Christianity- Reading the Bible and Church

Hello again everyone 
It has been a long while since I last did a proper blog and apologies if one isn't done every week  because work has been growing, except I may have a bit of time on my hands now so I will try my best.


So today I am going to try my best to explain why it is important to read the bible and going to church.


So basically it is always important to go church and read the bible because although it is not, for lack of a better word, compulsory, it is however very helpful for many reasons.


These reasons as I shall explain are definitely important to growing and maintaining faith.
Although through faith we are saved, going to church is important because you can associate with other christians, as well as this reading the bible alone may lead you to misinterpret part...

End of the world?

Howdy everyone for week 5 which if you look at the title of the blog i'm sure you will figure out what this weeks is about.


As we know the end of the world came on Saturday at 6pm. Only kidding obviously since we are all still here but none the less I was doing a look around to find that since I was born in 1993 the world has been predicted to end so far 8-10 times, with another 1 this year and 2 next year, the most famous of course being 21 December.


This all got me thinking about the people who have said these predictions, and I noticed that most of them are religious and christian at that. 


However these people that claim such stupid and crazy ideas aren't to be trusted. The whole of Matthew 24:36 is saying “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
Basically what is being said here is obvious that only God knows, not even the son. God has planned the time in which the world will end and it will end when we do not expect it.


I am pretty certain that no one I send this blog out to actually believes that the world was going to end under human judgement but if you did then this message is for you, don't be worried if someone says this, don't sell your property and give money just because of this, I mean give yes, keep giving that is important but reading around I read this interesting quote "Mr. Camping said his company — which is a nonprofit — would also not return donations given by his followers in advance of the May 21 prediction. “We’re not at the end,” he said, “Why would we return it?”. So you see be careful, trusting 'false prophets' and 'false teachers' is dangerous. 


Jesus also says from Matthew 24:43-44 "But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." 


Matthew in this verse is saying that judgement will happen when we do not expect it, "like a thief at night". We are to be ready but when it says this it means be ready in the knowledge knowing this day was always going to come and to have put your faith in Christ because as the bible teachers time and time again, faith alone can save us.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24rapture.html?_r=1


http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2024&version=NIV


Pretty short blog today but my message today is to not worry about supposed end of the world theories because they are lies, however be ready with your faith in Christ and knowledge that whenever the day comes you will be ready.


Keep praying and reading the bible as I will and a mini blog will be up soon so you can ask questions if you wish which i'll answer otherwise if you have none then there's quite a few upcoming events which I will keep you posted about. 


Ciao =)

Christianity out of School *updated again

So week 4 I believe and today is a topic that many will face in the not to distant future and that is the prospect of leaving school forever. 
This, for some is a joyful occasion, others more sad about this, personally when school ends I think I'll be ready for it and to finally have some freedom from the past 13 + years of work will be good.
However just as you come out of that routine your thrown into that adult world, a much larger world where everything seems bigger and a lot more tougher then what you've come from. So here's a nifty guide for you all, to surviving out of school.


Now as I said back in my first blog surviving school itself can be difficult with all these temptations, but when I went to a camp called Kyck last holidays and I learnt that from the time you leave school til around 25- 27, you will be tempted the most and that these years are the hardest to make it through. 


Here are some reasons why:


1/ You've left school, you have more freedom to do things, go out more, see more people and get invited more places.


2/ By now your probably over 18 therefore drinking is now legal.


3/ You most likely will have a license of some sort whether that be red P's or green P's or even full license by this stage, what this means is you don't need to rely on people driving you places and since your 18 you won't have to worry about getting home on time.


Basically as soon as you hit 18 your freedom slowly unravels in front of you, you get through your final year and then move to the wider world. 
Question is this, with all these new freedoms you have will that put a stop in your christian life.


I like to think not, I like to think that the decisions most of you will make, will be the correct ones and that you will not forget God. This is why going to church is important, we are not forced to go to a church but it is a constant reminder of how you should be living your life. I can say that every week I go to church I get reminded constantly of the messages of God. Not only is it a good reminder but it is also a chance to see other people who are there who face the same challenges. We can go to church all we like but we are still all sinners and we have to face up to fact that we can't defeat sin on our own and that we need God's help, being with other Christians helps us remember this.


This is a link to something known as Year 13 which i hear is really good:

basically it is there to help people grow in God more. Watch the video to find out more and to get some details.


As for me I am currently looking to go to a christian college, whether this be year 13 or somewhere else, I'm sure that it will strengthen me into doing what I like to do and that's spreading God's word.


Of course many of you still have time to think about this stuff and don't worry if you still haven't decided by the time your my age because really your mind changes so many times that it's really not worth stressing about, God has a plan for us all, a phrase I love to hear because I remember I am not in control and I am not powerful.


I'm not saying that you have to pick up a Christian course, I mean if you want to do something else sure go ahead, I love ancient history and wouldn't have minded doing that, but if you pick lets say History for this example, if you pick history then don't let parties get in the way of your Christian life, the more you put off church the least likely you are going to go back, so if you do move somewhere or pick up a course then find a church in that area, I imagine there will be friendly people there who would love to spend time with you.


