The meaning of strife

How much more will He give the Holy Spirit

2006-11-28T19:45:00.000+11:00

Well here you go bec,I've finally gottenaround to publishing something.

I realised I needed to acknowledge that God has been faithful in answering big prayers lately. And undoubtedly many more than I can imagine, and it takes me back to the promise in Luke 11 (v. 13). And that's a promise. Not a wavering uncertain question, but a rock hard guarantee. And God has shown that to be true in my life. In asking to be compassionate towards others, to be given wisdom, to me made humble (that was a big one), to be devoted to God alone rather than fleeting pleasures (another biggy) -- in essence I've been asking for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in my life.

It's amazing how much we can know in our heads, while our hearts can demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge. Our minds can be full of wise words, but they are worth nothing unless we apply and learn those lessons in our Heart, in turn producing fruits of character. When people examine the christian faith, they will critique our character before they even consider the Truth behind it. In this way we Love the Lord our God with Hearts and Minds. Soul and strength are things God might teach me more about another day.

So praise be to God for answered prayer. He is faithful, and will continue to be faithful throughout eternity.

2006-08-25T16:27:00.000+10:00

It's greyscale!

Forgive as the Lord forgave you

2006-02-11T14:33:00.000+11:00

Forgive as the Lord forgave you (Colissians 3:13)

I've been thinking on the topic of forgiveness lately, probably because there has been a particular person I have wronged lately who will remain nameless, but my feelings have been those towards "I don't feel like I have really been forgiven", and I feel like I keep on having to say sorry.

Well I know I don't need to keep on saying sorry, but too often I hear people say "nah it doesn't matter" or don't worry about it. But the truth of the matter most, if not all of the time is that it does matter. It matters to the person who was wronged and the person who sinned against them.

By saying that it doesn't matter you are saying that their actions were acceptable, that you deserved the wrong treatment. And if you are the one saying sorry, you feel overly emotional, and sorry about that as well, but unable to apologise because you know the response won't be forgiveness.

When god forgives, he doesn't say "it doesn't matter" or "don't worry". He is perfect and genuine in his response saying "I forgive you. As far as the east is from the west i seperate your transgressions from you." (Paraphrased from Psalm 103:12).

I feel a sliver of God's passion on this issue. Those are the words I want to hear when I say sorry, and that is why I quoted Paul on his command to "forgive as god forgives". We all have so much to learn about forgiveness. Next time someone has the humility to offer you apology, offer them the humility on your part to grant them your forgiveness verbally and definitely.

The west is a long way from the east.

Another dream

2005-12-09T07:00:00.000+11:00

TOD (Time of dream: approx 6:25 am; time of alarm: 6:30 am; time this script was completed: 6:55am, all on the Friday morning of the 9^th of December, 2005.

I had a dream in which supernaturally the instantaneous will of God was revealed on a scroll for every person in my life name by name a word of direction. I think I was with Alex, or Tom, or most likely Brendan - in fact my memory of it is blurry so I think that might have been an unimportant detail - and were were poring over these scrolls.

Earlier in the dream I think we were reading scripts from Jeremiah, so that is the book of the bible I will be reading after this.

So as we were reading the revelations from God, the scene changed dramatically twice at least, the first we were walking to school, where one of my enemies was trying to give me advice on a recent relationship problem that I think is dealt with.

It then changed again to the indoor scene in which my physics teacher was teaching us, and a music teacher from some faculty of a compulsory subject had interrupted the class to get us to take some notes on some work we were to be doing. She concluded by saying “Thank you for your work”. I think that might have something to do with my attitude to English (I originally thought music and I don't know why).

It was then revealed to me in a blurry sentence something very cool. Think white background because the scene changed back to the scroll one. Every word i was unsure about, and I think God wanted me to hear just one. Autonomous. In the dream I was looking up the definition of this word in my dictionary and it said get rid of this evil. So much for a definition. I was then thrust from my dream, and I woke up. Autonomous was still ringing in my mind and I didn't want to lose this. I had no idea what it meant, i wasn't even sure it was a word, so there was one place to go: the dictionary. The definition for autonomous is this:

autonomous adj. Self-governing or independent.

That seems pretty straight forward. I want to see how autonomy stands in the context of Jeremiah. By the way in my bible study group yesterday I was thinking of reading Jeremiah. I'm thinking maybe Brendan's likeness to Nehemiah or whatever might be paralleled as mine to Jeremiah, so this is pretty strong stuff. Seems a little coincidental? Coincidence my ass!

I think this bridges neatly into what we were talking about in study yesterday. About honoring parents. I need to be governed not by myself, but submit to the authorities of my Father. I use that term collectively - both my biological father and God the Father – because I need to learn to submit to one before I'll know how to submit to the other.

The unseen

2005-11-23T19:47:00.000+11:00

Have you ever just come out of the cinema with a newfound passion, a great joy, an inspiration or even epiphany that makes you really want to do something with your life? I know I have many a time, and the most memorable films are those good triumphs over evil, and I say, "I want to be a hero like that!"

A week later that sentence is probably forgotten, reduced to a fleeting emotion. You probably don't even realise that you've just drifted back into the daily grind. You might think about that naive boast but just dismiss it because "I was just feeling the emotions", or "like I'd be that kind of hero anyway". Maybe you're both honest and optimistic - "yeah I know anything is possible with God, but it's just too hard". You might think that It will happen, just not for a long time.

But hey, don't we all love that rush which comes from outsmarting the bad guys, quashing the plans of evil once again while sweeping that female accomplice off her feet in a fairytale ending? (or being the object of fascination and affection of the man who just saved your life, not to mention the lives of over 1 million others?) Or at least if we don't know that rush, we once did.

