Archive - August, 2009

Cell Phone versus The Bible

August 28, 2009 in Challenges with 63 Comments

bible2

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?

What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?

What if we flipped through it several times a day?

What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?

What if we used it to receive messages from the text?

What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?

What if we gave it to Kids as gifts?

What if we used it when we travelled?

What if we used it in case of emergency?

This is something to make you go..hmm. Where is my Bible?

Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don’t have to worry
about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill.

Makes you stop and think “where are my priorities?”

NO REJECTED calls!

NO FLAT BATTERY !!!

Think about this for a while…

Why do we not treat the Bible in this way?

Why are we worried about what other people are going to say about us carrying a Bible around with us?

Why is it, that some non-believers know the Bible better than we do?

Prayer Requests

August 26, 2009 in Challenges with 1 Comment

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Again, we have 2 babies and families that are in dire need of miraculous intervention form our Lord.

I want to ask you to join us in prayer for the following two cases

Please pray for Alecia and Christo’s baby girl, born 27 August 2009. She is currently in ICU weighing less than 700grams.

Please pray for her to stay healthy and to grow big and strong, so she can be a testimony for our Lord as a living miracle.

Please pray for Jean-Luc and his parents Johan and Leatitia.

Jean-Luc is a couple of months old and is having heart surgery tomorrow, 27 August 2009. Please pray for healing and peace and joy and a long life for him and his parents.

Thank you all

I am again trusting in the Lord to show us a miracle, as he did with the little baby girl a couple of months ago, and please post your prayers in the comment section of this post.

Walk on Water

August 26, 2009 in Challenges with 0 Comments

Matthew 14:29 (The Message)

He said, “Come ahead.”

Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, “Master, save me!”

walkinwater

This morning at the men’s Discipleship group, we were talking about what does grace mean to you in your life, and we went a bit further and started to talk about the supernatural things that God does.

While we were talking about there things, and talking about some really amazing testimonies, I couldn’t stop thinking about a scene in ‘The Shack’, where the main character walked with Jesus across a lake, on the water, and when they were set to return, he tried it on his own, only to start to sink. The scene culminates where Jesus takes his hand, and he rises to the surface, with Jesus saying, you see, it is easier if you do this with Me.

This got me thinking on my way to work, on how does this apply to me personally, and all I can say is, I try too many times to do things on my own, and with my own power…

Another thing is, how often do you really trust the Lord to do a miracle for you or through you? We as humans are so scared of the supernatural, and we often try to just rather not talk about it, and maybe we won’t be confronted by it all, but the fact of the matter is, there is a constant spiritual battle going on, and if we are not aware of it, we won’t be able to fight Satan when he decides to attack us.

I really think we should focus on Jesus, and go and sit in Him, and just allow Him to take the reigns in our life, and we will most definitely be surprised by what He does for and through us.

New author

August 25, 2009 in Challenges with 0 Comments

Hi all

Johan Lombaard has joined the Unsafe Challenge team, and will be posting every once in a while on some challenges that he experiences in his life journey.

Welcome Johan, and we are looking forward to you first post…

The old way has to go

August 24, 2009 in Challenges with 0 Comments

So last night at church our pastor carried on with his series on ‘This means war’

This is such a brilliant series on spiritual warfare. He went on to state that Ephesians are split in to three parts, to sit in the Lord, to walk in the Lord and to stand in the Lord, and that these three things are the order in which we are able to defeat the evil forces with the blood of Jesus Christ.

One verse that stood out for me in the sermon was Ephesians 4:17

And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can’t think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.

If this is not really in your face, and you think that you can make this out as just another verse, then there is still a long way to go for you, as this pretty much tells you straight on that God does not like these things, and as a warrior in the kingdom of God, you have to put these things behind you.

Thank You

August 21, 2009 in Challenges with 1 Comment

thank-you

Today, I can only say thank you.

My life is filled with wonderful people, from my wife through to friends and family.

Without putting names in this post, I just want to say thank you for all the prayer, support and friendship that I can share with all of you. Thanks for knowing that I can call you on anything, and if it is within your power, you will make an effort to help out.

I would also just like to say, the same goes for all of you from my side. Please feel free to ask anything, as small as it may seem to you, and if it is within my jurisdiction to do anything about it, I will definitely do everything within my power to try and make it happen.

I love all of you and I get seriously excited thinking about the future we all are going to have together.

