I have written on this before, but it probably bears repeating, if only for my sake.
Do you reckon God is like a stoic stiff upper lip Englishman…or a passionate emotional Italian? (to gross generalise nationalities)

My tip is on the emotion filled, expressive, creative Italian. I say that based on the Psalms, on the emotion God shows to His people in the Old Testamanet. On how Jesus was…on the beauty and expression and wonder found in creation.

If there is truth in what I suggest, what does that mean for us as Christians?

The past few months have been a mixed bag for me. But the light at the end is not the oncoming train.

We are almost ready to sell the land our Church owns. That is the end of a long journey. Our Church is absolutely ready for the next move. That is something many could not say, that their church was ready for significant change.

Personally our family is looking forward to some long service leave towards the end of the year. After 18 years of ministry, hard slog at times, joy and laughter at others, it is time to reflect on the next stage of our Church journey. Time to get ready for where God is taking Inglewood Community Church too.

God is good. Feeling myself coming out of a funk, feeling better and better.

Powerful video, great story. Reckon this song might work as a worship one as well….

Our local Coles Inglewood is convenient, well lit, and good parking…and the staff are friendly and efficient. So this post is not personal to them…

But I am buying less and less from Coles because in my opinion they are doing less and less to support local producers.

The Milk is what everyone knows about. $2 for a 2 litre milk is cheap, but at what cost to our local milk producers? And once they have squeezed them out of the market, destroyed them basically, they can put the price up to whatever they want.

And what about cheese and butter? I am struggling to find non-Coles brand cheese or butter on the shelves, they are shoved away from main view, and the Coles brand Cheese is taking up about half the shelf space, which is a lot. Furthermore, the Coles brand is the only one on special! This principle of pushing out the name brand local producers for the generic Coles brand is spreading to all dairy products.

Coles branded coffee, snackfood, biscuits, canned fruit and other canned goods…all slowly replacing the brands we are used to buying and trust.

Its insidious, its cynical…and I would say its close to being immoral.

I wish I did not have to go to Coles at all, because I wouldn’t.

Starting a new series this week at Inglewood Church on ‘Women of Faith and Power”

Some great stories of some women from the Bible who challenge and inspire.

Finished up our series on “God UNboxed” on Sunday. Spoke on this famous phrase on Sunday “I AM” Jesus said….Here is part of it,

Now a living breathing Jesus takes on that attribute for Himself.
We have the greatest claim a person could ever make. I am God. A human being, breathing and dying in the end, claimed He was before eternity and was God.
That is the greatest claim.
But for us, living in this contemporary world, it is also the greatest problem.
Many other major religious leader point to what a good lifestyle is, they say who you should follow. They may also claim some form of divinity at some point.
Jesus says actually I am God, the only one God, you can be with me, you can’t be like me, and you need to follow me. You need to find true life through me.  I am, I am, I am.

Bono observes, “Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius.” “But actually”, he says, “Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook.” “Christ says, No,” Bono continues. “I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: ‘I’m the Messiah.’ I’m saying: ‘I am God incarnate.’ . . . So what you’re left with is either Christ was who He said He was-the Messiah-or a complete nutcase. . . . The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that’s farfetched.”

Now this is where the problem comes in. We cannot have a mild response to Jesus. You cannot say you believe what He said, and do nothing about it.
If you believe He is God, you should fall on your knees. you should bow in worship, you should sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to Him.
but the claims of Jesus about himself cannot provoke a mediocre, ordinary, weak response!
No wonder Jesus reserved his harshest criticism for the Laodecian church in Revelation. He said to them, you are lukewarm. you are not offensive, you are middle of the road, you are ordinary…and so I spit you out.
Like a bit of vomit in my mouth, you are disgusting and I spit you onto the footpath. Thats pretty strong, but it is what Jesus response to them is! Because of their response to HIM the Great I AM!

I prefer a belligerent atheist or a seeker. I prefer someone who says I hate God, or I don’t believe in God, or I just don’t know about God, to someone who says…yeh Gods okay.
Gods okay? No He is not. He is an eternal fire, He is an all consuming warrior, He is king of kings, He is Lord of Lords, He is judge, He rides on the clouds, and carries a sword. Author of life, One who gives life Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end, Lion of Judah,  Bright Morning Star. The one who gives light Revelation Word of God Jesus is the voice of God Revelation 19:13 Holy and Righteous
He is I AM

As regular readers of this blog…..will no doubt know and be bored by, I purchased a 2006 Grand Vitara a couple of months back. I have not been slow in modifying it slightly, getting it ready for beach work, towing and driving country roads at night. Nothing too serious, just making it a little more useable. Every review listed the Grand Vitara well ahead of its other SUV rivals in the off-road stakes. Namely the Forester and RAV4. The Grand Vitara has a good chassis, High/ Low Range and even their own version of a diff locker. Not a true diff locker, but one that limits wheel spin when under load by distributing power to the opposing wheel. This puts it streets ahead of the Forester and RAV4.

Suspension.

The Achilles heal of this model is the clearance and suspension. With a move to a more road happy vehicle, Suzuki compromised on the clearance of this model. I, and others, have found the clearance off-road to be an issue. King Springs supply four uprated springs which provide 35-40 Mill of lift while using standard shocks. Perhaps just as helpful is their stiffness. I actually find it performs better on road as well, less body roll and feels more secure on the road. To say nothing of it no longer scraping the towbar on kerbs!

Recovery Gear

All snide comments can be inserted here! If you drive a Suzuki, you will need recovery gear. Some will say its to recover the ambitious driver in the Toyota, others will say so the Toyota can recover you! Either way a proper snatch point is needed. The tow recovery points on the front are only good for mild use, not the sort of pressure a snatch strap yields. I have purchased a good insert which goes into the Haymen Rheese tow point and it becomes a good recovery point at the rear. In order to get a proper one at the front, a bit of metal work would be needed. I also have a reasonable air compressor, snatch strap, shovel and cable ties.

Spotlights

I like spotlights, always have. But I have never had a car as good as this one before, so the cheap $50 I found in the bargain bin at K-Mart were not going to suffice. I did some research and Narva Ultima 175 seemed to be a good compromise on my budget hampered aspirations. All my car mods come out of my pocket money I save up per week. Fortunately I found these on Ebay at $80 cheaper than the cheapest price at Auto-Shops. (I paid $169 Aus) The Suzukis have a weird wiring set-up where the high beams are positively wired. This means they always have power going to them, even when they are off. This makes traditional relay set-up redundant. Fortunately after some research on ‘Auszookers‘, a fantastic Suzuki owners forum, I found a good wiring diagram. The other problem I had was that with this modern car, getting a wire through the firewall to the switch was quite difficult. I had to almost dismantle the engine bay fuse box to get to the bonnet cable grommet. Here I could poke the needed wires through.

Repco supplied a better switch than the dud rocker switch Narva supply with their lights. I also had to buy another 7 metres of wiring as the wiring that came with the spotlights was woefully inadequate. I have configured the combination spotlights with the spread beam facing the roos bouncing from the side and the pencil beam to scare off the cats in the middle of the road.

Next

I have a number of other things I wish to do to the car, but the one I am saving up for now is a UHF 80 channel radio