As I was reading the word today I came across this passage… It made me long to be of a different spirit; Just like Caleb was…
It is challenging when we think of what that really means. When we look at the life of Caleb, we see a man who lived by faith and not by sight, he saw the world around him as God saw it, then acted as God would act.
Let us all strive to be the Caleb’s of this generation. Who knows if we might see the real promised land without seeing death!
Sometimes we overlook treasures just because they live in plain sight, to today I want to share a little jewel of my household with you, it is a Cort Earth Series 150F which belongs to my Mum. it is a little neglected if you compare it to my regular guitar, but it is still a very nice instrument that I wish to share with you today. Continue reading
Well the time is fast approaching when I will be hiding behind the cross and delivering my first sermon, as we are now just two days away, I thought I would make a short post about it. It seems to have arrived all of a sudden and it is a little daunting but the overarching feeling is excitement, I cant wait to proclaim the gospel. as I am a person who likes to be prepared… make that over prepared, I feel as if I should have prepared more/better/sooner, however, I think if I had, I would be relying in my skills rather than the moving of the Holy Spirit.
Preaching is a spiritual transaction, not an intellectual one, so my greatest task this week is to fully surrender so the message will have not even the slightest hint of self in it. There is such amazing treasure to be found in the Gospel, studying it myself for this sermon has been a true growing experience as when you study it for yourself and you dig through the Word, you grasp and internalize that which you find much more readily than if you were to hear it second hand, so while preaching is a blessing to those who hear, I believe it is an even greater blessing to the one who is preparing and presenting it.
If you have every thought about preparing a sermon I strongly suggest you do so, even if you never plan on presenting it… you will grow spiritually…
The one truly universal language is Music, it communicates to the very soul of a receptive hearer, I have always had a great love for music from my earliest recollection of being a huge John Farnham fan, then Elvis, through the pop and techno music of my early teen years (which I now shudder at the thought of) unfortunately, this soon gave way to hip-hop/rap which is where my taste did abide for some time.
When I was about 12, I started to learn Bass Guitar which was a struggle to say the least, I just couldn’t “feel” the music but I persisted until i was about 15 when I moved away from the home of my youth in NSW to sunny Queensland, at this point my skill stagnated, the bass became a dust encrusted talking point in the corner of the room, it was coaxed into life by the occasional visitor but that was all, for over 4 years.
More recently my ears found the inexplicably unpredictable style of Jazz, which I got into, so much so that I went and got a fedora as I reached again for my Bass guitar, suddenly, I could “feel” music, this was an odd sensation as I had labored so hard with such meager results earlier in that decade of life, I started jamming with people when the option was presented, but as the Lord moved in my life so did my musical taste…
I lost my taste for jazz and R’n’B, and for a while didn’t listen to anything, it was like I was unintentionally cleansing my musical pallet, after this time, my love for acoustic sounds and harmonies grew and then it happened, whilst walking through my home, I noted the unplayed acoustic guitar in a cobweb ridden corner, looking almost bored with its own lot in life. I sat and tried to play the only chord I knew, D, and guess what… it sounded horrible, not unlike the sound that is made when you forget your favorite house-pet in the clothes dryer, but it was a start…
Soon thereafter I saw a friend of mine, an accomplished player and an inspired singer, who gave me a few pointers, this is what truly started my walk, that was about 6 months ago now, and since then I have acquired a guitar of my own, which was by divine appointment a great sounding guitar with a low price-tag, and I now play at every opportunity, not to perform, or impress people, but for praise.
I can tell you now, I am not naturally talented musically, if I was, I surely would have discovered it before now. My renewed desire to play was rooted in my longing to be able to worship my Savior in music, and indirectly to help others do the same, it was when I prayed this prayer that my hands seemed to find their skill, most assuredly I say unto you, this skill that I am in the process of obtaining was not hewn from natural ability, or even hard work and will power, indeed one hundred percent of the skill is a direct and free gift from my maker.
Goodmorning all!
Yes it is true, Inspiration has visited upon me, stay tuned for 2 upcoming posts… one spiritual one musical.
