Saturday 19 March 2011

Part 2 of my love series: our love to God.

We know that God loves us and we should love him too. A relationship won't stand unless both parties love each other and put effort into the relationship. We are privileged to be the adopted children of the one true God and there are lots of reasons why we should love him.  Jesus made a way for us to have a relationship with god, just think of that for a moment, we can have a personal relationship with the one who formed us and knows us better than we know ourselves, yet still chooses to love us and wants us in his family. what an awesome thought! Don't you agree that god deserves our love and adoration?

God commands us to love him with all our heart soul mind and strength.
Deuteronomy 11:1
 Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements,
 his decrees, his laws and his commands always.

God wants us to love him with all that we are, our thoughts, our actions, our feelings, and everything that makes us who we are:
Deuteronomy  6:5
 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.


So how do we love God?
It is hard to love someone we have never seen. I have a few ideas that I would like to share with you on  this topic:


1. The Holy spirit helps us:
2 Thessalonians  3:5
 May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love
 and Christ's perseverance.
God knew it would not be easy for us to love him wholeheartedly so he gives us the helper, the holy spirit.
2. We should pray to god that he will help us to love him:
Philippians 1:9
And this is my prayer:
 that your love may abound more and more
 in knowledge and depth of insight,
God will help us to love him if we are serious about seeking him. The more we know God, the more we will love him. We get to know him as we study his word and as we communicate with him in prayer. We love him even if
we haven't seen him, and we are blessed:
1 Peter  1:8
 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

3.  We must seek him:
Song of Songs  3:2
 I will get up now and go about the city,
 through its streets and squares;
 I will search for the one my heart loves.
We must seek  him, we must draw near to him and study his word and meditate on it's truths, we must spend time in prayer seeking his will for our lives. Part of his will for us is that we love him so he will help us to do that but he wants to be the most important  thing in our lives and our top priority.

4. Knowing that God loves us helps us to love him in return:
1 john 4:19
 We love because he first loved us.

5. As we experience him at work in our lives our love for him grows:
Psalms 116:1
 I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.

6. I believe the more time we spend with someone the more we will know them, even God, who is not physically here on earth. He reveals himself to us as we seek him, as we follow him and let him have his way in our lives, as we talk to him and share with him our thoughts and feelings.

7. Our love for god is perfected in obedience:
John  14:15
 "If you love me, you will obey what I command.
God wants us to show that we love  him by what we do. Will we do our own thing or will we do what God wants us to do?
8. We must love him more than anyone or anything else;
Matthew 10:37
 "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me;
 anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
That doesn't mean that Jesus wants us to forget about our families and not love them, it just means he wants to be our top priority, the one who is most important to us.
I have a few more points to share about loving God:
A. When we begin to love God we can expect that we will change in some ways, such as:
1. we will hate sin:
Psalms  97:10
 Let those who love the Lord hate evil,
 for he guards the lives of his faithful ones
 and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
2.  We will love our brothers and sisters more:
1 john 5:1
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
3. We will want to please God by obeying him:
1 john 5:3
 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,

B. There are promises in his word for those who love God:
Deuteronomy 11:13-15:
So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today--to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul--then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain,
 new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.

James 1:12
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those
who love him.

C. God knows the ones who love him:
1 Corinthians 8:3
 But the man who loves God is known by God. he protects them:
psalm 145:20
 The Lord watches over all who love him,
 but all the wicked he will destroy.
psalms 91:14
"Because he loves me," says the Lord, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

d. God shows mercy to those who love him:
Exodus  20:6
 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

e. We should pray that we and other members of god's family may grow in our love for god:
2 Thessalonians 3:5
 May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love
 and Christ's perseverance.

F. We should beware that we don't lose our love for God:
Revelation 2:4-5
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

Jesus was criticising the people of the Ephesian church because their first love towards him had faded. We should be careful that doesn't happen to us as well. You know how it is when you first fall in love with someone, how that person is always in your thoughts and you want to talk about them all the time, how you would do almost anything to please them and you just wanted to make them happy
and spend as much time with them as possible?
It should be like that with God too
although the love we feel for God is different for that we feel for a human love,  it is more the love of a child to their father,  with respect and adoration and gratitude, the principle is the same. When we first get saved we are usually on fire for God, eager to spend time with him each day and learn more about him and study his word,
doing the things he wants us to do. Then that first love faded a bit
and it gradually decreased from there.  Till we found ourselves only coming to Church out of duty
and reading the bible because we need to; and our prayers are cold and empty.
We need to remember how it was when our love for god was strong and try to live that way again. of course God will help us do that.

