Volcanoes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwLYFwjhgaw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbTFkPxwhTM&feature=related You have to go to the end of this one to see the most spectacular!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=488BkTUsMa4&feature=fvw

This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8W_sGYAQlc and thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEy2pdb5_VA&feature=related are Mt Ruapehu which exploded in NZ in '95, the year Joshua was born. We lived just a few hours away from the volcano in New Plymouth, near Taranaki! This is awesome footage!

And here is White Island, which we could see off the coast when we went walking on the beaches when we lived in Tauranga, NZ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xyr1Ql74m0 and this is what we would have seen from the distance, if strolling on the beach on a clear day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsQhHKhYhRI&feature=related

Top 1o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiU7_Mpn_lc

Volcanoes of long ago:

Here is information about the volcano that destroyed the pink and white terraces in NZ in the 1800's http://www.newzealandadventure.co.nz/mt_tarawera.htm
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i1/tarawera.asp
http://www.buriedvillage.co.nz/

History of volcanoes http://library.thinkquest.org/C003603/english/volcanoes/casestudies.shtml

God is grieved

God is grieved more by our bitter feelings, our lack of love, our hate and envy--than He is with little omissions in religious ceremonies and formalities.

By J. R. Miller, "Devotional Hours with the Bible" 1909

Good Worship

Worship .... I think most Christians today are blessed to understand, that worship is every aspect of our life...the entire day and night of loving God, and adoringly doing all to please him in every way!

But in the church context there is often a muddling of ideas. Our aim should always be to be perfectly focused on our God and nothing should distract us from the purpose of bringing public focus entirely on God. There is no room for performance or entertainment. There is no room for people focus or a 'me, me, me' focus. We should look at every aspect of our wonderful creator as is possible in the given time. Or slowly develop one aspect of his character for meditation and deep pleasure of who our awesome God is.

Like a jewelery artist who is given a very valuable gem and must study it before he makes something out of it. So we too should see God as our treasure and enjoy just gasping at who He is. Or like an artist who is given the gift of a master's painting. He is filled with delight. He looks close, he looks from further aback but he cannot take his eyes of the delightful feast. He cannot contain the joy as he looks on at the beauty. So we too in public worship should be moved to worship our God of beauty without distraction from the joy of who our Lord is. He does not need props. He is God and in Him there is joy, and enough of it too. For there is joy to be found in knowing and understanding who he is.There is no performer who can bring that to us, no entertainer, no atmosphere. It is God who is to be worshipped alone. And in this is there true joy that will last!

We should never be moved emotionally because of music or atmosphere, for this is not worship. Worship is a total adoration, and knowledge of who God is and what He has done for us, by His grace! Tonight we heard Jonathan Saffarti talk about how complex each cell is in our bodies is, with a little engine making energy and a little something else moving protein from a to b along a little track, with two little leg like things and there is so much more in the complex DNA system of each cell....this God who is in control of every cell in our bodies is the God who keeps the universe in orbit. He touches each blade of grass, each rose petal with a dew drop. He paints a new sunset each night and new sunrise for each morn. He is the God who died for our sins - the price paid! He frees us from guilt. What an awesome, majestic, gracious God we serve!

May we serve Him well in our worship!

Good Preaching: What is it?

Good Preaching

A good sermon should set your heart on fire with a passionate love and adoration for your Creator, His word, His world and the people in His world. You should takes the gems found in a good sermon and go back to the scriptures, preferably literally - but if need be,due to time constraints or physical circumstances, only in your mind and this should be an ongoing process through the week. You should then let these gems mould your character and change your way of thinking and living without distraction or compromise.

A good sermon does not end with a prayer at the end of the service but with a wonderfully good change in our everyday worship and adoration of God in all we do through the week... for as we see God more clearly we are inspired and in fact cannot help ourselves but to love Him more dearly.

If one has reached a point of thinking you have learnt it all, you have learnt nothing at all! And a good preacher should make you realize this each time he opens the word of God for you! For we can as human beings never know God well enough and therefore never love Him as much as He deserves.

2Timothy 3: 14 - 17 But you must continue in all things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. That the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I would like to build a list of links that will take you to good sermons to listen to. In our modern day and age we are wonderfully blessed to be linked up via the internet to some of the most gifted preachers and most Godly men that the world has known. I say this not to set these men on a special pedestal but to encourage you to listen to some of these sermons and see just how wonderful it is to be touched by the word of God in this way! Let me know if you can suggest others!

(1) Here is our first link, http://www.sermonaudio.com/main.asp

For years in Tauranga Al Martin complimented our preaching as we were a small group with no full time pastor (good preaching takes many hours a week to prepare for) Al Martin preached to us in our lounge or in other homes as we met together as a small group, when it was too much for our working men to prepare a sermon and Bible study each week. Some people may have looked at us and thought 'poor them' but those years were our richest years in terms of spiritual growth. And such growth is available to all who want it now with the internet making things so accessible. It was a sermon preached by Al Martin on Christian education that convinced us when Jessica was a baby that we would home school, so for us the repercussions of listening to good preaching have been tremendous on a practical level. This is a very obvious example but I am sure in hundreds of other ways good preaching effects our daily lives.

