Gold-medal effort

Hi all,

Here's a sharing from Evan. Hope all of you will be blessed by this devotion: http://odb.org/2011/03/28/gold-medal-effort/ 

It talks about how serving God (no matter where we are) encompasses being gracious to others and loving others. The greatest 2 commandments in the bible is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength" and to "love your neighbour as yourself". May we be able to serve God daily by emulating and demonstrating to others God's love and grace as we learn each day when it means to be more and more Christ-like :) May we also learn to do things for God's glory, rather than for our personal gain.

Theology of Work

Here's a four-part series on "A Theology of Work" from The Gospel Coalition Blog, just as a follow-up of sorts to Timothy's message on marketplace ministry this morning. Some excerpts below but do click through the links for more. Hope this blesses you as Monday draws near again.


What Are You Called to Do? A Theology of Work

It wasn’t until a few years later that someone pointed out to me an interesting fact: the root of the English word vocation is the Latin verb voca, which means “to call.” The linguistic evidence shows that at some point in history, people thought of every type of work as a “calling." Whether you are a minister or a mechanic, you do not work because it pays the bills, or because it’s personally fulfilling, or because it justifies the money you spent on college tuition. You work because it glorifies God. 

Created for Work

Theologians call Genesis 1:27-28 the “cultural mandate.” God is mandating that humans will create culture. Adam and Eve will produce children. Those children will create families, and those families will band together into cities and social networks. Those networks of human beings will reflect all the aspects of human culture—language and art and music and food and philosophy and theology. 

It is no accident that the ultimate biblical picture of redeemed humanity involves a city (Rev. 21:2). A city reflects human culture in its most developed and complex forms. God’s purpose for humanity started in a garden, but it culminates in a great cultural center.

Work Cursed and Redeemed

Because of the Fall, work is hard. Work involves sweat and toil, thorns and thistles. Or, if you prefer, work involves stress and overtime and belligerent bosses and mundane meetings. Not everything in the world of work is as it should be. Work has been cursed. But work is still good. 

It’s important that we see both the goodness of work in God’s original creation and the struggle of work under the Fall. If we only see the good, we’ll be frustrated when things don’t go as they should. If we only see the bad, we’ll have a hard time doing our work to the glory of God. Work is not all good, and it’s not all bad. It is part of God’s good creation, which has been tainted by the Fall. And God is at work to redeem work.

A Theology for Monday Morning

Being a rancher is no less glorifying to God than being a minister. If you’re going to be a rancher, I hope you approach your work with the same sense of calling as my friend David. Raise cattle to the glory of God, already! If ranching isn’t your thing, then do whatever is your thing with a God-entranced vision of vocation. As Paul said to the Colossians, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men. . . . It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Col. 3:23-24). And that’s true whether you’re preaching sermons or branding cattle or selling stocks.

Japan

Some of us, I know, have been to Japan (as tourists, on mission trips) and love the country. For them, but also for everyone else who has seen the horrifying footage and photos, here's a small summary of prayer points and links to read and think over, pray and act on.

WHAT can we do?

1. PRAY. Prayer is never the last thing we do, it's always the first and most powerful. We can pray knowing that our Almighty and compassionate God hears and answers. A few prayer points:

• Pray for mercy, that as many lives among those still stranded and missing will be saved.
• Pray for the injured, that medical help will reach them swiftly.
• Pray for God's comfort for the grieving, who have lost loved ones
• Pray for His comfort to the fearful, those who have had to evacuate, those who fear the after-effects (radiation, fires, etc...)
• Pray for wisdom and clarity among all the different people/agencies getting involved in rescue and relief work there, as well as for Japan's government.
• Pray for the church in Japan, for strength and for the ability to be a light. Pray for the people of Japan, for grace to come to know Jesus Christ and a lasting salvation.

2. GIVE. There are so many out there, so here are just three avenues for those who may wish to give materially to relief efforts: 

• Red Cross I'm sure everyone's heard of.
• World Vision is sending shelter, food and hygiene supplies to Japan. Its focus is on children and so intends to provide psychological support to affected children.
• JEMA affliated CRASH works through local Japanese churches to help those in affected communities and areas.

WHY did all this happen?

From bethinking.org:

"2011 Earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan...2011 Earthquakes in New Zealand...2011 Flooding in Queensland, Australia...2010 Earthquake in Haiti...The list could go on. The question naturally arises: If God is so good, how come He allows these natural disasters to cause such death, pain and devastation? But there are some responses we can make as we consider this difficult question. " 

Some responses here, here and here.