Conclusion:
We can see from what we have studied that loving God is very important
and it is something we need to do, so let us pray that god will help us love him more and show us how we can, helping us to fulfill the commandment to love him with all we are.

Let me leave you with:
a. a final warning from Revelation chapter 2, where Jesus rebuked the people for having lost their first love for  him:
 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its
place.
[Revelation 2:5]
Let's make loving God a priority in our lives.
and.
B. I will end with a promise that god gives to those of us who love him and call on him in prayer:
Psalms  91:14-15:
 "Because he loves me," says the LORD,
 "I will rescue him;
       I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 
 He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
       I will be with him in trouble,
       I will deliver him and honor him. 
 With long life will I satisfy him
       and show him my salvation."
 Here are a few questions  you may want to prayerfully ponder. this is between you and god and is only a suggestion.
Questions:
1 How can we show our love for God?
2. what do you think Jesus meant by "first love?"
3. how  can we keep our first love for Jesus strong?
4. Is loving God a priority in your life?

Thanks for reading this, may God bless you!

Friday 18 March 2011

God Proves His Love To Us

This is the first of three messages dealing with love. Love from god to us, love from us to God and love for other Christians, the family of God. This message deals with the first of those three areas, God's love for us..

God Proves his Love For Us:
romans 5:6-11:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,
 Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled,
 shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

I'm a member of a group of Christians who meet each week on Skype for a Church meeting. We pray, someone shares a scripture, someone might sing a song and then someone will share a message from the word of god. My turn had come around and I didn't know what i should talk about so i asked god and he gave me this message: "tell my people that I love them"
I answered  "but I have already taught about your love for us"
and I was reminded of something my mum used to say, "actions speak louder than words."
We know that God loves us because he said so and we put our faith in that. Yet  we live in a society that won't believe anything unless it has been proved. They demand eye witnesses, evidence, statistics, and won't believe what they can't see and hear.

So, how did God prove his love for us? There are so many ways! Each moment we  draw breath, each day, each word in the bible, each challenge each blessing; God proves his love in too many ways to count
but there is one thing he did that proves his love for us more than anything else  he could have done and that was the cross.

Think of God's pure spotless son hanging on that cross, blood dripping down, fighting for every breath, taking all  our sins on himself with all our shame and guilt and taking the punishment for those sins, the wrath of God and separation from fellowship with god. Jesus had always experienced complete  fellowship with the father but on the cross, where He needed the Father most, he was separated from him by our sins and God's punishment of them. He could have come down from that cross any moment but he didn't, he stayed there and gave up his life. He took our sin and shame and our punishment and made a way for us to have a relationship with god.    You can almost imagine Jesus saying to us, "I love you this much!"  Take a moment to reflect on what Jesus did for us on the cross and you will realise the lengths god has gone to for us. god has proved his love for us in the greatest possible way.

There are many reasons why Jesus died, I recently read an excellent book that listed 50 reasons why He suffered and died. [the passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper], but the greatest reason was because of God's great love for us.

Paul talks about that in our passage in Romans:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

There wasn't anything in us that would prompt a person to die for us, especially god's holy son; but God chose to save us even though we were sinners who didn't know or care about God. Yet it was always God's plan to save us by allowing Jesus to take our place of punishment and death. The bible says in Ephesians 1:
  in Christ, he chose us before the world was made so that we would be his holy people-people without blame before him. Because of his love, God had already decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. That was what he wanted and what pleased him, and it brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely, in Christ, the One he loves.

