sustaining word » faith

becoming a person of diligence

jazzmetalman — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:49:53 +0000

Prov 13:4 - The slacker craves, yet has nothing, but the diligent is fully satisfied. (HSCB)

I love this verse, partly because it uses the word “slacker”, but mainly because of the great truth and promise that it is. I must confess that after I took to using the Holman Christian Standard Bible I fell in love with its simplistic way of declaring truth – I know when I have been a slacker, and so does God!

Some commentators see this verse solely relating to a persons discipline with regards to work – I would conjecture that here would be a strong base of the old protestant work ethic of “God helps those who help themselves”. I want to dispel this interpretation of this verse – there is much more to it that just reward for hard personal effort! However, I would love $10 for every time I have shattered a believers attitude when explaining that that particular phrase is not a bible verse – not even in Hezekiah!

There are two key words as I see it – slacker and diligent and the outcomes of this verse are either negative or positive, depending on where you are at, or more to the point, where you remain. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines them as follows:

Slacker – a person who avoids work or effort. Originally used in the USA to describe a person who deliberately avoided military service. A modern usage is to describe a person characterised by apathy and aimlessness.

Diligent – to be careful and conscientious in one’s work or duties

The main reason why I don’t believe that this verse relates to our work life, but is talking about our “complete” life, is the usage of the word “soul” at the beginning of the verse. This has more to do with a person’s “heart desire”, than the outcome of effort and work. The intent of this word is that it describes the heart, the person, the very life of someone. It describes the very totality of who we are – the completeness of a person – a person who has been created in the image of God. But this happens to be a slacker, a sluggard, with cravings that will never be satisfied.

The terms sluggard, slacker, can be interchanged with lazy, but the basic meaning is to describe a person who is habitually lazy, with a strong implication that the person also displays no discipline and initiative. This lazy, ill disciplined person is further described by Solomon as someone who craves things. It’s not the kind of craving that a pregnant woman may have – it is far deeper than that. What Solomon was describing was a strong yearning, even a lusting for things. Yet , with all the lusting, yearning, and desiring that the slacker can muster, he ends up with nothing.

So, to paraphrase Solomon in the first part of this verse – The lazy, slack and ill-disciplined person will try and fill their life with things that consume their waking moments, but will receive nothing that they dream and yearn for.

But it gets better – look at the promise that comes after the handing down of the judgment to the slacker – let’s recap what Solomon declared – but the diligent is fully satisfied. How awesome is that! Diligence brings reward; diligence brings authority and diligence brings riches.

I believe that as Christians, we are called to be diligent, and not lazy. To some, this comes easy, but to others it requires a lot effort, work and discipline. Some people are born with self-discipline, others need it developed in their lives. But that’s why we have a God in Heaven, isn’t it? If we submit to Him, He will transform us.

For those of you like me who were created without a lot of discipline – i.e. with a sanguine personality, or if you are more of a phlegmatic type, we can take counsel from one of God’s smallest creations – the ant. Solomon makes a really valid point in Prov 6:6 – Go to the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise.

When i was a kid growing up in Sydney, we used to experience awesome and powerful summer thunderstorms – usually late in the afternoon. I reckon that I would have been around 10 or 11 before I realised that I could predict an upcoming thunderstorm just by watching the ants near the gate that was at the front of our driveway. From about an hour to an hour and-a-half before the thunderstorm would arrive, we would see all these ants scurrying around on the driveway trying to get things into their nest – if it was St Georges Terrace, it would have been a stampede. The ants were frenetic but they seemed to know what was coming, and what they had to do to protect themselves.

I guess that this was what Solomon was trying to portray when he commanded the slacker to go to the ant and observe its ways.

I’ll leave you with one scripture, Prov 10:4 Idle hands make one poor, but diligent hands bring riches.

Lord, make me diligent in spite of myself!!!!

my favourite 10 iPhone apps

jazzmetalman — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 10:07:05 +0000

It’s a new year, and I thought that I would list down my 10 favourite iPhone apps from 2009 and going into 2010. To keep it to 10, I have excluded the twenty or so apps that form part of iPhone OS 3.1.2 – for the record I only have a an iPhone 3G bought on the day of its release in Australia in July 2008.

