.  Felt pretty positive this time.

Repeat two more times only the last time I woke at 5.50am instead of 7 or 8am.  So I decided to take this rare, precious time (called being alone - homeschool Mums just don’t get that all that often.) and used it to talk with God, do some uninterrupted craft and run a virus scan on my computer!

This morning I woke pretty easily but it was chilly - so I have turned on the heater, but it’s not on my too directly otherwise I’d fall asleep again!!!  I had energy to go for a walk the day before yesterday and take my oldest daughter to her netball practice.  I find as the sun goes down I’m getting tired.  There is absolutely nothing on TV for me to watch, so no loss there.  I get to read in bed and I miss out on the stress of telling the kids to get to bed because I’m the first one going!  I wake up before the sun is up and get to see the beautiful morning star and the setting moon in the cool of the morning (while letting dog out for morning release!).  About half an hour after the sun is rising so I don’t even need to switch on artificial lights - I pray until I can read properly, then do my devotions.  Right now about an hour and a quarter after waking up I can see the sunlight hitting the top branches f the Liquid Amber in next doors backyard.  It’s nice to wake so early instead of feeling like I’m behind when I wake at 8.30 or 9am.  I just hope it continues!  If it’s not in your routine to rise early, you should give it a go - getting up before the family is refreshing.

Poptropica.  A popular game designed for children.

The first I heard about from a friend.

Poptropica

On first discovering Poptropica,  I found I couldn’t open it on explorer, only firefox. Poptropica is a game for 6-15yo children. It’s designers have intentionally made it so that you can’t input anything that may be explicit or questionable.

The first thing your child (or you) would do is choose a automatically generated character, complete with a cool name like Sleepy Leopard or Hungry Jumper. Then they can customise the look by changing skin colour, hair style and colour and clothes.The character then has to go into the virtual world and explore, find and learn.

As you go through you’ll be prompted once to save the game, at this point you choose a screen name and password that is never seen by anyone but you have to remember it to login to your character again.

To leave you just close the window and it automatically remembers where you were and you go on from that point.

In the “cafes” you get to “interact” with other real people but all the conversation is pregenerated like “What is you favourite colour” and the answers are pregenerated so you can choose from “Red” or “Yellow”. While in the “cafes” you can “battle” as well, by playing games such as; soduko, paintwar, skidiving or hoops.

There are different islands to explore and conquer, each of them have things you can gain and use on other islands, like the ability to fly etc.

TIP: As you go along click on the different people that are just hanging around, they’ll tell you helpful stuff.

If you have found out anything more about Poptropica, feel free to leave a comment so others can read it.

In this current climate - everyone seems to be paring down to the bare necessities.  I had to do this when hubby left his job and decided to study over 12 months ago.  I find the biggest change is eating a lot less meat.  We also have not done our big spend-up down in the city for a long time and when we do, we only buy necessary things, like winter clothes and things we can’t get instead of wants, like DVD’s.

One of the things that I didn’t do was get our cat immunised.  Some may be gasping in horror, others may be thinking, so what.  I don’t generally agree with immunisation, but for Chloe to be boarded at the vet, she needs to be protected from possible infections.

Because we haven’t been down to Perth in AGES it just hasn’t been needed.  But today is the big day.  Chloe is getting her immunisation, then another booster after that then there’s an exclusion time before she can be boarded.

Apart from that, today I need to shop for the fortnight and do a bit of washing.  The girls are happy it’s the weekend and the girl  next door has a friend sleeping over so there are 4 of them to play together.  So I’m pretty sure they’ll be playing all day!

Time for breakfast and getting ready for the weekend.

Hope yours is relaxing.