What do you consider as your treasure? What is of the most value to you? Jesus Christ said in Luke 12:34,“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Is your treasure the kind that fades or rusts? Can it be easily stolen? If your answer is yes to both questions, then you are saving up the wrong kind of treasure. And your heart might be in the wrong place.
We have a little boy who is 4 years old. He has taught me many things in his short life time. But one thing parenthood has shown me is the wonder of a father’s love and how it is a reflection of God’s love for us.
You are to have no other gods before me. You are not to make for yourselves a carved image or any kind of representation of anything in heaven above, on the earth beneath or on the water below the shoreline. You are not to bow down to them or serve them; for I, ADONAI, your God, am a jealous God…
Exodus 20: 3-5a Complete Jewish Bible
It appears there is some recessive gene in my family, which expresses itself as you get older and makes you very interested in Hebrew word definitions.
It is disconcerting to be turning into older relatives in ways I did not expect but I am glad for it because it lights up the Bible in a whole new way.
The word translated ‘serve’ in the Ten Commandments above is the Hebrew abad which means “to work or serve”.
It is first used in Genesis 2 when humans are told to abad the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 2:5,15)
Micah had an asthma attack last night. It was around midnight, and he was crying that he couldn’t breathe. I rushed into the room with his inhaler and tried to calm him down so that he could get the ventolin puffs. But he was too distressed to take a good deep breath in. I tried to stay calm, but I was also panicking, because if he didn’t breathe in the much-needed medicine, he could literally run out of breath.
A few days ago, I was invited to attend a lecture hosted by The University of Melbourne Alumni (as a guest; I am not an alumni). I was reluctant at first because it would be presented by a professor from the School of Physics.
I have found myself thinking a lot about the situation around Israel Folau.
A lot of the debate around what has happened seems a bit reductive and seems to boil down to do I personally agree with him or not?
However there is, of course, a lot more going on.
It’s that time of year again. The weather starts to turn cold. The flu vaccination gets advertised. The winter lurgy begins to rear its ugly head. One by one your friends and colleagues succumb to its persistent and pervading powers.
While browsing the news this week I came across some sad news. Tam, one of the last remaining Sumatran Rhinos, has died. I guess it’s not really up there with some of the really terrible stuff in the news but it is symptomatic of how humans, as a whole, are treating the earth.
1See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
The wild animals honor me,
the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosenthe people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise. Isaiah 43: 19-21
So it rained properly in Alice Springs last weekend. For the first time in a long time.
When I lived in a city, rain was a bit of a nuisance. It made it harder to get places and do things.
Here in Alice it is a major event.
