God Alone

I love these verses in Matthew 11:28-30...

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (NKJV)

... I love that God calls for us to just come to Him and He will give us rest. The word rest in verse 28 refers to not permanent inactivity, but, as the SDA commentary expounds, to change from labouring for “what perishes” to labouring “for what is everlasting”. There is a reason why Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden is light. When Christ asks us to take His yoke upon ourselves it is to submit to training of His way of life. To be a disciple. The purpose of a yoke was not to make the burdens of an animal harder, heavier, but to make it lighter, easier to bear. Christ’s yoke is His way of life. To be co-workers with Him and not to labour on our own anymore.

It’s a heavy burden to try to go through life doing it for ourselves. Whether it’s trying to be goodenough to earn love, and God’s salvation/or what ever people call it in every religion, which is impossible. It’s hard to give up trying to do it for ourselves. You only have to look at every religion or philosophy in the world today, bar Christianity, to see that in the very essence of humanity is the feeling that we have to do it ourselves. We have to save ourselves. In verse 29, God asks us to give up trying and learn from Him who is humble of heart.

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." Philippians 2:5-8 (NKJV)

But it’s only through the merit of Christ can we be free from the burden of sin. The only way that we can can find ultimate rest. Rest for our souls. But we can’t do it ourselves. Christ has experienced our temptations and can help us through them. He alone can deliver us and He alone can heal us of our anxieties and trials. He alone is our strength and our refuge.

Happy New Late Year

Happy New Late Year. First blog post of the year. Hope that 2012 is going well for you so far. What do you think about making New Year resolutions? I've tried to set some resolutions in the past, but have always failed to keep them after say, a couple weeks.

But not this year, I'm determined!

2012 is well on it's way and here are my top 3 New Year Resolutions (in no particular order) that I am still keeping, yes! ;)

1) Running & Exercise: At least 30 mins of running one day, walking the next, followed by running the day after that etc. The aim is to run 5km without stopping.

2) Growing in Jesus: Want to spend more time in the Bible and prayer. In fact, I'd love to read through the entire Bible by the end of this year.

3) Reading: To be honest, never been a real fan of reading. I get distracted way too easily and always find excuses to do something more, I guess, 'entertaining'. But reading is good for you so I am committing to reading more this year. So far, so good. "The Great Controversy" is the book of choice at the moment and I'm loving it.

What are your New Year resolutions? Are you keeping them?

- Eric

Top 5

1. Family! We had some of my (Monique's) family over from America for Christmas to join in with the rest of us. I love all my family to bits and it was great to spend some time with them. We cooked, ate, went to church, shopped the boxing day sales, played lots of Dutch Blitz and some Scotland Yard, family photos, and swam during the day and had some night swims as well. Love Christmas family time! 2. I feel like we might have covered at least two in the first.... ;-)

3. Ringwood SDA Church. It was such a lovely church to visit with friendly, supportive people.

4. Summer has arrived! Now, only if we lived next to the beach instead of the desert of West Melbourne suburbia... I feel at least one drive to the beach coming on!

5. Songwriting :-) It's always exciting to get a new song idea! This song is a possible song for the Songs of Ascent tour, April 2012.