The True Life Giver

A Life Changing experience About 40 years ago, I had a life changing experience – I discovered the world of horticulture. This discovery came from a route of educational and career choices that ultimately led to the occupation of landscaper and finally to the opening of a plant nursery.   I found there was something almost magical in the process of planting a seed that had been sitting dormant and seeing it burst into life. Or cutting a piece off an existing plant, placing it into a potting media and seeing new roots develop and ultimately cloning a new plant. And there was the intricacy and beauty of leaves and flowers. Intricate patterns of leaf veins and their amazing colour palette. Colours that I personally would describe as undesirable in for example an item of clothing or a car, would by contrast look stunning to me in the garden.   You might well ask – what has this got to do with a blog entitled The True Life Giver Read on and I will tell you!!  

  The Ultimate Life Changer reveals Himself I mentioned how the plant world had become a life changing experience. What I didn’t know was that about the same time I was about to have an encounter which was about to change my life forever in a far more dramatic way than horticulture. I was about to get to know the Creator that made all the wonder of nature possible. Some friends that my wife had met through her work environment had decided to move to Sydney. They invited us to a going away barbecue in the Noosa National Park and suggested we could go in the morning to the small Christian church they attended and then go to the lunch after.   That day ended up being the ultimate life changer. We went to church that morning – and then the next Sunday and the next…….

  The Journey Begins My wife and I had always had a leaning to what the world call ‘The New Age’. We knew there was more to life than these mortal bodies of ours and the mind that resided in it – there was something spiritual involved. But something happened on that first day in church that we were not expecting. We experienced The Holy Spirit. The spirit that was common to God the Father and Jesus the Son. We didn’t understand it, but we knew we wanted more.   As we attended church over the coming months, we listened to the teaching on Gods eternal plan for mankind and Jesus as our saviour and began to delve into The Bible. My wife responded almost immediately in declaring Jesus as her Lord and Saviour. As for me - I was more hesitant. It had to make sense to me. It was some months later that I would reach that point of not trying to understand it all, but as they say – step out in faith. I asked God to forgive me of my sins, I acknowledged my belief in the ...

 Father, Son and Holy Spirit Three in one As a new believer one of the first things, I had to get my head around was the idea of a God that was three in one – often described as the Trinity, or a Triune God One analogy that I could personally relate to is that of the Sun. If we imagine that Father God is like the physical body of the Sun that we see out in space. Jesus can be depicted as the light that comes from it. It’s something we can see and relate to and when we turn a switch on in a room – it chases away darkness. The Holy Spirit is like the heat that comes from the Sun. We can’t see it, but we can feel it’s presence. The light and heat working together create life. Life can’t exist without them. The opening line of the Bible is 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' God here in Hebrew is plural - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They all share the same divine nature  They were not created but have always existed. Always working together, but ...

The Sin in My Life In one of the earliest posts, I mentioned that before I received Jesus as my saviour I had asked God to forgive me from my sin. No, I didn’t have dark secrets from my past. I hadn’t lived an evil life and I would have described myself as a generally ‘good person’. What I had come to realize is that I had a ‘sinful nature’ that revolved around me and what I wanted for my life. What the world would describe as ‘looking after number one’. Even more so I recognised in my life what God would describe as the greatest sin and that is pride. The pride of independence – believing I could live my life without acknowledging the One who created me and how He would want me to live my life. And so we come to that word ‘repent’. The word repent means a change of heart and mind where we feel genuine regret and desire to turn away from sin. It’s often described as a complete change of direction from actions that please us, toward those that honour and please God. So, I had come to ...

  Making Wise Choices People who do not follow God seem to be the first ones to blame Him when things don't go the way they would like. Or blame Him for the death and destruction on earth. What they need to realize is that  God did not create us to be puppets, where he could control us by pulling all the right strings and so He gave us choice in every area of our life and with choices come consequences. God loves us like parents love their children and like a parent it’s His desire that we love Him in return and want to live our lives in a way that pleases Him. So He gave us the choice to love Him, the choice to obey Him, the choice to be guided by Him and to want to please Him. Unfortunately from the very beginning man made some really bad choices. God’s first created couple were Adam and Eve, and their early disobedience had consequences for all the generations that would follow (more on this later) Fortunately He gave us an antidote to poor choices and that is recognize t...