Yes it has been a long time coming but i am finally here to record the greatest day of my life…
I will start by giving you a brief prelude in saying, the path to my baptism has been a long and at times difficult one, but the wheels only started turning at full speed this year…
For those of you who don’t know Pastor Larry, please read this blog entry to provide some background on him… “Walk the Walk” . When Larry Called and suggested Baptism to me, I felt impressed to take the opportunity as for years I have left the timing of this event in God’s hands, and now it seemed to be his will, I was happy to take that step and it was quickly picked up By My Local Pastor, Frank Williams…
While I have always read my Bible, it was always in a somewhat intermittent fashion, but leading upto my baptism i knew that if i wanted God to be truly in control of my life it was going to take more than cursory reading of my Bible and Church attendance. So about a month before I was to be baptized I started driving down to the beach and spending an hour with God every morning, studying the Bible,and praying.
At first, it was a bit of a hassle, but soon the benefits started to show themselves, no longer was my faith blind, I had proof, references, information, and much more understanding than I had previously enjoyed or indeed expected.
This set me in a great place for my baptism, I was, on that day (and to now) totally sure of my Creator, what he did for me, and what i wanted to do for him, all my doubts were cast into the depths of the deepest sea… but those doubts were not alone, with them went my sins, My Saviour, Jesus Christ paid my debt many years ago on an old rugged cross. I accepted that free gift, and it gave me peace.
My Baptism turned into quite an event people came from far and near, many from Hervey Bay of course, the Samoan wing of my “family” came up from Brisbane and even interstate friends, Naomi and Collin Flew in from Sydney for the occasion…
Sabbath morning came, and I arrived at church amongst many well-wishes and smiles the day began, after a bit of running about, getting microphones sorted, the service started with the dedication of a new baby in the church, after which, Larry began his sermon on the rivers found in the bible, the rivers of life, discouragement, healing, restoration and living water, it was an amazing message made all the more amazing by Larry’s health, after over a year fighting a very aggressive Cancer, Larry was, to the glory of God, Finally in remission, although still a shadow of his former self, when he preached, it was with such power and joy, there was no question left in my mind that he was working in the power of the Holy spirit…
At the end of his sermon, the whole church was amazed by this Physically small, Spiritual Giant, at this point there was a special item by Steve who, as I mentioned earlier is part of my “family” on the Samoan side, he sang a song he had written for his own baptism only a couple of weeks beforehand called “In my Father’s presence” and it was Great, when God’s people commit themselves to his service he really does bestow amazing talents.
Frank, Larry and myself then went into the baptismal font, after Larry briefly recounted my story they Baptized me… getting Baptized is a very individual thing, people react to it differently, some experience euphoria, others weep, some feel absolutely nothing, in my case it was none of the above, it was a realization, for want of a better term, it felt like I was Commissioned into his service, like up until that point, it was a wrestle for my personal salvation and now I just want to work for him, helping guide people into a saving relationship with him.
Definitely the most powerful thing that has ever happened to me…
However, the day did not stop there it continued with about 50 friends/family coming back to my place for Lunch/fellowship etc. that Day had a profound impact on me, and I just want to share that joy with all who would listen.
A relationship with God means living With Joy as your constant companion, that does not mean you will be happy all the time (in fact quite the contrary), there is a chasm of difference between joy and happiness, happiness is an emotion based on your circumstances, but True joy, is an attitude to life knowing that regardless of how bad the situation becomes you are under the care of the Creator and nobody can take that Joy from you.
I think Paul Said it best in Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” That is to say (if you read the context of that passage) while I live, I will joyfully work for Christ and if I die in that pursuit, that is ok too, because the next concious thought I have will be The Second Coming of Jesus and I will be Going to Heaven with him. Not only does that allow you to live a life of purpose and victory, it conquors the biggest fear of all, Death.
