John 4:34 - For those who are weak...

John 4:34 - "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

Matthew 11 (NLT) - 28 Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light."

Matthew 11 (NIV) - 28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Sometimes I feel weak... really weak...

Every find yourself flicking through channels because you don't feel you've got the energy to do anything else? Not that you're necessarily tired, but you just can't seem to leave whatever it is you're doing because that would mean facing the world. Or maybe it's just me.

Today's Thursday. On Thursday nights I teach new Christian courses, which is great. It's fun to watch the lights switch on for people. But it's also a huge responsibility, and so it can take a lot out of you at times. Sometimes I don't feel like I've got the energy to do it..

And so I'm left with a decision to make. Do I retreat and continue to follow the path of least resistance, do nothing? I can easily rationalise this with a theology that says "if you doing it and it doesn't feel right, it's not God's will for you to be doing it". Or do I beat my flesh, crucify the flesh and persist?

In this instance, I'm choosing the get over myself and help out. The verse that really spoke to me about this today is John 4:34 - when we step out and do the will of the father, He gives us strength. Emotional, physical, and spiritual food. And we use this to keep on going.

The scary thought in this is - what happens if we don't do the will of God? Do we become malnourished? I think perhaps so.

Matthew 11 is another good one. Verse 28 and 29 (if you read the too quickly, let's say for example if you're just trying to cover ground in your Bible reading) sound really nice and mushy... "give you rest"... "humble and gentle"... "perfectly... light".

But take a closer look at this, especially verse 30 - "my burden is light". He's not talking about removing burdens from us. That's not his strategy. His strategy is to help us grow in strength so we can carry more. Historically, what they'd do is they'd get a stronger bull and tie it (using a yoke) to the younger bull so they could work in partnership. In reality though, the stronger bull did all the work. The younger bull would get to pull just enough load to be able to develop the muscles to become stronger.

God does the same with us - he let's us experience just enough tension to pull us onward, to help us to grow in maturity. James 1:2-4 talks about this as well.

So I'm off to LDC now - it's going to be great. God is going to be there and he's going to help me grow stronger.

Hope this helps for those of you who might be struggling.

Ecclesiates 3:5 - No hugs for you...

A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.

This is messing with my head. It's in this fortnight's study for those of you in a Hillsong Connect Group. I'm not too sure I get it - why should there be a time to shun embracing? Being the touchy-feely guy that I am, I'm always looking to get hugs from people. Some of my friends spend there lives trying to avoid my hugs (you know who you are :P). Hi-5's all-round people...
I've looked at a few commentaries on this and found nothing. Most translations phrase it the same way (including the message, but see below for something interesting about that...).

Perhaps God is saying that there should come a time when we need to stand up on our own two feet, be an adult, and walk in the confidence God has given us? Not too sure. Feel free to leave a comment if you think of a reason.

Steve

*** On the Message side of things...

Let's look at how various translations express Eccl. 3:5a -

• NASB - "A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;"
• NKJV - "A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones;"
• NIV - "a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them"
• NLT - "A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones"

So far pretty similar, right? Check out the Message paraphrase...

• Message - "A right time to make love and another to abstain"

A Jewish metaphor perhaps? Maybe :) - but I checked the commentaries again and found nothing... Plus that's just plain stretching the imagination a bit too much I think... Just a warning to those of you who rely soly on the Message for your daily reading.

Blogs on myspace

Hi all,

You should check out my myspace profile sometime (www.myspace.com/steve_gore). I'll be writing some non-scriptural blogs on there from time to time. Just finished one on speeding and sex - yuh, check it out man...

Kudos to everyone who actually read this blog - I'm genuinely flattered.

Steve

2 Timothy 2:21 - I don't want to be Tupperware

2 Timothy 2 - 20 In a wealthy home some utensils are made of gold and silver, and some are made of wood and clay. The expensive utensils are used for special occasions, and the cheap ones are for everyday use. 21 If you keep yourself pure, you will be a utensil God can use for his purpose. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work.

Leviticus 24:4 - The lamps on the pure gold lampstand must be tended continually in the LORD's presence.

There's something about Tupperware that I find quite disturbing. I'm not too sure if it's the vivid flashbacks to grandma's house - with the moth balls and diabetes and... well, that vague sensation that they were both just hanging around to die.. or whether it was the smell it started to give out after a while... or whether it was people's morbid obsession with getting more of it.

I'm more of a minimalistic kind of guy - give me a stainless steel and chrome appliance any day. Clean, shiny, sleek - and if you're a knife, sharp.

In the Kingdom of God you have everyday vessels - the Tupperware - and you have the good stuff - the stainless steel, the platinum, the fine china (if you're that way inclined) etc. But the funny thing is that you get to choose what you will be. By being pure or otherwise.

But you already knew that, right? Fantastic. But today I learnt something new. Leviticus 24:4 stood out to me as I was doing some research - the lamps on the pure gold lampstand must be tended continually in the LORD's presence...

• "the lamps" represent the Holy Spirit. Also might refer to the giftings we've been given as in 2Ti 1:6 (distributed by the Holy Spirit)
• "pure gold lampstand" is you and me
• "must be tended continually" i.e. they require our constant, daily attention. Activity. Action.
• "in the LORD's presence" - we can't do this on our own. This involves drawing closer to God each day, renewing our relationship with Him, 'being being' filled with the Holy Spirit and being transformed into relationship with him.

I personally think that's a beautiful picture. Hopefully I've been able to put on paper what's in my heart (in an internet sort of way :)).

Not scriptural - but got to share this

Look what happens when you take God out of the picture.... are we really just a bunch of molecules flying around?
I so love Dilbert..