To be more like Jesus

To be more like Jesus

Week 4

Ok where to begin!

This week was our first week at bible school. Spending 4 hours a day learning about God, faith and righteousness is most certainly changing my life.

My eyes were opened to a whole new world of Christian possibility’s and leaving me craving more of the scripture and spending time at the foot of the cross.

Which got me to thinking, if we truly want to get to know Jesus, why won’t we accept the gifts that he wants to give us? Wouldn’t these gifts help us know him more?

I mean if you look at it, we are simple sheep. We see someone that we admire, like a father figure or a celebrity or someone attractive, and we change the way we talk, or our fashion, or what we like, etc, to mirror these people.

But then we say “I want to be more like Jesus, I believe in Jesus, but I don’t think I want the gifts to help know him more.”

How come we can change so easily for someone of this earth, but we can’t accept God’s gifts that are given, to know him more?

I may see it differently to most people, but when I look at Jesus and think, how can I understand or know him better? Then I look at the bible and know that I can lay hands on the sick and have them recover, or speak in new tongues, or cast out demons. (I can proclaim this, as it’s written in Mark 16:16-18)

If I want to be more like Jesus why not use the gifts like that as Jesus did?

So if we look at that one example of the scripture that Jesus said, why wouldn’t you just pray for the opportunities, so that you too can perform the miracles that Jesus did?

Although we don’t need to do any of this to get salvation, my question is why would you just want to do the bare minimum? If you love someone don’t you give them all?

So I’m going to leave you all with that thought this week.

And hope that you all have a great weekend.

A Greater Foundation

A Greater Foundation

Week 3

1 Corinthians 3:11 “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ”

 

Listening to a song tonight, some words jumped out in the song and punched me in the face.

“Sometimes we have to watch our whole lives fall apart,
before we can rebuild them again,
a greater foundation.”

As you can probably tell by the lyrics I’ve struggled a little bit this week, I think the pressure of no work and money coming in, has hit home.

I’m still standing strong that God will provide, but I just need more faith I suppose.

This week I have done a lot of refection, and thought a lot of things that I have caused in the last few years. Most not pretty and I have hurt a lot of people with my actions.

Sitting and waiting on the Lord tonight, I was reminded that I would blog good and bad times.

So here I go.

The words of this song mean a lot to me, and upon reflecting on what has happened over recent years, I know I’m slowly building a true foundation, one of Christ. And like all construction, if you try and rush it you will make mistakes, and you can’t expect it all to go smoothly. Sometimes there will be set backs, and sometimes you can feel that you have built nothing new. So at this time I’m feeling like I have not built much, and I’m rushing too much to try and see the end product.

I mean I know deep in my heart that God wants to use me, and will do big things this year, I just have wanted to know what he wants.

I remember sitting in church on Sunday really trying to focus on the sermon, thinking what was God going to teach me today. I think I struggled so hard to try and listen to what he wanted, I ended up having a meltdown (one of the biggest I have ever had), at that stage I just prayed to God to free me from my autism. I was at the point of tears by the end of the service, feeling as though I had a huge void between myself and God. I could no longer feel his presence as I usually do.

So as I move into this week I’m still feeling a little flat, but knowing that Christ is helping rebuild my life one brick at a time on a greater foundation.

So I will leave you all with my promise:

“As we face distress we must not lose heart. We must stand fast and press on, as
triumph awaits.”

 

 

 

 

Strength

Strength

Week 2

2 Timothy 4:17

But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.

Wow!! What an interesting week.

This week has changed my life a fair bit. I am so thankful for his words. This week started off fairly dim. Our aim was to enrol my son into his new school and continue to search for a job.

Monday we went into the school and found it locked and closed, figured never mind we’ll come back tomorrow. Once again, it was closed with even the whole street blocked off for road works, so we stopped the car a block over and walked, only to find it locked again.

This was very frustrating for my wife and I, but at this stage I felt a calm come over me and I turned to my wife and said, “Maybe God is asking us to wait, I believe that we should pray and wait upon the Lord for his answer.