From blogs out there:

• God and the Japan Tsunami of 2011
• 10 ways a Christian should respond

What To Know When You're 25(ish)

Here's a sharing that I think will be applicable to everyone even if you're not 25 (yet or anymore) Thanks Lydia, for sharing this :)

What To Know When You're 25(ish)

Here are the things really worth caring about in your 20s.

Editor's note: This week, we're taking a look at some of the "Best of RELEVANTMagazine.com" from 2010. This article is our most read ever. Period. End of story. It clearly hit many of you (and us) right where you're at—approaching, at, or just past your late 20s, trying to figure out what it's all meant and where you go from here. Most of you really resonated with Shauna's thoughts, though some of you had quibbles with some of her emphases. But read it over again, and chime in below. The year might be almost over, but the conversation can keep going.

When you’re 25-ish, you’re old enough to know what kind of music you love, regardless of what your last boyfriend or roommate always used to play. You know how to walk in heels, how to tie a necktie, how to give a good toast at a wedding and how to make something for dinner. You don’t have to think much about skin care, home ownership or your retirement plan. Your life can look a lot of different ways when you’re 25: single, dating, engaged, married. You are working in dream jobs, pay-the-bills jobs and downright horrible jobs. You are young enough to believe that anything is possible, and you are old enough to make that belief a reality.

Job

Now is the time to figure out what kind of work you love to do. What are you good at? What makes you feel alive? What do you dream about? You can go back to school now, switch directions entirely. You can work for almost nothing, or live in another country, or volunteer long hours for something that moves you. There will be a time when finances and schedules make this a little trickier, so do it now. Try it, apply for it, get up and do it.

When I was 25, I was in my third job in as many years—all in the same area at a church, but the responsibilities were different each time. I was frustrated at the end of the third year because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do next. I didn’t feel like I’d found my place yet. I met with my boss, who was in his 50s. I told him how anxious I was about finding the one perfect job for me, and quick. He asked me how old I was, and when I told him I was 25, he told me that I couldn’t complain to him about finding the right job until I was 32. In his opinion, it takes about 10 years after college to find the right fit, and anyone who finds it earlier than that is just plain lucky. So use every bit of your 10 years: try things, take classes, start over.

Relationships

Now is also the time to get serious about relationships. And “serious” might mean walking away from the ones that don’t give you everything you need. Some of the most life-shaping decisions you make in this season will be about walking away from good-enough, in search of can’t-live-without. One of the only truly devastating mistakes you can make in this season is staying with the wrong person even though you know he or she is the wrong person. It’s not fair to that person, and it’s not fair to you.

Counseling

Twenty-five is also a great time to start counseling, if you haven’t already, and it might be a good round two of counseling if it’s been a while. You might have just enough space from your parents to start digging around your childhood a little bit. Unravel the knots that keep you from living a healthy whole life, and do it now, before any more time passes.

Church

Twenty-five is the perfect time to get involved in a church you love, no matter how different it is from the one you were a part of growing up. Be patient and prayerful, and decide that you’re going to be a person who grows, who seeks your own faith, who lives with intention. Set your alarm on Sunday mornings, no matter how late you were out on Saturday night. It will be dreadful at first, and then after a few weeks, you’ll find that you like it, that the pattern of it fills up something inside you.

Don't get stuck

This is the thing: when you start to hit 28 or 30, everything starts to divide, and you can see very clearly two kinds of people: on one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their deep dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. And then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop honest, intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in kind of an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than they were when they graduated college.

Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. Walk away, try something new. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”

Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.

Taken from Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist Copyright © 2010. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com

On Joseph, and Attitude.

Hi everyone, Evan has sent in something that he wants to share with everyone. If you also have some material that you want to share with all of us yammers, do write in to us too - mountcarmel.yam@gmail.com. Hope you'll find this write-up below useful for your spiritual growth :)

As my CG studies the last portions of the book of Genesis, about Joseph's life, I would like to share with you one of the biggest takeaways we can learn from him. 

This relates to what Joseph went through, sold into slavery by his own brothers, wrongly sent to prison for sleeping with Potiphar's wife (When he did not) and how he reacted. We can apply this to everything in our lives too, in every situation. 

Charles R Swindoll, president of Dallas Theological Seminary said: 

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.” 

I pray that our attitude, is to live a life for God and to trust him in all circumstances, good and bad. Just like Joseph.