This is amazing because I wasn't expecting it until later on in September because I just realised as I'm typing this actually... that I haven't even enrolled for this year yet as you can't until 1st September. What an amazing God we have! :) Thank you so much if you were one of the people who have sent me money so far too, I really appreciate it and hope that you find Acts 20:35 to be true when Jesus said "It is more blessed to give than to receive". :) Thank you too, if you have been remembering me in your prayers, I know that on my own and relying on myself I can do nothing, and it is only through God working in me and through me, that I'll be of any use at all so thank you again.
Please keep praying, it's the orientation week from tomorrow (21st) until next Thursday (27th), please pray that I'll learn a lot and be more excited about the coming year. Please pray for me as I'll be meeting the team leaders Tim and Emily and their family for the first time, that we'll get on really well, and with Lucy too... that we'll bond as a team in our love for Jesus. And just that God will be transforming each one of us who are joining an InterAction team this year, to be more like His Son Jesus by his Holy Spirit, and that we'll love Him and treasure Him more, and understand more of who He is and what He has done for us. :)
Also... please pray for the CUs in Brussels that they'll be getting excited now as well for the coming year, that their focus will be on the cross and reaching out to other students with the good news they have to share. And that the right student leaders will be raised up, who are enthusiastic, faithful, servant hearted and committed to the Gospel and evangelism.
Thanks guys!! I've kept thinking of things over the past few days that I want to blog about, but I'll just leave you with this that I read last night when I started ANOTHER book lol: 'The Pursuit of Holiness' by Jerry Bridges, he is talking about one of the problems we have, that stops us from really experiencing holiness in our day to day Christian lives, it fits in quite well with the commentary on Romans where I have just got to chapter 8, talking about living godly Christian lives as THE NORM, and what my Dad spoke on at our Bible study last night, from Psalm 51 "Against you and you only have I sinned":
Our first problem is that our attitude toward sin is more self-centred than God-centred. We are more concerned about our own 'victory' over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve the heart of God. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success-oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God.
W.S. Plummer said, 'We never see sin aright until we see it as against God... All sin is against God in this sense: that it is His law that is broken, His authority that is despised, His government that is set at naught ... Pharaoh and Balaam, Saul and Judas each said, 'I have sinned': but the returning prodigal said, 'I have sinned against heaven and before thee'; and David said, "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned."'
God wants us to walk in obedience - not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self. This may seem to be merely splitting hairs over semantics, but there is a subtle, self-centred attitude at the root of many of our difficulties with sin. Until we face this attitude and deal with it we will not consistently walk in holiness.
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