(2) I have been receiving Grace Gems Daily Devotional (old puritan writings) for a while now and have found them encouraging, here is their audio sight http://www.gracegems.org/Audio.htm

And here is their home page http://www.gracegems.org/

(3) Monergism has a great list of links to good sermons http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Apologetics/Audio-and-Multimedia/

(4) Stuart Olyott has good sermons that you can download. Here is the home page http://www.knowyourbiblerecordings.org/

The series, "This we Believe "is a series based around the outline of the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith. See http://www.rbc.org.nz/library/olyott.html We have started listening to it as a family and my parents have been listening to them with their church group for some time now and can recommend them.

(5) Here is a good web site where you can download sermons from South Africa http://www.christchurchmidrand.co.za/resources.html Martin Morrison taught us at The ' Y' , while Doug and I were at UCT where we met each other.

(6)http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermon%20Series is the link for free John Macrthur semons.

(7) John Piper Sermons, you can also get many of his books downloaded for free.

(8) We have also enjoyed Timothy Keller's series on Hebrews. Although we do not know his other work.

(9) Sugested churches in greater Brisbane:

Berea Bible CHurch, Waloon QLD

Samford Baptist, QLD

Grace Gems devotional for today: Nursing a viper!

Nursing a viper!

(J. R. Miller, "Devotional Hours with the Bible" 1909)

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived." Colossians 3:5-7

A new life in Christ calls for the utter destruction of these evils. It is a shameful list which Paul names. It makes us ashamed to think that such qualities may belong to us--or may nest in our heart! Who would have thought that any these vile things could exist in anyone who wears the human form! Yet many of these ugly things are found in each of us! Our hearts are naturally cages of unclean birds!

What does Paul tell us we should do with these unholy things? He says we are to put them to death. When we find any evil thing in ourselves, we must kill it, for it is not right for it to live. An uncompromising war should be waged against all evil. He who cherishes any impurity in himself--is nursing a viper which will sting him to death by and by!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We have published J. R. Miller's short articles:

The New Life in Christ

Paul's Counsel to the Thessalonians

Grace Gems (choice ELECTRONIC books, sermons & quotes)

Grace Audio Treasures (choice AUDIO sermons)

Sovereign Grace Treasures (choice PRINTED books)

Ready, Steady, Sweetie

Here is the art Em (7yo) did today! Mt Barney. Drawn from a quilt I am still trying to finish!

We are in week eight of our ten week 1st term. Remember I told you that 'Em' was suddenly 'ready' for school work at the beginning of the term! At Christmas time she could barely remember two thirds of her alphabet at any given time. We would revise the ones she did not know intensively and she would promptly forget the others and so we would go around and around in circles, never managing to get it all in, in one go.

At the beginning of the term every single word had to be sounded out painfully, with little remembrance of the word, even if the word had been read a few seconds ago. (We are using a combination of Blue LLATL readers and SMILE educational toys and remedial reading program, readers and games. Much credit goes to SMILE! ) We played lots of games, had 'big kid' spelling tests, used work books along side readers, used flash cards etc and made all words 'fun'! This term I also introduced the 'ready, steady, sweetie' (lolly/confectionery) method!

It started with one lolly for every page of a reader, then one lolly for every reader/story, then one lolly for every 5, until we build up to 12 readers/stories for a lolly. And now we are ready and working on the next set of readers! ch sh and wh words, plus, "who, what, where, when, why and they" type words...for Em it is a miracle turn about! I am sure the lollies helped as did her precocious little 5 year old brother who reads faster and better than her, and so keeps her motivated to keep going! But in reality I know deep down inside, not even mountains of lollies could have made it happen last year or the year before. As she heads up to her 8th birthday this Easter I breath a sigh of relief for her sake....life is so much easier and so much more fun when you can read!

So where do I find the time in the day to listen to at least 12 readers two times over( two kids) twice a day, making 48 readers/stories to listen to? I spent the beginning of the term taking my 19 year old to TAFE (now she is using the bus!) and used driving time as 'read to Mom' time, in between talking to the 19 year old...not ideal but it worked. Now we are using our two year old JJ's potty time as reading time. The only problem is he insists on having his turn to 'read' too and we have to give him a chance to repeat some words from the reader as he looks on...it, no doubt, will sound funny and cute to you, but on an everyday basis it requires much patience on my part! Teaching a two year old to 'read' during potty time is not exactly my idea of fun, especially an exceedingly determined one who really is not ready to read! But I guess one of these days he will be a "ready, steady, sweetie". Right now he gets his sweeties for doing the right things in the potty and he also gets to watch one of his favourite DVDs, Little Bear or Love to Sing if the 'big one' goes in the right place at the right time. We have had two days of no TV for this little chap which as far as he is concerned is a national disaster! I think the penny will drop long before the national disaster gets any worse, or at least I hope so! AS I said it he is very determined, a nice way of saying strong willed, and he loves TV! Given half a chance he would watch all day every day!

