We are chosen by the Father to do His work

While in the bathroom at the University of Waikato Chapel (out of all places!) I had a revelation about how awesome it is that God wants to use me for his great plan. I was thinking how cool it is that people ask me to help them out with things; hire me for work etc. but then I realized "Oh man! Our LORD and creator has hired me! How can I be worthy of this??" – I felt exactly as Paul did when he wrote this to Timothy:

1Ti 1:12 I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength for my work. I thank him for considering me worthy and appointing me to serve him, even though in the past I spoke evil of him and persecuted and insulted him. But God was merciful to me because I did not yet have faith and so did not know what I was doing.

I've known this for a while, but never really clicked on to how awesome that is. I would encourage anyone reading this to think about the opportunity they have in their life to help fulfill the biggest commission of all time. It's cool that people can work over many generations to build insane things like Pyramids in Egypt, but it's even cooler that we can be a part of a plan that's already been worked on for thousands of years - building God's kingdom.

I was contemplating this morning about the scripture of Luke 9:23. As a Christian, I often hear about people who start their day in prayer. I'm told we need to read our bible daily and give ourselves over to God. This verse tells us we need to do these things:

Luk 9:23 (KJV) And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

To me, this verse is saying two things:

1. We must die to ourselves and all our desires, sins, and attitudes. This for the point of allowing Jesus to save us from sin, and then to perfect us into better people until the day He returns (Philippians 1:6).
   
2. When I think of how Jesus carried his cross in ancient days – it was upon his back. The cross was a symbol for death, and is now a symbol of Christ (I know, I need some references for this…). So it's metaphorically saying that we need to lift Jesus and therefore death above ourselves – to put him above anything in our lives. And we need to do this daily. Nowadays we follow Jesus by obeying his words written in the bible.
   

Because Jesus actually said this, I can't stress how important it is. It is the Word of God! Just be obedient to it and see what happens. Start the day with prayer – commit yourself to God and tell him that he's first in your life. Deny yourself and take up Jesus daily J

We see what our ancestors saw

I was looking up at the sky tonight. There was a surreal moonlight thing going on in the clouds. There were stars through the gaps in the clouds. We live in a beautiful world!

Often when I just sit back and admire God's creation, I have a revelation about something. That happened tonight when I took 5 seconds out of my night to stare up at the stars from Hamilton.

I thought back to people thousands of years ago, and realised that almost everything on earth is probably different now than what they would have seen. But not the sky... they would have seen the clouds, stars, sun, and moonlight very similarly to what we see now. It's not surprising that when people think of heaven, they think of the sky. The sky is something that's consistent. The clouds won't change colour. There will always be moonlight and sunrises.

And it's the same with God who is in heaven. God's character is not going to change over the ages of time. He's not going to go back on his promises. Psalm 119:90 is talking to God, and it says "Your faithfulness endures through all the ages; you have set the earth in place, and it remains."

Also, I think we can be more connected to God now than in the past when his secrets were hidden. There is a lot of scripture which tells us this:

Paul writes:
Rom 16:25 Let us give glory to God! He is able to make you stand firm in your faith, according to the Good News I preach about Jesus Christ and according to the revelation of the secret truth which was hidden for long ages in the past.

Eph 3:8 I am less than the least of all God's people; yet God gave me this privilege of taking to the Gentiles the Good News about the infinite riches of Christ,
Eph 3:9 and of making all people see how God's secret plan is to be put into effect. God, who is the Creator of all things, kept his secret hidden through all the past ages,
Eph 3:10 in order that at the present time, by means of the church, the angelic rulers and powers in the heavenly world might learn of his wisdom in all its different forms.
Eph 3:11 God did this according to his eternal purpose, which he achieved through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Eph 3:12 In union with Christ and through our faith in him we have the boldness to go into God's presence with all confidence.

I'm liking this Good News Bible translation :-)
This scripture also shows us it's God working in us..

Col 1:25 And I have been made a servant of the church by God, who gave me this task to perform for your good. It is the task of fully proclaiming his message,
Col 1:26 which is the secret he hid through all past ages from all human beings but has now revealed to his people.
Col 1:27 God's plan is to make known his secret to his people, this rich and glorious secret which he has for all peoples. And the secret is that Christ is in you, which means that you will share in the glory of God.
Col 1:28 So we preach Christ to everyone. With all possible wisdom we warn and teach them in order to bring each one into God's presence as a mature individual in union with Christ.
Col 1:29 To get this done I toil and struggle, using the mighty strength which Christ supplies and which is at work in me.

Kings and prophets longed to see the power of Jesus' resurrection that we can experience today:
Luk 10:23 Jesus turned to his disciples in private and said to them, "How blessed you are to see what you've seen.
Luk 10:24 I can guarantee that many prophets and kings wanted to see and hear what you've seen and heard, but they didn't."

Eph 3:11 above talks about God sending Jesus at the time he did according to his eternal purpose. I don't quite understand that as a human being with limited knowledge, but the preceding sentence gave a little revelation into it. It says that God wanted us and heaven to look back at history and see His wisdom in all it's forms. That's kinda cool... God has a huge history, and I encourage anyone seeking the truth to look back at it to see how he has been working in our world to bring it to what it is!!! I know I'll be reading more of the old testament now.

Finally, God is still the same supreme being that our ancestors worshipped. So that's another thing we see that our ancestors saw. I guess what I'm trying to point out though is that we get to see even more of God than they could have when they were on earth! High five God! Thank you for sending us your only and beloved Son Jesus Christ.

Thanks for reading my random segued thoughts. Any questions or want to know more? Just drop me an email.

My Water Baptism

I realised my birthday is on a Sunday this year! Why is that exciting? Because I've been meaning to be water baptised - make a public declaration of my faith in Jesus Christ. Water baptism symbolizes Jesus' death and resurrection - dying to our old selves and starting an exciting new (eternal!) life in Him.

So for anyone reading this who's interested in coming along, I'm going to ask Eastside Apostolic Church in Hamilton if they would hold a baptism after the 10:40am service on July 8. Put it on your calendar! Everyone is invited, even if you're not a Christian.

New blog :-)

This is my new blog site. I realised there was no point in paying for a website for another year that just had a blog on it and wasn't even as good as Google's Blogger. For those technical people, the RSS syndication url for this blog is http://ryanoc.blogspot.com/rss.xml

This website will cover two main topics: Technology, and Christianity.
I plan to share my spiritual views to the world and to help people seek the truth to life's big questions. I'm currently studying computer science, and I'm a Microsoft Student Partner. So I will be advertising for various Microsoft events happening in Hamilton, New Zealand.

I've named this blog God -> Ryan -> World -> God. The reason for this is that God is first, and he will be using me (Ryan) to share about Him to the World, who ultimately end up knowing God personally. God is also the beginning and the end of life as we know it, so it seems quite fitting. I will also be sharing to the world about cool technology and software that's out there. However, my main passion is Jesus Christ, and serving Him; so I will more than likely be heading into full-time ministry where God has called me to be a missionary after I graduate. No doubt computers will come into play somewhere in my walk with the Lord.