Week 2

This week we started actual classes and it was amazing! I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know! Werner Schreiber taught on the Sermon on the Mount (Genesis 5-7). Basically, what we learnt was that these passages, although often interpreted prescriptively (telling you what to do), are actually descriptive of what our lives would be like if we had Christ indwelling us. We also watched a DVD series titled ‘History’ by Louis Giglio and Andy Stanley. It was all about how God is full of Himself – and if He weren’t, He wouldn’t be God – and how God deserves all the glory. It was an amazingly powerful DVD! I plan on buying myself a copy so I can watch it again. We also read the first two chapters of two books we will be reading throughout the semester. The first, ‘Revolution Within,’ is also about how God deserves all the glory and how we can be transformed from the inside out if we admit this and seek only His glory. The second, ‘Knowledge of the Holy’ by A W Tozer, explained why it is so important to know God’s characteristics and then goes on to explain some of them. The one we studied this week was that God is Incomprehensible: that we tend to bring Him down to human sizes when in fact He is too big to be understood by human minds. We also got a class by Dale on the importance of the scriptures.

Every two weeks, we have to write a journal entry about what we have learned. We have to summarize the parts that seemed most relevant and important to us. To give you an idea of what I have been learning, here is my journal entry:
- Acting out in anger in response to someone else, worrying, holding a grudge against someone, or being impatient with someone are not so much reactions as they are revelations of the heart. Therefore, I must, as well as asking for forgiveness for the action, ask God to reveal what is in my heart that is the real cause for the action. Only once the problem with the heart – which is the true problem – has been identified can I confess and can the heart be changed.
- The law of the Old Testament can only make me aware of my sin. I cannot be righteous by observing the law (Romans 3:20) because it is unable to change the heart. Jesus shows in the Sermon on the Mount that it is utterly and completely impossible to abide by the law, but with His Spirit in control of my life, the desire to please Him is much stronger than the law. The Beatitudes are not prescriptive (telling me what to do); rather, they are descriptive of what my life would be if I had the Lord in my heart. If it were prescriptive, it would be the same as the law: unable to change the heart. So the only way to bring about true change in my life is to be changed completely from the inside (Ezekiel 36:24-27).
- Either I can live for me, or I can live for God. I need to abandon my “what’s in it for me” mentality and focus on bringing God the glory because I cannot serve two masters. I need to completely die to myself. I need to drive a stake through the heart of ‘self’ so that God can completely live through me and transform me.
- God demands all the glory, point final! If he didn’t demand all the glory, He wouldn’t’ be God. If He didn’t put all His value in Himself, He would put His value in something greater and He would therefore not be God. God loves me more than I could ever love myself, but He loves me much, not most. Everything God has ever done for me is really only for His glory. I tend to make God small so that He can fit into my plans when, in fact, it is Him who is making a place for me in His amazing plans. He doesn’t need me, He would get His glory with or without me, so I can choose to live for myself, trying to steal a piece of God’s glory, or I can die to myself, realising that I am not God, and live only for I AM.
Aside from classes, we had a few fun activities this week. On Tuesday, for family night, we split up into two groups, one group staying at The Crossing with Hanna, Sheryl, and Colin and the other going to the Epp’s with Dale, Patti, and Joseph. We played games, talked, learnt more about each other and generally had fun! We played midnight madness – where each person rolls a dice and when you land on 6 you start writing numbers from 1 to 100 until someone else gets a 6 and takes the pen from your hand, the first one to 100 wins – and another similar game that involved putting a hat, scarf and mitts on and trying to eat a piece of chocolate with a fork. We also played a really fun game, kind of like broken telephone, where each person has a stack of papers and writes a sentence on the first page. You then pass the stack to the next person who reads the sentence and then, having put the first page on the bottom of the pile, draws a picture of the sentence. The next person gets the stack, looks at the picture, and writes a sentence about it. The final result can be quite hilarious. We finished the evening with hot chocolate, brownies and ice cream.

On Friday, we had a comedy night and we watched a Brian Regan act. It was not hilarious, but we all got a good laugh.

On Saturday, we all went to a beach in Timaru (Brown’s beach or Winchester beach depending on who you ask). We parked the vans and walked (or rode Joseph’s motorbike) about half an hour down the beach to the mouth of a river where we could fish for whitebait (which is a delicacy here). You had to stand by the water with a net and wait for a wave. As the wave went back out, you put the net in the water (it is a pretty solid metal net) and caught the fish as they were pulled back out to sea. I didn’t actually fish because it involved getting very wet in frigid water. I did, however, try one of these tiny see-through fish. It was really gross because the fish was still moving when I put it in my mouth. It didn’t taste like anything but salt water, but it crunched when I bit it. Some people swallowed them whole and said that they could feel it for a few seconds squirming in their throats and stomachs. There were some really neat clay formations, made by the waves hitting the beach repeatedly, which looked like little peninsulas. Along the beach, I collected some multicoloured rocks. I even some green ones! The others were orange, red and pink. The beach was super windy and cold, but even so, Jonas, Kelsey, Amber, Ben, Michael, and Joel actually went in. I had a wonderful time, and I will sleep well tonight!

Tonight, Amber, Colin, and Bryan (the three redheads :P) are making pirogees for supper and banana boats for desert, it should be good!

Tomorrow, we leave for camp (for our ministry week). Your prayers for lots of sleep, for patience with the kids, that we would be able to minister the gospel effectively, and for safety would be greatly appreciated! We will be working with kids aged 8 to 12 and hopefully, we will have a blast!