Shepherd

After Ablaze Service on Friday I was heading back to HQ to drop off the van with Phil and we got talking, what were we talking about… well wouldn’t you like to know. So, I’ll tell you it was Torch. Yep, we were talking about our shepherd behind his back. That’s just the kind of people we are.

Ok, we weren’t talking bad about Him not at all but we were talking about how thankful we are to have him as a shepherd. We all know how busy Torch is (if not try and call him and most of times he is in a meeting… unless you call him at 3am then he is asleep) but yet he always makes time for us. He is always willing to take time to catch up or cook us some food if we are heading over to his place.

We never seem to realise how much these people do for us in the background. We see them cook for us, teach us, correct us (more for some than others), help us through situations, etc but how many times do we see them in their rooms crying over us. It never really clicked until one prayer meeting a while back that they asked us to pray for the shepherds in church and they were saying that they are our protectors against the Devil, that these people take the worst the Devil throws at us because they care for us that much, that they are the ones who put themselves in between us and the Devil.

So thanks Torch for being that person who puts himself in harms way, thanks for those times you lock yourself in your room and just prayed over me. I want to thank JP my ex (ex-shepherd that is not ex-anything else) who prayed for me everyday when I was under His care and prayed for like a week (possibly more… probably more) for me to start coming to Ablaze.

I hope that we never take these people for granted, think about those people who don’t have one in our group but want one so bad yet we are taking them for granted. Also another thing is ABUSE YOUR SHEPHERD not in the sense of ‘Hey shepherd you are overweight and have bad body odour and your fly is open’ but in the sense that you drain them dry just keeping going to them and getting stuff out of them. Get all the teachings, all the principles, all the convictions that they have and make them yours too (the Godly ones of course not saying that they are teaching us bad stuff but regardless of who teaches you, check what you’ve been taught against the Word of God).

Lets see more shepherds rise up in Ablaze.

Revival – just a thought

At ALC we talked a bit about revival. I was listening to a sermon and he said something so true.

“Honestly do you really want revival? How much do we want revival? A few meetings here and there? The truth is that its going to cost you EVERYTHING. Christianity is not a part of your life, if it is its nothing but rather its your life and it is going to cost you your life.”

This was something that hit me so hard. It made me think “How much has Christianity cost me? What has happened to me for the sake of His name? If revival is going to cost me everything, do I still want it?”

Testimony

Well if you guys were at church on Friday you know that I was on testimony, if not here it is. I pray that through this God will speak to you and that it encourages you in your walk with God. So here is its…

Tonight I want to testify how God has been faithful to me. About this time last year I moved from IGVO our high school group to PH because there were some certain things that I needed to deal with in my life. God has used that time from then to now to mature me, increase my capacity and to show that I can’t do this on my own. Back then I was a Pharisee, I was that white washed tomb, on the outside I looked good, I was doing all the right things but on the inside I was rotting away bad attitudes, bad motives and things that were against God’s will. However there was a point were it all came crashing down around me and God showed me that these certain areas needed to be changed even though I really didn’t want it.

 

One of the main areas that He showed that needed work was the area of trusting in Him with everything. I was at a point where I thought I could do it all on my own and that my abilities, my giftings, my talents could get me to where I wanted to be. Now this is an on going process I still at times struggle with it. Before it was placing trust in myself but recently it has been in others around me. About a month ago a close friend and I had a bit of a misunderstanding that turned out to be a big misunderstanding with both of us being annoyed at each other but since then has been fully resolved. During this time while I was praying to God to resolve this he showed me a vision.

 

There was a man in a room and all around him there were pillars and in the centre was this massive pillar. When the person got tired and weary he would rest against these pillars and but the more he put his weight on them they would all eventually fall and break. After a time of him leaning against different pillars and them falling down when too much weight was put on them. He made his way to the centre pillar and he was a bit unsure that he could lean on it without making it fall. So at the start he put a little weight on it, then a bit more, and a bit more until he was fully leaning against it.

 

After this God asked me what am I trusting to lean against? When the hard times come who do I choose to put my trust in? Is it myself? Is it friends? Family? What? For me it was friends, before it was myself but through this all God made me realise that I can truly trust only one thing in this life and that is God. I can lean on him and not be worried about Him failing me. I’m not saying that when the hard times come don’t look to the people around you but what I’m trying to say is what in life is your ultimate leaning against? Friends have arguments, families fail you, you let yourself down but God never fails, never lets you down and never lets things come between Him drawing his people back to Himself. If you’re in the same place as I have been I challenge you to ask yourself this question ‘What pillar am I leaning against?’

 

Thanks everyone who came up afterwards to encourage me, it means a lot, it spurs me on  and I can’t wait to see what else God has installed for us in the future. Love you all heaps – for the girls in a non-stumbling way, guys in a non-gay way… thought that I would clarify that it has needed to be done before.

Life After Uni

The other day I was at the bus stop waiting to go home after uni and a guy from high school saw me and we had a chat. He asked what I do at uni, how long I got left etc. and when I asked him the same questions he told me that he is finishing his IT degree this semester and that he has a job lined up that will earn him $150/hr for the 1st year and after 3yrs $350/hr and $650/hr after 10yrs if he does further training and he is good.

Now this is probably an exaggeration because he is one of those guys, but it got me thinking after uni when I get a job as a chemist. I’ll be earning 50k/yr but further than that when I become a youth pastor (which is my calling) I’ll be earning 30k/yr (btw these are averages). This isn’t much but it is neither of great importance because God at that time asked me ‘What if you were paid less than you need to live/support your family by the church? Would you give up and go back to being a chemist?’ This got me thinking but in the end being a youth pastor isn’t about having a comfortable life its not about the money, but about the salvations. So I told God ‘Ok, give me less than required to live, but for my income from You I want to see at least 1 salvation/week for the 1st year and after 3yrs 10 salvations/week and 100s of salvations/week after 10yrs.’

This is my prayer, this is my ‘contract’ with God. Everything on Earth will be gone, money won’t matter, all I have won’t matter but in the end it will be peoples lives that will truly matter, it will be the character of people and the people beside you when we truly go home.

Welcome

Hey guys

So I’ve started up a blog to be cool like everyone else… no not really God has really been prompting me to start a blog so I can share whats been happening in my life spiritually to both ppl directly in contact with me and ppl overseas. If my blog entry can spur on Ezekiel Joshua Slacks a 16yr old kid in Michigan to go that little bit further in Christ then this has fulfilled its purpose (I don’t know anyone by that name just an example – main point if it helps anyone to grow purpose fulfilled).

It has taken me some time to actually start this up a) because blogs annoy me a bit when its about ‘today I woke up at 10am and had a 5min shower rofl 1min over the 4mins allowed but I had to wash my hair… etc’  these types of blogs annoy me a bit cos I feel we should be doing something better with our time rather than blogging about shower times and  b) I’ve been procrastinating.

Overall blogging is a good idea and God has been speaking to me a bit lately, laying things on my heart. I tend to try to remember stuff but as all of us know we can’t remember everything and I don’t like writing cos I can’t read my own writing sometimes so blogging is the way to go to remember this stuff.

I hope that my blog will enrich peoples lives and by no means will this be something I refer ppl to when they ask ‘What’s God been teaching you lately?’ cos that annoys me too. If your right in front of me and taken your time to ask me that question I’m going to take the time to respond to whom ever it may be, everytime no matter how many times I have to repeat it.

Well yea so here comes a really post…..