The job search has so far been frustrating as well, with no promising opportunities arising at all, despite applying for absolutely everything. But I know it’s in God’s hands, he will provide, and while I am still searching very hard, God has brought me a sense of peace about it all. I know not to stress. God didn’t send us up here to enrol in Bible College and then laugh at us when we have no money to afford it. He is our provider!

This week we also had one of the best family outings with the kids, spending a hot day at the shops and going to see a movie, Wreck it Ralph. To me this was one of the best days I have had in a long time.

The following day wasn’t nearly as nice, as our washing machine blew up and flooded our entire garage. Satan is still trying little shots at us but he got nothing on us now! God is just giving me such a sense of peace that instead of stressing about it and the money it would cost to buy a new one, I stood back and thought nothing of it as I knew God would provide for us. We are in great hands and doing what he wants of us. He is not going to sit back and watch us fall while doing his will.

We went looking for washing machines on Thursday, hoping to find a great price, sadly most were out of our price range. I remember trying to rush into just buying any washing machine, but God and I had different plans. Once again I brought it to God instead of listening to myself and was told to wait off and ask my best mate, Chris.

Funny enough, Chris called me that arvo and asked me if I could help out with some cleaning at the church, so I was able to ask him and he told me of a wholesale place, and I ended up saving a ton on a new washing machine.

So this is now bringing me to the highlight of my week - cleaning my new church. I know what you’re thinking, Aaron have you gone mad?? Did you just say that the highlight of your week was cleaning a church?

While this might sound funny, the experience I had while at the church has lifted my spirit 100% and will help me throughout this year.

Where do I start…

So there I was, vacuuming away and chilling to War of Ages blasting out of my headphones, when I was tapped on the shoulder by a guy that I had met probably once before briefly over a year ago.

He told me of a vision he was just given while walking past me in the church, and he believed that God had told him he needed to share it with me.

He explained of branches growing from my arms and roots bellowing deep into the ground. He gave me the word ‘Strength’, saying that he believed that I would be a great provider of Strength not only to my family, but to many other people.

At this stage I was filled with the Holy Spirit and I could feel God’s presence, it was amazing. This young man then asked if he could pray with me, laying on hands.

Now this is where it becomes a huge blessing.

He prayed a prayer that God would use me and help me and that I would be filled by the Holy Spirit more than ever before. Now here’s the “WOW” part. He then started talking of my 2 children, that they will be strengthened by my love for God, and that the dreams that I had a few years ago, God would for fill. (My first thought is how did this guy know I even had children, and of the dreams God had sent to me years earlier??) I then backhanded myself and realized “THIS WAS GOD, THE CREATER, OUR SAVER”, talking through him. I was more than happy, I was filled with joy and still am.

I pray that God will use me this year, that I may be a testament to God’s love and provision and show others that God is MY strength and provider.

Journey

Journey

a long and often difficult process of personal change and development

 

This year I thought I would try something new, I want to document my changes, the

 good and the bad throughout the year, to show God’s love and how he has taken and takes care of us.

 

Week 1.

So let me start by explaining my journey of how I got to where I am now.

Last year I applied for a job in the public service, to me this was the job I always wanted. Permanent with a 6 figure salary, challenging, able to provide for my family of two gorgeous little ones, (my son Zachary 7 years, who has the challenges of facing a life with Asperger’s Syndrome and ADHD and my daughter Aurora 4 years and my beautiful wife), I loved the field, loved the job, it was perfect.

During this process I became good friends with a few of my work colleges and found shortly after this that God had different plans for me. One of these friends was going through a real tough time in his personal life. His marriage was on the rocks, money issues, and to top that all off he had a really bad case of termites in his house. I felt that I needed to help this guy, as his situation was not ideal, oh did I mention that this friend was going for the very same position I was.

So over the course of time I used some of the skills God had given me and started to rebuild some the issue spots in his house that the termites had gotten to. One night I found myself talking to him about God, he asked if I wanted money for what I was doing for him and I replied to him that God gave me the gift to fix things and that this was a gift from God, not me.

