Refreshing Warmth

i certainly have a habit of titling my posts with 'R' words huh? hehe

well this weekend has once again been a beneficial one in making my vital decision as to which church I'm going to stick to, once again i went to hopes church in the morning (hope is the friend i mentioned in my previous post, in case you didn't catch it) and i felt it quite warming. all though I'm one for big concerts and jump around to music i feel as though arise emphasises the music rather than a focus on god and i think link hutt city offers this better focal point on the lord, whilst waiting for time to pass before going to arise me and my wonderful mother decided to bring out ye ole photo albums.. now most teenagers get blush and all embarrassed with this but thanks to many awakenings this year i have managed to over come it and appreciate the aesthetic value to it, in fact it bought countless smiles to my face. i also must mention that in youth meeting (at link) we talked about Philippians 3:12 which i quite liked, now this post is mainly emphasising the point of approaches to preaching from a passage because all though we didn't preach on it at link, we addressed the passage and got a good understanding of it. now funnily enough our guest pastor at arise spoke on exactly the same passage, however sadly he didn't do a very good job on it (from my point of view) in fact he was quite a pessimist in some of the things he was talking about and only referred to the pas

sage a few times. the beauty of the bible is that it can be perceived in so many ways by so many different people and this certainly opened my heart to that point..

(i hate losing my train of thought) hmmmmm..

now on a semi related note i must mention that i have been getting some compliments from a few very genuine people as of lately, two people said that my writing (as presented to you on this page) is wonderful,fluent,easy to read and very interesting- this made me smile. later on Sunday after arise i went to a group called prayer's and pudding's this group is organised by my lovely friend Mava and was it was a pleasure to be there, the atmosphere was very open minded and genuine, and during this group meeting a good friend of mine said to me "y'know the more i get to know you the more i get to have a very deep respect for you" it took me by shock that he said as it was quite out of the blue, however it was a pleasant shock and i really was taken a back from words and only managed to say 'why thank you very much'. Later that very same night i was on the trade me message boards (taken quite a liking to them recently), of which i have met some interesting character's on here, one of which gave me my most humbling comment yet 'you have a very good eye for the disposition of truth within the bible and with this the holy ghost will work through you', before i go any further let me modestly mention that I'm not one to take compliments to the head and let it build my ego, i take them in with appreciation and reflect on what was said and how it is relevant to myself.

almost every day since the service last week at hopes church i have been having awakenings and the lord has been softening my heart to the reality of this world and what my part will play in it. I'm not expecting prophesies to unfold in front of me or for me to begin a preaching course at anytime, that is for the lord to decide, however i have been truly humbled in letting god take such a huge part in my life (hopefully one day i will be able to say that he is my life)

in total reflection of these past two weeks i am glad to say that my distance from the Lord has in total reality become a great distance less.

may he bless and nurture you all, thank you for reading.