[Ephesians 1:4-6 NCV]
the bible also says:

But it was the Lord who decided        to crush him and make him suffer.        The Lord made his life a penalty offering,     but he will still see his descendants and live a long life.        He will complete the things the Lord wants him to do.
[Isaiah 53:10 NCV]

so we know that it was God's will and plan for his precious, only begotten son to die and take our place and offer himself up as a sacrifice for the remission of our sins. That's how much God our father loves us,and how much Jesus loves us too. It's a staggering thought,
far beyond our human minds to comprehend!

 If any of you are parents, try to see it from God's perspective. Would you want your child to suffer an agonising death to save other people who didn't know or care what happened? Yet God did that for us, even though it broke his heart to do it. And Jesus chose to do this for us, even though it was the hardest thing anyone could ever do! He could have called on the angels to destroy this world but he didn't because he loves us and wanted to reconcile us to god. This is how much our lord loves us! He talks about it in  John 15:

 "Greater love has no one than this,
 that someone lays down his life for his friends"
(John 15:13).



God proved  his love for us  when he gave us his son and when Jesus, God's son, died for us. We have incontrovertible proof that we are loved by our father and creator. the cross is the evidence and the Apostles are the eye witnesses.

 So, no matter what we feel when hard times come and God seems far away, no matter what the enemy tries to make us believe, we can know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God loves us deeply and profoundly - because he proved it.

The bible says:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
[Galatians 2:20]
Take some time today to reflect on that.
Yes,  Jesus died for all, he died for the Church; but he also died for each one of us. He died for me and for each one of you! i just can't get my head around that wonderful and amazing and beautiful truth, Jesus "loved me and gave himself
for me".

So, unless we choose to reject God and walk away from him, there is nothing in heaven or earth or hell
that can separate us from God's love as he says in his word in Romans 8:
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Why not take a moment today to reflect on God's great love for you. I pray that he will reassure you that he does love you. we all need to know this so that the enemy can't deceive us into believing that god doesn't love us.

Questions:
these questions do not need to be ansered except  maybe between you and God, I put them here for something to think about.
1. are you convinced that God loves you? why or why not?
2. If you struggle believeing that God loves you have you prayed about it?
3. Has knowing that God loves you changed your life in any way?

I hope this message has been a blessing to you. May God bless you!

Wednesday 16 March 2011

do You Know Jesus?

 This message is primarily for those who do not yet have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. I'm not a pastor or preacher but I can share with you a few things that might help you to come to know God for yourself.

/Do you know him?
To some he is a prophet,
A messenger from god.
To some he was a teacher
Who told people how to live the right way.

to some he was a good man
but perhaps a bit misguided,
To some he's just a phony,
A figment of imagination.

to me he is my lord,
the holy, sinless son of God
Who willingly gave his life for me
as a sacrifice for my sin.

And not for me alone,
 He took the punishment for all our sins,
Yet he holds his nail-pierced hands out
To each one who will come.

He is the shepherd who leads me on
And guides me through this life,
He is the master whom I serve
And desire to honour and please.

his love for us is strong and lasting,
he won't turn and walk away from us,
He doesn't reject us when we do wrong,
His promises are sure.

He's my Jesus, god's own son,
I love him, I praise him,
I  honour and worship him
I love him and give him my life.

do you know him? Do you see
the truth about who Jesus is?
If you want to know him he is there
all you have to do is call out to him.

There is so much that can be said about Jesus and all that he has done for us, as the bible says
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books
that would be written.
[John 21:25, ESV]
I'm just going to share a few thoughts with you.

you might think "I don't need God I'm doing ok, I'm a better person than some people I know."  Well picture this scene with me.

You are in a class who has just taken an important exam. Most of the class scored between 55 and 65, although a few have done worse than that,  so you are quite pleased with your score of 60. That is until you notice that one student has gotten  full marks. compared with that student you don't feel quite so happy about your score of 60. You feel rather discouraged because you know that no matter how hard you study and no matter what you do you will never get a score of 100.