May God Bless anyone reading this Post, I hope it has encouraged you, and if not, I hope it has provided a window for you to see the changes in my life.
|G|Luke|
Well it all started on that fateful day… the 29th of April 1996 when I awoke on the morning of my 8th birthday, to find a shiny, very cool, AMD 486DX based, Windows 3.1 rig, (the CPU of which can still be found on my shelf for posterity) this was a true shock to me, a computer was the pinnacle of ‘awesome’ as far as I was concerned, and I had one at my command, granted, all I used it for was Dangerous Dave Warcraft1 and Llamaxtron, but it was the first taste, the gateway, if you will, to the Tech Odyssey my life soon became…
A few short years later, there was the purchase of a family computer, an IBM Aptiva no less, with it’s snazzy Heart, bearing the inscription “AMD K6 200Mhz” this Machine of legend was the conduit of my first internet experience, my first CD burning exercise, not to mention my first foray into the worlds of SimCity and Age of EmpiresII… I was never the same…
All of a sudden, information was at my fingertips it was like the Raw data was coursing through my veins, and coolness was oozing from my every pore… I had an email address, and not just any email address… a Hotmail address, I signed up for this under the tuition of a certain Friend by the name of Megan (AKA:Megie, Spot, Venus, and many more) and if i have any luck at all, she will not be able to recall and post what the address was…
My next problem was a familiar one to most of us… an economic problem… I lacked the ‘economy’ to purchase a Laptop which was truly the desire of my heart, so i dreamed about it and talked about it, until it was an all-consuming hunger for portable computing, at which time I began washing cars to earn enough of the folding stuff to accomplish my goal.
I became a master of suds for about 2 years at which point I became the master (and commander) of my Duron Powered Compaq Presario 735, my first Windows XP based rig, it was more than excellent until it failed, failed and … yep… you guesed it… failed again, at this point HP conceded that there was a major problem and gave me a newer Athlon Based Compaq which served me well through my highschooling.
By another twist of fate, after years of faithful service it broke down although, this time, it was lost by the repair agent and to make a long story a medium length one, i was awarded an Intel Centrino based Presario V4004 for my trouble, and this was the machine upon which i discovered the Performance enhancing Drug they call ‘Broadband’ and what an addictive substance it was, as a matter of fact, 4 years on and i STILL have not been able to get off it…
Presario V4004
With the advent of this ‘Broadband’ i found the wonderful online world of Forums, my first brush with these Knowledge infested playgrounds, was over at Atomic (the forum attached to a niche Tech Magazine i was fond of at the time) thankfully this was in the golden days of atomic when it was actually a cool place to be, back in the days of legend when Ashton Mills was still the editor, there was no such thing as advertorials and they were still owned by AJB Publishing. It was there in those dank caverns i learned the dark arts of IT, and in time Built my own Rig which became affectionately known as Beast Box 1.0, it had the power of an AMD 3800+ X2 coursing through its circuits and 2 Gig of RAM feeding the fire it was here, on this Rig that i truly developed a love of Linux i traversed many different distros until i arrived at Debian… and thus i lived in the Raw, beautiful, frustrating and dangerous lands of Linux for the next 2 years, all the while shunning the evil rolling fields of Windows.
Beast Box 1.0
It was During the Tenant of Beastbox 1.0 that i discovered my next forum, a better, smarter, more potent forum, there were fewer people,but the attitude and knowledge displayed by the denizens of this Utopian forum was unlike any online culture i have seen before or since, this Valhalla of the internet was speedlabs.org.
It was there, in that backwater corner of the internet, I discovered my love for Graphic Design, at the beginning i was using the Free linux graphics application, called ‘GIMP’ little did i know, this was merely a stepping stone on my journey…
At this time i was working for Leading Edge Electronics , my Manager, a devoted macolyte, Taught me how to sell the range of Mac computers… over the coming months I would sell many of these peculiar white computers, and eventually after convincing so many customers of their benefits, indeed, i convinced myself…
Today my Workstation is adorned with the lofty, regal figure of a Dual CPU, Dual Core Xeon powered, Mac Pro, 2 LCD screens for the Graphic Design work i now do, thanks to the skills Speedlabs inspired me to find, no longer do i use GIMP but the Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash etc.
My Current Workstation
However, not being ready to Let go of my Linux Heritage, I now also possess a 7″ Asus eeepc, their ulltra-portable laptop, which runs linux, right out of the box, this is what i use for most of my blogging and chatting.
Thus you now have the whole story, my Tech life is forever recorded in the blogosphere of history.
feel free to make comments
Musings of Luke 