In no particular oder, here they are:

Tecarta NIV – even though the NIV is not my Bible of preference, this is a great app to use during messages/study with it’s integrated note taking facility, from which you can email to yourself or friends. Four stars.
Drop7 – a really simple, addictive game that allows me quick breaks during the day. I don’t know what it says about me when I describe it as simple and addictive! Four stars.
Tweetie 2 – for me the best app for Twitter – great display of timelines, DMs etc. It’s used all day. Five stars.
Boxcar – push notifications for status updates from Twitter, Facebook etc. I use it for Twitter updates to see if I want to follow up in Tweetie 2. Four stars.
Kindle for iPhone – great companion for the Kindle. See my post on my initial thoughts on the kindle. Four stars.
Olive Tree Bible Reader – in my opinion, the BEST Bible app available. I have a number of versions, NKJV, ESV, HSCB and NLT, plus a heap of books (before I purchased the Kindle) – powerful searching, easy to use, good study tool when away from my laptop and home desktop. It has come in handy too many times to recount. Five stars.
Sygic Mobile Maps – I don’t use GPS navigation that often, but when I need to, Sygic is excellent. Hardly any lag time; good text to speech; and an always improving interface and product. Four and a half stars.
1Password – 1Password is a great app on the Mac platform, and this is the companion app for the iPhone. Stores web passwords and other key information such as PINs. Can also be utilised to generate extremely strong passwords for additional protection on the web. Four and a half stars.
Flight Control – a great game from a small Aussie developer. When you have a spare 5 to 15 minutes, the goal is to try and land planes on a series of different landing strips – an island, an aircradft carrier and outback Australia are three of the challenges. Great fun. Four and a half stars.
Evernote – a really good use of cloud computing. Online storage of documents at no charge for a reasonable monthly upload limit. Great to have 24/7 access to important documents. Four stars.

Other notables that didn’t make the cut are the official Arsenal app, Word Press 2.0, Things and CricInfo. These missed out as they are not essential, but they are great apps regardless.

listen to the herald

jazzmetalman — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:29:31 +0000

Tis nearly Christmas!

I love Christmas – the celebration amongst families and friends; the exchange of gifts; a short break from work; but most of all, it is the time where we remember the birth of Jesus. May it be sunny and fine if you live in the southern hemisphere, and may it be a white christmas in the northern hemisphere.

Without Christmas, there is no salvation, so this season always brings into the focus the gift that God gave to this world – His son, Jesus.

Enjoy this carol by The Blenders, and have a fantastic and a blessed Christmas!

a change in the climate change debate

jazzmetalman — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:13:51 +0000

It’s been an interesting time watching the world’s leaders, demonstrators, and a fair number of freeloaders descend upon Copenhagen for the great “Climate Change Conference”. I have never been a believer in climate change, going to back to the 1980′s when we were told that aerosol cans were bad for the ozone layer. This is not the forum to discuss the size of the carbon footprint that this conference takes up, but it is rather ironic that the participants don’t seem to be concerned about their current footprint.

The Australian media, if asked, would derisively describe me as a “climate change sceptic”, solely on the basis that I hold the position that the global climate has not been unduly influenced by the earth’s ever expanding population. John Finkelde, a highly repsected Pastor and leader in Perth, wrote a few days ago on the topic of himself being a global change agnostic. It was a great article and I encourage you to read it.

But it seems to me that the winds are changing – there is a more vocal objection in the media, albeit from right leaning columnists, but the amount of positive comments posted on the articles shows a trend towards, not just sceptiscism, but anger against those who will try to impose their beliefs upon us. It is here where it comes to a focal point – to many climate change apologists, it is a faith, a faith that will not allow challenge or scrutiny.

Two recent blogs highlight the increased vocal support by the ordinary person: Piers Akerman in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Melbourne’s Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt.

If you have ten minutes, below is an interview that the increasingly outspoken, and more importantly, increasingly heard, Lord Christopher Monckton conducts with a sincere Greenpeace supporter – alarmingly her “faith” is more valid than any fact. I encourage you to share the thoughts of Lord Monckton if you are concerned where the global leaders are planning to take all of our countries.

calls for change

jazzmetalman — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:19:21 +0000

In Rom 12:2, Paul gives the charge to the believers in Rome to transform or change their mind by allowing it to be renewed by the Spirit of God – Paul said the renewal, not the removal, of your mind! The New Century Version calls us to be changed from within to a new way of thinking.

The challenge that lies before all Christians is that we are to become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:13). As you would be aware, some people require more change than others in the path to attaining the full measure of Christ – for me, I have an extremely long road set before me. But it is the challenge of change, of growth, that motivates me onwards, even though the price of change is sometimes high.