When we compare ourselves with others we can get complacent. After all, we're not such bad people, we're better than some, we don't murder or cheat on our spouses or  steal, we're ok with how our lives are going. Yet compared to Jesus who is completely perfect, has never sinned, never lied, never gossiped, never hurt anyone, compared to him we're not doing as well as we thought we were. In reality, though we may try to be good people and do what we think is right, we fall woefully short of God's standard, as the bible says:
 Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God's glorious standard,  and all need to be made right with God by his grace, which is a free gift. They need
to be made free from sin through Jesus Christ.
[Romans 6:23-24]
or, to put it more bluntly:
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins
sweep us away.
[Isaiah 64:6]

So,   gods standard is absolute perfection and none of us are able to make that standard no matter how hard we try. You might hear that and feel discouraged; after all, noone but Jesus is perfect so what hope do we have? The hope we have is that Jesus died on the cross for us. He took all our sins on himself, from the least unkind word to the most hideous depraved act you can imagine. Then God poured out all his wrath and anger on Jesus for the sins which we have committed.  He gave up his life for a short time so that he could save us. The bible says:

 Christ carried our sins in his body on the cross so we would stop living for sin and start living for what is right. And you are healed because of his
wounds. 
[1 Peter 2:24 NCV]

We all know, if we really look at ourselves, that we are far from being perfect. Our lives are full of bad habits, mistakes, things we knew were wrong but chose to do anyway, things that we know we should have done but didn't do. We have hurt our loved ones, we have said unkind things, we have gossiped and many other things that show that we are sinners. I am not saying this to condemn anyone, what I said is true of the whole human race. We need help. We need someone to change us from the inside out and make us better people and that is just one of the things that Jesus does for us.

The question is, do you believe it? Are you willing to let God come into your life and change you?  If you haven't yet asked Jesus to be your saviour and given your life to God I'm going to give you some guidelines and a simple prayer you may choose to pray but before i do that I want to talk for a moment about what is known as the "sinner's prayer".

When I was young and only fairly new in my faith I thought I  had to repeat the sinner's prayer often to be sure that I was saved. I belonged to a Christian youth group and now and then we went to a Church service where they had an altar call and every time I put my hand up and went forward because I felt that was something I needed to do.

The Sinner's Prayer is not like a lucky charm or something that you have to repeat often to make sure you're safe. If you pray once and truly mean it then you are saved, but you must keep close to God and study his word and live this Christian life. If you truly want to ask  the Lord Jesus into your life, you have to pray with sincerity, realising that you are a sinner, someone who can never meet God's standard of perfection,  someone who has thought, said and done things which are wrong and which god does not approve of, and that you need the salvation that God freely gives those who believe in him and accept him, being willing to let God come into your heart and change you from the inside out.  Whatever words you use have no power in and of themselves if you aren't genuine about what you are saying.

Now, let me give you some guidelines on how you can pray for salvation but again remember it has to be genuine. Remember that God knows your heart, he knows you even better than you do and he's waiting for you to turn to him.

1. come to God in prayer remembering that he is the God who made all things, who made you, and who loves you.
2. Confess your sins to god, talk to him about the wrong things you have done and the things you should have done but didn't.
3. Acknowledge that Jesus has already paid the price for your sins.
4. Ask Jesus to come into your heart as your Lord and saviour.
5. Give the authority over your life to God, let him be your boss, let him have the controls.
6. thank him for saving you and for all that he has done for you.

I advise you to pray in your own words, you can talk to God just like you would talk to a loving parent or a good friend, you don't have to use a formula or words that others have written. If on the other hand you feel uncertain or uncomfortable about praying you might like to use these words of mine or find another prayer on the net that you like and pray that.

Dear god, I know that you are the creator of all things. you made me and  you know me. I know that your standard is perfection and that i have fallen so far short of that standard. I have sinned against you in many many ways [tell God about what you have done wrong] and I'm sorry for what I have done. Please forgive me for my sins and have mercy on me. 
Jesus I ask you to come into my heart and be my saviour and Lord.  I know that it is because of your death on the cross and your resurrection that I am able to be saved and have a relationship with you. I give myself and all that I have to you, my whole life, past present and future. Please have your way in me and change me to become more like you. Please take the controls of my life and help me to know what you want me to do and help me to make right choices in my life. I thank you for all that you have done for me, I thank you for saving me and for giving me your holy spirit. I give you all the praise and all the glory dear god, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
If you prayed a prayer like that with true sincerity then you are now a child of God, now a member of his family. God's Holy spirit is living in you and you have access to God at any time. you don't need to be afraid of death anymore, if you continue on in your faith till the end then when you die you will be with Jesus. 