That one night got me thinking about everything I was doing.  Information Technology was the field I was involved in and although I loved this work I always felt over the years that this was not what God had in store for me. Then I got to thinking about my very best mate, whom lives far away in Brisbane and how God was using him at the Rhema Family Church as a youth pastor and how God had transformed his life.

So I prayed.

 

Dear God,

I pray that you transform my life, so I hand this job situation over to you and ask that you give the position to my friend from work as I know that this would benefit him more. I pray for him in his current situation and that you will help heal him and bring him closer to you.

Amen

 

Little did I know, but that prayer would change my life forever.

 

A few weeks later I found that I did not get the job, and that my friend got it. Now you’re thinking I would have praised God for giving him this job, WRONG. In my stupid selfish ways, I cried out to God,

Why did you give the job to HIM?? You know full and well that I needed this JOB!

I was angry, I was saddened, but God being loving, reminded me that this is what I had asked for.

This was a huge wake up call so I started to reflect on what I had asked for and once again I started thinking of my very best mate in Brisbane, and this got me to thinking that the time might be perfect to enrol in Rhema Bible Collage and follow God’s calling instead of my own desires.

So after praying and talking with my beautiful wife, we took the plunge and applied for Bible School. This was a HUGE, hard step, as we were living in Canberra and the school was located in Brisbane. We had no money to pay for such a big move or for tuition fee’s, my wife had never lived anywhere but Canberra and in a short few weeks I would be unemployed. Very scary if you think about it! But we both came before the Lord and asked him that if this is what he wanted us to do, that he would make it possible. We promised we would do whatever he asked of us even though it seemed impossible. Through him the impossible is possible!

These next few weeks, confirmed full and well that this is what we should be doing.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

 

That verse would help us through the following month.

 

After that, we were accepted into Rhema Bible College! So we prayed again that if this is your will Lord, help us move our belonging and ourselves to Brisbane. The next few days where a blessing. I sold some of the spare equipment I had around the house and earned $1200 to put towards our move. My wife and I where thankful to God for the quick answer to prayer. Sadly satan had other plans, he started attacking my wife and I where it was going to hurt the most, money. Yup you guessed it he was going to try and make me broke so I could not get my family to Brisbane and ultimately Bible College.

 

After some prayer, God asked me to get rid of the things in my life I held higher than him. So I sold my skyline. This brought our money up high enough to get us all to Brisbane!!

 

But of course once again satan started his attack, and two days after I sold my skyline, our only other car, our family car, broke down with irreparable damage.

 

So to recap, I now had no transportation at all,  we had to be out of our rental property with two weeks and I was 1 week from being unemployed. This was really tough for me and my wife, as the money we had saved up for our move now had to be spent on a new car.

 

Once again God had a plan for us! A few weeks later, we had managed to move our family into my parent’s home, and I was able to sell my badly broken family car for scraps for $1500. After reflecting one night, I started seeing a pattern and could see that God was taking care of us no matter what happened, and that I was still trying to control too much and not give it all up to him.

So I changed, I gave it all up to him. I went up to Brisbane a week before Christmas with all my family owned even though we had no house to put our belonging into, knowing that God would make a way. I had 4 days to find my family a home and a car. Yep, that’s pretty silly when you think about it!  But I knew from how God was working in our life that he would provide for us. We were following his direction and fully relying on him for our needs!

In less than a week God gave us that home and car. The Lord is great! Again, the Lord is GREAT!!

I remember on the 15 hour truck trip heading back to Canberra, having one song playing over and over in my head.

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom power and love
Our God is an awesome God

How true is that! I look back now and think even through the tough times, he was there lifting us up and setting us on the journey towards getting to know him more.

Well, today is the 7^th of January 2013, my family is now living in Brisbane, and we are set to start College in two weeks time. We still need more money to continue living here and covering our tuition fee’s, but we are going into this year knowing full well that God will provide for our family, so that we can learn more about him, grow closer to him, and ultimately share his word with others!

Our God is an awesome God.