John the Baptiser summed it all up in John 3:30 when, speaking of Jesus, he said, He must become greater; I must become less. In the NKJV the verse is translated with the words increase & decrease with the Greek meaning to enlarge and to lower. In our steps towards having a greater maturity, it is vital that we adopt John’s attitude as our own, as we undergo transformation and change, remembering that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. (Gal 2:20)

Not all change is progress, but all progress requires change.

It is how we approach change that determines how we come through the times of change & transition. There are three essential attitudes that we must embrace to see change take place in our lives:

the future will not be like the past
the future will not be like what we expect
the rate of change will be greater than in the past

twitter 10 commandments

jazzmetalman — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:19:43 +0000

Found these whilst I was stumbling around the web. You may have already seen them, but they’re worth a laugh or two.

If God Texts the Ten Commandments – by Jamie Quatro (here is where I found them)

no1 b4 me. srsly
dnt wrshp pix/idols
no omg’s
no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now;sun l8r)
pos ok – ur m&d r cool
dnt kill ppl
:-X only w/m8
dnt steal
dnt lie re:bf
dnt ogle ur bf’s m8, or ox, or dnky. myob

m, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl

ttyl, JHWH

ps. wwjd?

car shopping

jazzmetalman — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:00:40 +0000

I have spent the last couple of days looking for a car for my 17 year old. It brought back memories of my first car, a 1980 Toyota Corolla station wagon that I bought in late 1983 at a cost of $3,000. That was quite a bit back then and I wasn’t sure what we ‘d get in our budgeted range of $2,500 to $3,500.

Well, we got an awesome car, with a lot of thanks to some friends from our church who more than looked after us. So much so that my daughter and I feel blessed and humbled.

What was fun was the joy I saw in my daughter’s eyes as she looked upon her new car (of which she will pay 50%), but also the feeling I had that we were giving to her something that she will treasure.

It can’t be compared to what our Heavenly Father has given to us, but I can appreciate even more what He gave when He sent Jesus to earth for all of mankind. His love compelled Him to send Jesus, just as our love for our daughter compelled us to help her acquire her first car.

With gifts comes responsibility, something my daughter will start to experience tomorrow when we take delivery of her car.

wandering in the wilderness

jazzmetalman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:47:00 +0000

In our Christian walk we sometimes feel isolated and disconnected from God. Sometimes it is just a dry season, a winter in our faith, rather than a spring-time of refreshing.

However, many are the times when it is not a season of our life, but a time when we are walking in a wilderness, seemingly devoid of the presence of God. What we need to realise is that the wilderness is not limitless and unending but temporary and that God has provided the way for us to make a speedy exit.

Two instances, one in each testament, clearly indicate how we can make our exit, or how we maintain our wandering in the wilderness.

The first, in the Old Testament sees the nation of Israel wandering for forty years due to the inability of 10 men to believe the promises of God and obey Him when He set the future path for the nation.

Contrast this to Jesus in the New Testament as He went through the wilderness for forty days. His journey through the wilderness came to an end after He was obedient to His Father in every teat that HE faced.

Forty years or forty days – if it wasn’t for the disobedience and lack of faith of the 10 spies, Israel’s time in the wilderness would have been massively reduced. They paid a high price for their disobedience.

Lord, I want to be obedient.

everybody wants to go to heaven

jazzmetalman — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:17:00 +0000

This is not what you think it is. A great book by David Crowder – dealing with bluegrass, spirituality and death not being the ultimate bummer.

an interesting vp nominee

jazzmetalman — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:12:00 +0000

Watching the speech by the Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin was very interesting. I’m thinking, “have they chosen her to woo the Hilary supporters?”, as she made a very impressive speech. She seemed to be a confident and inspirational politician – but who had heard of her.

By the end of her speech I was thinking “what a great choice”. Move forward a day and the commentators were saying that Sarah Palin won’t garner many of the Hilary supporters because she “is a creationist and pro-life”. What I think are positive and highly commendable beliefs appear to many commentators to be a major liability.

How far has society fallen when being a creationist and pro-life condems you, despite you being an acknowledged person of integrity and honesty. Regardless of political preferences, surely character should be a benchmark for people.

As the US presidential race continues, I will be a keen observer of the progress of Sarah Palin. I wish her well.