You might say to me "Well I accepted Christ as my saviour so what's my next step?" I have a couple of recommendations for you:

1. get a bible or find one online. this is vital for anyone who wants to live the Christian life. the bible is god's word and it is powerful. There are some bible sites at
www.biblegateway.com
and
http://bible.crosswalk.com
as well as others. The bible teaches us about who God is and all that he has done for us, as well as telling us how we should live.
2. Find a church near you and start attending regularly. We can't make it through this Christian life alone, we need each other. we also need to be taught from god's word things that will help us in our Christian walk.  Also, if you are a new believer let someone in your Church know about it, they may have resources to get you started and they may have a group for new believers where you will be taught the basics of Christianity.
3. Take some time every single day to pray to God and read the bible. Pray before you read that god will teach you and reveal himself to you as you read and reflect on what the bible says. Start in the New Testament. Although of course all of the bible is important and there are truths in every verse that can help us, I think the New Testament is a good place to start for a new believer.  If you read something you don't understand, ask god to help you understand it.
4. If you have a Christian friend, co-worker, neighbour or family member, tell them that you are  now a Christian. maybe it would be good to meet them and study the bible together. I had a friend who did that with me and it helped me a lot.
5. Keep going, don't turn back no matter how hard it gets. The bible says:
 We are surrounded by a great cloud of people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should
remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back.  Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith
and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And
now he is sitting at the right side of God's throne.  Think about Jesus' example. He held on while wicked people were doing evil things to him. So do
not get tired and stop trying.
[Hebrews 12:1-3]

Well I hope that this has been helpful to someone. I really hesitated to put this message here because as I said there are  many others who are far better qualified than me to give a message about sin and salvation but  I felt that I should put this message here in case someone not yet saved reads it. If you are a new Christian there are lots of resources on and offline that can help you in your Christian walk.

God bless you and thanks for reading. have a wonderful day.

HeartSong Christian blog: Introducing me and my blog:

HeartSong Christian blog: Introducing me and my blog:: "Hello and welcome to my blog. Thanks a lot for checking it out, I appreciate that. Well let's start with an introduction. I'm going to past..."

Introducing me and my blog:

Hello and welcome to my blog. Thanks a lot for checking it out, I appreciate that.

Well let's start with an introduction. I'm going to paste in here an introduction of me that I wrote and send to people who are new friends or want to know more about me. I'm on some penpal sites and I found this was easier than answering the same questions over and over. So, here we go!

Hi I'm Rishie. I am 38 years old and i live in a small town in the mountains of northern New South Wales Australia. I live here with my best friends Maria and Joe and all our animals. I have a Chihuahua called Speedy and a cat called Crookshanks but we have other dogs, horses and birds here as well.   I am almost totally blind from birth and I use a programme that speaks the words on the screen and the words I type, that is how I am able to use the computer. I have a programme like that for my phone as well. I am unemployed due to start a computer course sometime soon, but until then I spend a lot of time at home with my friends.

I was born in Auckland New Zealand but I moved to Australia with my family when I was a child. I lived in Sydney many years before I moved up here with Maria and Joe in 1996. I love living here it's so peaceful. We live a few km outside of town on a small property. I hardly ever hear a car go by because the house is set back away from the road.

  I will tell you about my family. My father worked for an oil company for 29 years, he died the year he was going to retire. My Mum is a Nursing Unit Manager in a big hospital in Sydney. I have one brother who is 6 years younger than me, he is a lawyer and his wife is too.  They have 2 children Imogen [4] and Lana [2] and live in Sydney about 45 minutes drive from where Mum lives.