So leaving you with that message, any questions as always email me at cdaniel1993@yahoo.com.au or fb message me or on chat or whatever and I'll attempt to answer it in my next mini blog and keep going to church,reading the bible and keep praying as I will keep praying that you will become close to God.


*Over the last couple of days I have been looking around and found a course at Morling College called 'Plunge' which does look quite nice and my careers advisor recomends a guy called Andrew Palmer as a good guy who works there and has spoken at a speech night at my school before so this is another possibility for people.


**Also got to mention that theres many christian colleges out the and one i'm looking at is Morling college and doing something called Plunge, which sounds great and yeh there's certainly ways outside school to stay strong in faith.


Adios until next time =D

Christianity and Forgiving and loving your enemies

So blog three, very exciting today. I thought i'd talk about love and when I say love I am mean mainly loving and forgiving your enemies. Fairly short one today though because this is a fairly powerful point to make that if i keep going on about it will only sound like me repeating myself.


Imagine the situation your at school or wherever, you could be getting mugged or something. What is your first reaction going to be, because that reaction can determine what happens next. I don't like the idea of retaliation usually makes things even worse then they can be, then if that gets worse people tell other people what's happening and they get involved and typically more and more get brought into an argument over something stupid. 


So back to the scenario, you have many options, these could be :


1/ Retaliate and fight back, (not something I advise doing).
2/ Calling all your friends over to witness some huge fight that's going to happen. 
or...
3/ You can forgive them. 


Jesus says in Matthew 6:14- 15 "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive sins". 
Basically in forgiving other people for doing wrong to you, your heavenly father, that is God, will forgive you. It will be hard forgiving someone especially if they are your enemy but think about it, hating someone can lead you to get angry and frustrated and whatever is going on. But loving your neighbours and enemies you will feel happier.


Now so far I haven't really presented a case, so here I go. Your having an argument with someone, now what is the best thing to do. You could argue back but then it goes against the Bible, it get's messy, so best thing to do is to forgive. Christ died for us all and as i said in my previous post he died for everyone, even the enemies who put him on the cross and beat him, but he forgave them, Christ always forgave people for their sins because it is what God wants, God wants a world of complete love. The first two commandments " Love the Lord God" and "Love your neighbours as you would have them love you". 
If you want to be respected by someone you are angry with then the first step is to say sorry, then make it up to them in some way. Can you actually be proud that you hate someone?, and if so I ask how, we are all humans under God's rule and he sent his own son to die on the cross for our sins, he forgave each and every person of every sin they have committed, then you should do the same to others.

My message throughout this post will be repeated and repeated over and over, it is the second most important commandment, forgive and love your neighbours and enemies. If there is anyone you are unhappy with at the moment then say sorry to them. Colossians 3:13 says "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you".

So remember this message and feel free to ask question and such, I will continue to pray for you all and don't give up faith in the Lord God, he is always there and he will always love you all. 

Until next time =) 

Christianity and Death *updated

Second post and this week I will try to make it more grammatically correct, at the same time however this post may be heavily criticised so I will try to make it in such a way that you will see the point i am trying to get across. 

Now as most of you, if not all of you should know that Osama Bin Laden was killed, it was a strong moment for many people who had lost loved ones in 9/11 or The Bali bombings and many people across the world. I am not denying that these were sad moments, the loss of any life is a sad moment. Yet how should we react to the death of a man who has spent 10 years on the FBI's most wanted list?, How easy is it for people to not rejoice in this time?.

Headline after headline came in they more or less said the same message, "Justice is done", this is normally followed by a group of pictures, a few in particular of American's celebrating outside The White House. But this type of celebration is not done anywhere else in the world, in fact Taliban supporters are unlikely going to be celebrating, in fact they are going to be upset. Depending who's side you view this war you are going to get a similar view point. What i'm saying is this. 

America, very powerful country, has been for a while now, they took the 9/11 tragedy quite deeply and not just them, many articles at that time said "the day that shook the world", in that day thousands of people died, America declared a war on terror. 

If you look at it from the perspective of Al Qaeda and Osama they will say the same about America, America came into their country and killed hundreds of thousands of people, whether that be male, female, old, young, children, anyone, it was and still is a war which i don't think can be won, for as long as America attacks them, they are going to attack back. Just as America celebrated the death of Osama, Al Qaeda and Taliban celebrated at the deaths of the thousands who died on September 11. 

This is what happens though America got angry an declared war, finally killing Osama after 10+ years, however now we've got Taliban supporters getting angry at America and as you can see from this picture ---->

people shouting Anti-America slogans and holding rallies.

I suppose now you can see why both sides continue to kill, it's revenge to avenge the death's of people of their cultures. 

The bible says that " You have heard that it was said, 'you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven". Mark 5: 43-46, and in Proverbs 24:17 "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, & let not your heart be glad when he stumbles". 

