Bible in a Year (take two!)

I decided to start the Bible in a year again this year - actually I started a few days earlier at the end of December 2010 when I received this Bible...

I have officially done one week of readings and it's been quite good so far. Already once, the passage I read (and the verses that I highlighted) came up the day after - when the verses were the text used for the sermon in church! I remember thinking the night before, it's funny that not many sermons are preached about Enoch and then just like that, the very next morning the message was about how Enoch walked with God!

And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. 

Genesis 5:22-24 

What will be better this time round is that there's a group of us doing Bible in a Year with the same Bible, and hopefully, this will give the extra motivation and positive peer pressure to keep up with the readings. If you're interested, the link to the blog that we will be keeping is here

Thought it was also funny that Jon Acuff's Stuff Christians Like blogged about Bible in Year today too

We'll see how this goes in the coming year...

the candy cane

I wrote my first tract in time for Christmas Carolling! We ended up giving these out with mini candy canes attached to them to people that we met when we went carolling. Thought I would share it here...

The Candy Cane

It is not known how the candy cane came to be a Christmas tradition, but we can view it as a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.

Firstly, it’s shape. Turned upside down it is the letter ‘J’ for Jesus, turned the right way up, it is the shape of a shepherd’s staff to show that Jesus is the great Shepherd sent by God the Father to care for His sheep (us!). Secondly, it’s colours. A white background shows that Jesus lived His life on earth with purity – He never sinned. Unlike us, in His entire life Jesus never lied, stole, cheated, swore, envied, or did anything that broke God’s law (the Ten Commandments). The red stripes of the candy cane reflect the blood that Jesus shed on the cross – the three thin stripes remind us of His suffering, the one thick stripe shows that Jesus ultimately died on the cross to pay for the sins of all mankind.

Christmas is such a big deal because it celebrates the fact that God loved us so much that even though we did nothing to deserve it, He gave us the BEST GIFT we could ever hope for: eternal life through Jesus Christ – wrapped in the form of a baby in a manger!

If this is a gift that you would like to receive this Christmas, pray to God…

1. Admit that you are not perfect, that you have broken God’s law, and that you no longer want to live a life of sin
2. Believe that Jesus paid the debt of your sins on the cross, and accept the gift of being saved from the punishment of your sins (Hell)
3. Read the Bible and obey it. Find a good church that preaches the Bible to help you grow. And tell others the good news!

the year that was..

Can't believe Christmas is less than two weeks away! And the new year is about three weeks away... Where has this year gone? Doesn't seem like too long ago that twenty ten rolled round the corner and now it's rolling off into the distance again...

I found this little app on facebook that helped me reflect on the past 12 months. It's called My Year in Status Updates. Basically it grabs your status updates (or a selection thereof) and puts them together in a collage.

Mine came back like this...

Totally cool.

Year isn't over yet though. The next few weeks will be pretty busy but I'm totally looking forward to it!

Oh BTW - camp was GREAT! Will post some stuff up from there eventually :)

get ur tree on

It may be early, but the tree is officially up! Now for all the presents to go underneath yewww!

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cramming for camp

I decided last week that I will go to National Camp in Adelaide this year. Camp goes from 29 November to 3 December, and I booked my airfares on Friday (19 November) - kinda last minute, but I'm glad it's done.

The only thing I have left to do (other than pack) is to do my pre-camp reading of ALL the minor prophets! yowsers! So I have started cramming and doing big chunks of reading to try get through all 12 books. Praise the Lord that they are only minor prophets and some of the books are quite short!

It's funny that they are called minor prophets because what they have to say was pretty major - so far in my cramming, I have noticed common themes along the lines of 'watch out! God has been seeing what y'all been up to and He's not happy - y'all better watch out for the judgement, 'cos God is up-set and He gonna let y'all know about it really soon...'

It's not too often that you come across a solid section of the Bible devoted to God's judgement, so reading chapter after chapter about it has helped me to reflect on God's holiness and my own sinfulness.

It's a timely reminder.

Anyways, I still have heaps to go through so better not waste any more time blogging. Feels like I'm in school again haha!

am I lukewarm and lovin' it?

Watched this sermon on the weekend and it convicted me. Definitely a lot of things to think about here...

annual work conference

On the weekend, I was in Melbourne for my work's annual conference. We left on Thursday afternoon, arrived at midnight, and I headed back to Perth on Saturday night. It was a short trip, but it was just right if you ask me. The weather in Melbourne was pretty cold and wet so it was nice to come back to sunny Perth, sleep in my own bed and spend Sunday at church, and at home.

The hotel we stayed at was the Hilton in South Wharf, and it was pretty impressive. It's usually the small details that win me over with hotels, and for the Hilton, the attention to detail was definitely there: T2 teas, plunger coffee, Crabtree and Evelyn toiletries, bathtub, bathrobes, pillow menu, and an electric blind.

It was also Melbourne Cup weekend so the foyer had all these different horses - including one that paid homage to Elvis...

Breakfast was buffet-style with everything you could hope to eat during breakfast. Most importantly, they served some great coffee which helped pull me through the jetlag that came from losing three hours in transit. It was a nice mini getaway at work's expense so I lapped up every moment. I should also mention that I learnt lots at the conference part of it too!  

Because I have been to Melbourne a few times now, I am pretty familiar with it, so Friday morning, Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon gave me ample time for me to get my Melbourne fix - and by that I mean shopping. I managed to pick up a purse, a bag, a cardigan, a necklace, and some hair clips.  Not a bad effort at all.