Thank you Lord…

The Joy

August 20, 2009 in Challenges with 5 Comments

OK, so last night we started off with a musical show called 80′s Rewind. This is basically a show with some of the biggest 80′s hits, mixed into a radio scene for continuity.

After getting home after the show, I sat on the couch thinking back on the evening, and just realised that I was made for this. I love being on stage, using my God given talents to just make some music. The ultimate for me is making worship music, but every once in a while one needs to detach from it, and do something that you don’t do usually.

Now, I know Papa wants me to be making music to His glory, but how am I going to get there?

what does the road ahead look like in order for me to be able to make music on a more permanent basis?

A little bit of stress, and a whole lot of GRACE

August 18, 2009 in Challenges with 3 Comments

So, the last couple of days has been hectic around here due to some unneeded attacks from the enemy.

Firstly, I had one of the worst day in my life at a office on Friday, due to a bit of a personality clash between me and my boss, only to come home, and hearing my pregnant wife tell me that she started bleeding…

FLOOR

For the first time in my life, I fell helplessly on the bed, screaming to God, to get us out of this mess. I also let my brothers and sisters, in Christ, know about the situation, and all of them came to the party and prayed like heck for this test to pass us.

On top of all this, we are starting to do a show this week, which we have been practising for the whole weekend, as well as every night from last night and two weeks on, which meant, I wasn’t at home, to support my wife with our 17 month old girl, to help her stay quite. Luckily friends of ours came and took our girl for the day just to help out, and Susan, I can begin to tell you how much that meant to us…

In any case, we went to the gynaecologist yesterday, and according to him, there is nothing wrong with the baby, and to top it all, we heard the heartbeat for the first time as well, which just showed me the amazing grace God shows us in everything.

It was almost like Him just telling me that, as long as I bring everything to Him, it will be taken care of.

Thank you Lord for this little miracle, and thanks for everything You are going to be doing for a long time still in our lives.

A Crown of Thorns

August 15, 2009 in Challenges with 4 Comments

Another piece today from Louis Brittz

Jesus wore a crown of thorns and it was an ominous sign for generations to come. You can ask any real Christian who has been elevated onto some kind of throne and you will be told that it is a thorny business indeed. Sometimes the church crowns its own gloriously, but behind the shiny emeralds thorns are always hidden. Flesh breaks and blood is drawn. How long it takes for this to happen after the corronation, depends of course on how thickheaded the newly corronated is.

One has scarcely been elevated, marked as some one special, or the scrutiny begins. You are looked upon with long, searching stares. They burn into the back of your head. They ask “Are you real? Are you worthy of the attention? Will you stand the test of time? Are you ‘the one’ who brings fresh answers, great gifts, new revelation? Are you really special, or is the hype just slick marketing ploys? Who put you up there and should you be up there? Did money or connections perhaps win you your position?”

These questions are always asked, and they must be. Without them we are elevated because of talent, charismatic communicating skills, ‘good’ breeding (as if we were horses), an academic qualification, a sexy image or just because somebody in authority passed a crown to us with a heartfelt God-bless-you.

These questions (and the people who ask them) are thorns that stick and sting, but without them our thick heads become bloated. We believe the great things people say about us and we stay on that throne far too comfortably and for far too long. And God would not have that if we let him have his way.

Every Christian leader in the world wears a crown of thorns. To fight it, or try and take it off, or have the thorns pulled out, is to forget the most important thing: We were crowned by God himself, and to be thus crowned is the greatest priviledge in the world. Nothing can compare, because it shows that God thought us worthy of it!

Yes, it will sit uncomfortably. It will become a heavy thing. But you can’t escape it if God has anointed you for leadership.
Be proud of it.
Be worthy of it.

Grace

August 14, 2009 in Challenges with 1 Comment

Galatians 2:19-21

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

This is just a piece of scripture that is really shaping my life at the moment.

I am at a place in my life, where I can only say thank you for all the grace that I am receiving. This stretches into everything in my life at the moment, from waking up to going to bed.

We are also busy pondering this very theme of grace in every part of our Christian Community. Be it at church, home church or discipleship group, and I am loving every moment of it.

The one thin however for me is, how complex this whole thing around grace can become, when one wants to start and mix it with the law.

These are just some thoughts from me on this topic, and please feel free to leave your own views on this, as you feel like.

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