You see the violence that occurs in this world is sin, every bit of it and no matter which side dies or whoever many people die, mourn that loss and as Mark 5 says "pray for those who persecute you", it does not say make war with them to show them who is stronger, we are all sinful in many ways, sure not all of us are killers, but how many of us have stolen, rejected God, spoke ill of people or about people. These are all sins, they are all bad and therefore we are all bad, America may see it's attack on Al Qaeda as a way to say we wont stand for this but thousands die. It is not loving or christian like in anyway to say that war brings good rewards, you may think it does, but at what cost. Christ died on the cross for everyone, our sins were so great that it took God the sacrifice of his own son to save us from our sins, this includes Osama, it includes Hitler, Pol Pot, everyone Christ died for us all because our sins were that big. It is a scary thought to think that someone could die for these people, however we are all human, all sinful and all at Gods judgement.

This all being said the main message I am trying to get across is that celebrating the death of someone isn't loving, God will provide his judgement when that day comes until then mourn those who die but know that through faith in God you will see them again one day. 


*This has been added because I have realised there have things I have missed, so here it is, Philippians 1:22-23 "But if i live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don't know which is better. I'm torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me". Philippians is written by a Paul as a letter to the people of Philippi, but which is better. Whilst we are on Earth we are to do the "fruitful work for Christ" and maintain and continue to persevere in faith because through faith we are saved.  However know that having faith in God and Christ means that when death comes we will one day be resurrected to live for eternity with Christ in heaven.

Until next week though, take care, hope this has been insightful and I will continue to pray for you all. =)

Christianity in Schools

Right well this is my first blog which is cool one could say.
However as you can see by the title of this one its christianity in schools as my first one. When your at school, that be anytime junior,middle or high school your strength as a christian will get challenged over these years and not just then but also after school, i'll save that for another blog topic though.


So i thought i'll start with junior school, it's a fairly easy time in your life, playing games and not really worrying to much about everything else that has been happening, and to be honest that stands true, I recall being in junior school and no one ever really asking me if i'm a christian or not, of course there were the religion/scripture lessons which everyone was always listening keenly to but out in the playground your friends would never mention it again, and neither would I. At this point in my life christianity seemed like something everyone on earth was apart of and no one questioned it.


So I suppose the main challenge in primary school is that the scripture lessons at school are  really the only moments at school when you get to learn about christianity and that the teachers teaching you this are only hoping that you will remember and accept what they have said.


The second stage in your life in which will challenge you is in middle  school, i found this probably the more challenging out of the three because
a/ no one at school had ever really expressed their opinion of christianity in front of me before 
and...
B/ your wanting to impress people and if everyone says that christianity is rubbish then your opinions and ideals are very crushed between what everyone else says is normal and what God says is right. 


In my case I found that I was changing schools in year 5 and so beyond having to make new friends i had to also accept that my views as a christian were what I knew was right. throughout my middle school life, years 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 i found were all tough but gradually got better the less afraid i got. though accepting faith in the beginning was tough, being constantly challenged by people. That's not the only type of challenges though. challenges  such as girls,sex, parties, alcohol, drugs, certain changes in your life, all of which being thrown at you whilst you are still accepting christianity, it is a tough challenge but as James 1:12 says "Happy is the man who doesn't give in and do wrong when he is tempted, for afterwards he will get as his reward the crown of life that God has promised those who love him."  
This is saying that by avoiding these and remaining faithful to god your reward will come. 
of course however there is always going to be sin right until the day of christ's return, avoiding these will be hard but by remembering this promise you can overcome these temptations. It was in year 5 that I decided to say that I live for christ and I decided to put my life and trust in God.


High school, by this time your maturing more, the temptations you have become used to and have said no to the temptations of the world, you have become more understanding of other peoples reasons for not following christ, but around this time, years 10, 11 and 12 that school work will be the main challenge, work loads and study increasing so much that even parties seem to be phasing out, but don't let this get in the way of your christian life, because although school is important, living out your christian life is way more important. still though stay away from the temptations mentioned before because although there is less of it, it may make you more inclined to try it because your've missed out before hand. 


My faith, I found grew stronger over these years as I grew stronger saying to people that I am not afraid to say i'm christian. as well as this participation in church events helps loads more. I go to a youth group called BLAST (believing,living and sharing truth) which is every friday 7:30-9:30 it's great way to learn about the bible,play games,chat to other people and catch up on how the weeks been going, not only this but a bible group held at 7 on wednesdays at one of my friends has helped me grow again stronger, finally of course church on sundays, i go to a 6pm service which is mainly youth orientated, smaller but at the same time you can get so much out of the bible.
I went to a camp called kyck a few weeks back, it was great, run over 3 weekends there was 2000 other christians the weekend I went, the singing,praising and hearing the book of hebrews sent shivers down my spine thinking this is only 2000 kids, how good is it going to be when Christ returns.
hebrews 10:39 was the memory verse we learnt on kyck and I think is one of my favourites "but we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but those who believe and are saved. 


So I leave with my final message stay strong christians, dont let temptations overcome you and as for people considering christianity or are unsure then I will continue to pray for you all that the Holy Spirit will fill you and that you will learn what I have learnt and be encouraged to follow a christian life. =) until next time 


chris daniel