Aptiva

There is dear reader a perception that one can exist inside of this life without affecting another person. This view, I believe comes more out of hope that actual truth. In its hope we can act with impunity. Safe in the belief that nothing we do actually causes anybody else any problems. Yet in truth, we must admit that we are part of the body politic. Whatever I do brings change and affect to other people. I am part of all that I have met, and they are part of me. Then hundreds of thousands, I have never met have been changed because I exist. Like the gravitational forces, which exist upon all bodies, my existence brings change to the direction and life of others. I leave things behind in other people's lives, and I gain from them in return. Obviously with many this influence may be small and somewhat insignificant, but with some very powerful. So, dear reader, since your life does affect another person. I put it to you, we are responsible to live our lives as best for other peopl...

"Motive imparts moral quality, and without a holy motive there cannot be a holy act": Those who have come to the realisation that they have no inherent quality to commend themselves to a holy God, have come to the position Jesus describes as "poor in Spirt". This becomes a springboard for all other learning. Further revelation instructs us that all actions done without God being the centre of that action, are actions of selfishness, not ones of glorification of God. Thus a cup of water can be given to a thirsty person, while a beneficial act, it is not necessarily a holy one. It depends on the motive of the giver. All our actions, and therefore our life are eventually revealed by this standard, things done for the glory of God, and things done for our own. What then is your motive?

"The sons of light have an overwhelming obligation to the children of darkness. The lighthouse keeper dare not compromise with the storm; neither dare the light become friendly with the darkness." I wonder how many of us would trust a lighthouse which demonstrated that it was only working part of the time. Reliability to give the same consistent message is at the base foundation of being able to trust that the lighthouse will do the job it was built to do. Each and every day you set out to sea, you rely and have faith that the lighthouse will be there doing it's job warning you away from the treacherous parts of the waters. Without this protection your own life is put at risk. In a world which claims at present that "absolute truth" is a thing of the past, those who place themselves as followers of the living Christ, will disagree with the everyday majority view and firmly believe that "absolute truth" not only is knowable but essential for life. And ...

There are, dear reader, many copies of an original masterpiece found throughout the world. However their owners are aware of this copy. It is the forgery which causes concern in life. No one wants to find that they have a forgery of a painting instead of the original. The revelation only brings with it pain and misery. The owner is unlikely to thank you for revealing this loss to them. The same is true for human traits. There are many forgeries of love passing themselves off as the original, however that original is only owned by the creator himself and his followers who he bestows it upon, though his Holy Spirit. All others are poor copies and we would do well to recognise them as such. Copies are fine, for they remind us an original exists and we must seek it. Forgeries are not as they lead us to complacency. Have your dear reader sought the original?

Sometimes Dear Reader, another's thought is far more profound than one's own.IN this case it is borrowed. POVERTY: Learning to Give Ourselves. We always seem to be better at giving then becoming. We can give love even when we are not intrinsically loving. We can be generous even when we are not truly compassionate. We can be concerned about others and yet essentially still live for ourselves. We can be giving to the poor and yet withhold the very thing they most urgently seek: companionship in the journey. Being poor is what Jesus invites us to, and that is much, much harder than serving the poor. If we wish to journey with the poor, we need to become poor ourselves - poor for the sake of the gospel and poor for the sake of our neighbour. This poverty does not only mean that we voluntarily lay aside our time, our power, and our priorities in order to serve others. At a deeper level, it means that we discover our own poverty, weakness, and brokenness and can therefore...

Many times Dear Reader, we mistake travelling in a similar direction for travelling together. For the greater part this oversight causes no pain when discovered, for the consequences of such discovery are small. However, when those travelling have placed responsibility and burden on one another, becoming reliant so to speak, a departing of the ways becomes more painful. Yet this world sadly, encourages a lifestyle which is all about the individual, and not about the creator. You see Dear Reader, the creator teaches us to look beyond our self , to follow His ways is to accept we are the least important in the equation, and when we travel, we serve not ourselves and our desires, but His. Yet even this is oft misunderstood, because of the order in which we serve. We seem to think that serving our creator is a licence for never serving a human, while in fact the creator is very direct in His teaching. In this world he has appointed leaders whose job is to care and direct, and whose burden ...

There is, dear reader, a nagging problem which all of us have to deal with! Who has the right to dispense justice? We understand that all human beings have fallen short in some way and demonstrate their life is not perfect. This leads us to the not unreasonable conclusion that not one person is able to cast judgement upon another. And while we are able to accept the judgement of others in the theoretical, things change greatly when it comes to the practical. In fact, dear reader, only true justice would be completed if the judge themselves had never committed a crime, or had never broken the law in any way. For if the judge who stood before us had faced every temptation we had faced but had overcome those temptations with success. Had been presented with every opportunity to break the law, but had rejected them all. Then the judge themselves does have the right to fairly judge others. Where however with you find this judge?. This is the person, who the Bible describes as Jesus Christ. ...