And doesn't this hit a spot spiritually? Don't we all want to be part of something big? Don't we all want to be a hero, save many from the fire of hell? I do, but something stops this all from happening. For me it's attitudes like "I'm too young", "I don't know how", "I don't know all the answers yet", "I might fail". I think they are all pretty common answers to that question, and quite legitimate in a non-spiritual sense - how many space agencies would send a 17 year old into space to blow up an asteroid before it hits Earth? However, thise attitudes amount to wimpy in the face of Ephesians 6 because we have been given everything we need.

But then again, how many Christians are prepared to act knowing that doing works in faith will see success. Deeper yet, how many Christians live aware of the spiritual battle that Paul presents to us in that Ephesians passage? It's a very real battle at that, one in which most of us are physically blind to. It took 21 days for an angel to break through enemy lines to reach Daniel in the OT. It's somewhat strange to think of spiritual warfare to be so... realistic.

But it is here and it is now, and we've all been under fire spiritually, in attempts to strip us of our heavenly armor, and our heavenly glory we have in the ressurection of Christ. A renewed glory like that which humanity had before the fall! Whoa cool! That makes us powerful as Christians, that makes us hero/heroin material!

Now I'm starting to see what Christian authors mean when they say "guarding the heart". On my old blog I posted on John Eldridge's book "Wild at Heart" and how at the end he quotes "Don't ask yourself what the world needs, because what the world needs is men who have come alive". In his new book "Waking the Dead" he goes off, seriously. I've only just started reading this book and that in itself has been a spiritual battle. I really don't think Satan want's me reading this stuff!

In this book John Eldridge quotes Prov 4:23 and says that the heart is the wellspring of life. It is also the source of courage. I might have to leave it there and pick that up another time. This book is so full of stuff and I just have to keep reading. I also have heaps of homework to do. This might have to be a two part post. Please send me your comments.

Oh and please test anything I say with scripture and correct me, I'm a young guy!

I'm Neo!

2005-11-22T22:00:00.000+11:00

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.

What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

How cool is that? I'm stokoed, but so far it seems everyone is neo.... hmmm.

I'm back!

2005-11-20T11:05:00.000+11:00

ThAt'S RIGHT!

You know what? Paying for web hosting really sucks, even if you do get complete control over the blogging experience. Truth of the matter is blogs are blogs, and no-one cares about your no. 1 listing in ninemsn, or your domain name.
"Yeah, thanks thanks for telling me that now!"
"Exactly, so shutup sarcastic self!"
No it's not late at night and I'm not intaxicoted. So shutup! Good old Madahoohah.

So welcome back to the world that is not petercurtis.id.au; a new beginning in the conformist era of the Petestican blogging regime! You're gonna love it or ignore it, or maybe just like it

..."so shutup!" - In other words, the comment link thinks you are cute ;-)

blog has moved

2005-07-31T13:25:00.000+10:00

BLOG HAS MOVED!!! ... after a very long time of not blogging much at all.

Ahem. Blog has SO NOT moved. Stay here! Blogger is your friend!

So just go and hop along to http://www.petercurtis.id.au/blog and fester around over there! This is all due to the new domain name.... yes.

microsoft in a can - better than spam

2005-05-31T20:40:00.000+10:00

Going through the routine clean up of computer stuff. I decided it would be cool to get rid of the copy of Office on my system. Along with that went a lot, of music, video files, etc, etc. My hard drive is already feeling a relief with 16.7gb free. yum. So now there is OpenOffice.org, and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Has anyone else decideded to go somewhat piracy-free like myself, or do you all think i'm crazy? I guess it's kindof a case of "if i had the money i'd pay for it". I must say i miss the sense of feeling that i'm using industry-standard leading-edge tools. I'll admit Microsoft isn't the best, but i'm not so worried about that. But point me to a decent open source equivalent of Photoshop. I don't think it exists. I'll give adobe the credit of saying that i think it's the only bit of software out there that's really worth paying for. All i need is Photoshop, and an REAL coders editor with code-completion, syntax highlighting, and some sort of code outline (borland does a good job with collapsable subroutines in the code view). Does anyone else feel this way? Joe?

That's all i have to say. I'm new to this blog stuff. Sorry if i'm too nerdy or cyber-centered.

My personality according to BBspot

2005-05-26T20:12:00.000+10:00

What a compliment

Which OS are You?

Which File Extension are You?

reality check

2005-05-25T21:01:00.000+10:00

Oh my gosh! For the first time in my guitaring life, i've broken a G-string on my own Maton. And it's a $10 string. Ok maybe you're saying, Come on, Pete, it happens to everyone, but it did come as a shock. I've already made a few scratches on this guitar that just turned up some day, and i'm starting to feel sorry for the poor thing. It's depressing enough to realise that your guitar has lost 25% of it's value (and looks) because of your own carelessness (i love it o so much). The loss of a string was just rubbing it in.

On a better note, i'm actually finding it satisfying after sitting down doing maths for an hour or so. If only i could do that at school. Apologies be to my parents for not listening to them when they say Study. Now i've just got to top an exam. Good luck.

So now there's not much else on my mind, apart from the realisation last night that i'm not happy with or without girls (not that girls will ever cease to make me smile, and i'll need one, one day). There's a gaping hole in my heart that only God can fill. I've always read this truth, and agreed that it's probably true, but after hitting a few walls, now i know. Small but much needed breakthrough.

...and i really want to go skiing again. I want to go wild and get into some action. Maybe snowboarding.

yet another blog

2005-05-25T18:24:00.000+10:00

...you say. I must admit that the existance of the blog is largely due to the promotion of MSN spaces, and i thought, "No, Microsoft!", so here I am happily supporting Blogger with the standalone-product-must-be-good philosophy embazloned in my mind.