As for my personality, I'm very shy and quiet. People say of me that I don't talk enough. I am a good listener though. I'm a Christian and my faith is the most important thing in my life. I try to live as the bible teaches but of course I fail sometimes, i can be a bit impatient and short tempered though I am working on that. I am also too lazy and that's something I need to work on. I'm open about what I believe and I'll tell anyone who wants to know about my Lord Jesus and what he has done for me! If anyone wants to talk to me about God  I'm very pleased to tell them whatever I can but if they are plainly not interested I don't push them, I will just pray for them..

about my hobbies, I love to sing, read, write, do crafts, play piano and guitar a little, chat on skype, msn, yahoo or twitter and do email. my friend has an internet radio station at
www.powerradio104.com
and I have a show on there called Kiwi's place. My friend Maria and I do another show, a Christian music show called Power Praise, as well.
I'm an avid reader and I enjoy reading romances, historical fiction and books about other countries and places. I also enjoy Christian fiction such as books from Francine Rivers, Janette Oke, Laurie Wick and the very cool "left behind" series. I'm not much into mysteries but I do enjoy the brother Cadfael chronicles written by Ellis Peters. I also enjoy some  junior fiction such as the tomorrow series, Harry Potter, the writings of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the chronicles of Narnia and stuff like that. I also love the Lord of the Rings books. I enjoy reading fanfiction. As for music I like a lot, here are some of my favourite artists some you may not know: Hayley Westenra, Dame Kiri Te Kanaawa, Charlotte Church, Marina Prior, Andrea Bocelli, Eddy Low, Sir Howard Morrison, Emma Kirkby, Barbara Bonney, Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan, John Farnham, Michael Crawford and many others. I don't like a lot of the modern music, I don't like rap or heavy metal or hiphop and I'm not much into Jazz either. 

I  think  that physical appearance is not important in getting to know someone because beauty fades but the inner character and personality remains, but for those who want to know I am 4 feet 9 inches, I have longish dark brown hair and brown eyes. I have a fair complexion. I am a little overweight but not too much.

Now about my blog and what I'm going to do with it. I was recently on holiday in New Zealand and I talked to God about the devotionals and other Christian stuff that is just sitting on my hard drive. I usually send things I write to  some email lists but after that the files just stay in my computer. The Lord put in my mind to start a Christian blog and post all my Christian writing there. So, that's what I'm doing.

I write devotionals and poetry mostly. I write simple, basic devotionals for the Christian radio show that my friend and I do together and I have written some more detailed ones when I was exploring a topic and decided to share  what I found out about it. I love details and I enjoy going back to the original languages at times, to better understand the meaning of a word or bible verse.

I've been writing poetry for years and years, ever since school days. Most of my poems have been lost over the years, due to hard drive crashes and things being lost during moves, but I have a few poems and I'm writing more so I'll put them here and if my hard drive crashes again at least I won't lose them this time.

I sometimes have the privilege of teaching at an online Church group that meets every week and I will be sharing those messages here as well. Let me hasten to explain that I am by no means a theologian, I am not a bible college graduate or student though i am doing an online  bible course. I just like to share the things the Lord has been teaching me. I encourage you that when you read my devotionals and stuff, or any Christian writing really, you should check the bible references and if something I or someone else says doesn't line up with what God says in his word then please disregard what I or they said and pay attention to what God is saying to you. Also if you disagree with me on some point, feel free to write to me about it and we can discuss it but please don't flame me ok.

I will post my testimony on here one of these days but in brief, I went to a school for the blind in Sydney for my primary education. The school is  a Catholic one and my parents were told to send me there so they did even though we aren't catholic. It was there I learned about Jesus, that he is God's son and that if we ask him into our hearts he will be our best friend and will never leave us. I felt that I needed a best friend like that so when I was 8 years old I gave my life to the Lord. After my Dad died in 2006 i strayed away from the Lord a bit, I was still a Christian and a believer but I didn't walk close to the Lord in those years, I was angry at him and kept my distance. I got caught up in sin and strayed further and then one day God got my attention, and since then I haven't looked back. I give all thanks to god for his mercy and patience with me!  since then, praise god, I've stayed closer to God and seen some growth in my Christian life.

Ok i think that's enough information for now. if you like you can email me at:
Rishie@dodo.com.au
to talk about anything I've written or just say hi. Also, I love to pray for people so if you have a prayer request and want another person to agree in prayer with you, send your prayer request to me.

god bless you all, have a nice day and thanks for reading this.