I highly recommend the 'ready, steady, sweetie' method. Firstly your child needs to be 'ready', then you must be prepared to be kind and steady in working with them and they are the 'sweeties/sweetie pies' who get the reward of a sweetie. When my big kids were little I felt guilty for using lollies as 'bribes'! Now I see it as payment for work, a way to bless them and encourage them and after all who doesn't want to instill a good work ethic in their kids? How much I enjoy my precious sweet children, what sweeties they are indeed!

Politically Correct: Which feet are better?

"Politically Correct"...it's an odd animal of it's own kind. It changes and twists and turns as it pleases. It can be your friend but also your enemy all at the same time.

In South Africa I remember trying to be very polite and 'Politically Correct', so I wrote my first university sociology assignment with the word 'African' instead of 'Black'. Every single 'African' word was returned to me vigorously crossed out in dark repeated scribbles of emphatic red, with the comment... "I am Black and proud of it! Aren't you African too?"

Every since then I love to use the word 'Black' when I refer to my lovely fellow Africans. For me it symbolises the finally jubilant struggle my fellow South African had to be recognised as equals. To not use it takes away some of the pride and dignity these people have in who they are, it takes away part of their culture, history etc. I get so thrilled when I see a Black Mother with a baby on her back here in the middle of Brisbane carrying her child as as only a Southern African can skillfully carry a baby. I cannot resist going to a fellow sister and discovering and sharing where we come from , why we left, what we miss etc, etc. If I occasionally hear a clicking language my head whips around and I have to ask if they are speaking Xhosa, for although I have forgotten most of the little I knew, it is is the music of 'home' to my Capetonian ears. These days I have good number of relatives who are 'Black'. Yet I see no difference between us, as most people would see. They are my cousins children or my sister's spouse with names and personalities, people I wish distance had not kept us apart, as with all my family back in Africa.

Of course I am African, I was born in Africa, brought up in South Africa, of African parents. Africa is part of my heritage and I love Africa. Culturally I am still African. I can still imagine the smell of it's sea, its veld; the feel of it's wind and rain; the sound of it's thunderstorms and weaver birds... I am Africa, even though I am so far away from Africa.

Yet, here in Australia and New Zealand I am not considered 'African', South African, maybe, but not 'African' .... I have not got the black skin to match the word. And if I use the word, 'Black' to describe anyone else, I am considered rude. 'People of Colour' would be better/polite/politically correct. Although it covers a multitude of people whom I would not ever consider Black, so there is not a direct correlation between my, 'Black' and their 'People of Colour'.

African is is used here, to describe Black people from Africa. Aboriginal or Maori, Torres Strait, Fijian etc is also used....my problem being that I cannot always tell the difference, having not grown up here, so 'Islander' is used too, but that excludes Maoris and Aboriginals. In the end I often give up confused and just make sure I am warm and kind to all.

Another area of political correctness that interests me....are the liberties allowed to those who are not comfortable with my choice of an 'alternative' lifestyle. It would not be considered polite/politically correct for me, as a home educator, to suggest to anyone else to think of homeschooling as a favourable alternative unless my opinion was invited. But others who chose to educate their children other ways think that they can tell me not to home school. Or they can use homeschooling as an example of legalism (which it can be) but not balance it with encouragement and love.

Another one...it is not considered polite for me to encourage others to have more children as blessings, again, unless my opinion is invited but people see it as their right to tell me not to have any more children, and to discuss in depth my stupidity and it's consequences and how I can prevent more children in embarrassing and rude detail...

And yet another one...it is seen as simply stupid or mad or plain well oppressed to be 'barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.' Hay, I love being that person....I love to kick off my shoes and have the freedom to bake cookies with my kids and the joy of feeling a new darling kick against me as I work. Political correctness has stolen a basic pleasure of feeling good and free and blessed to have the privilege to stay at home and not earn any money. One feels semi guilty about choosing such a wonderful, freeing lifestyle. I see it as a tremendous privilege, an honour to be with my children all day! I appreciate my hubby hugely for going to work everyday, to enable me to nurture and teach our children at home. I think I have the better deal. I would hate to go off to work and leave someone else the pleasure of my own children!

Political correctness covers a multitude of issues too vast to even mention them all here...gay no longer means happy, a newly conceived baby is called a fetus, just in case you should not want it and should feel guilty about it, and so it goes on. Political Correctness has of course protected and educated many people over it's lifetime and we can appreciate it for that. Yet, I think political correctness is simply a replacement of good Christan morals/standards, respect for others and good old fashioned kindness. Morals, ethics, and etiquette have been replaced by this thing, 'political correctness'. The problem with political correctness is that it is simply based on current 'standards' that vary with time and culture.

Be politically correct all you like but do remember to be respectful and understanding and kind in the process. Not everyone has to think as you do, not everyone wants to hear how you think they should be like 'you' and not everyone has to feel guilty for not being 'you'. Hay, I still love and respect you for being 'you'! LOL

Which feet are better?

Same feet, just a different perspective!
(Photographs by Jessica Murray)