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Revelation.

What does this word mean to us? For some, it might immediately bring to mind cataclysmic events decreed by God; searching for the word in Google immediately associates it with the events described in God’s Revelation to John in the book commonly referred to by the same name… Revelation.

And rightly so, I think! Here is the definition of revelation from the Miriam-Webster dictionary:

Main Entry: rev·e·la·tion
Pronunciation: \ˌre-və-ˈlā-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English revelacioun, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin revelation-, revelatio, from Latinrevelare to reveal
Date: 14th century
1 a : an act of revealing or communicating divine truth b : something that is revealed by God to humans
2 a : an act of revealing to view or making known b : something that is revealed; especially : an enlightening or astonishing disclosure <shocking revelations> c : a pleasant often enlightening surprise <her talent was a revelation>
3 capitalized : an apocalyptic writing addressed to early Christians of Asia Minor and included as a book in the New Testament —called also Apocalypse —

This is how I think of revelation. Those of you who know me even a bit might recognize that sometimes, I can be fairly stringent with the definition of words and how they are used; at the very least exploring a bit of a word’s etymology (I should also not that I love slang, as well). When we are on the receiving end of revelation, something is shown to us, disclosed by another, not sourced in our own means.

Revelation transcends knowledge and understanding. Revelation is the apocalypse of something unknown, that is, the uncovering or unveiling of something hidden. One cannot guess or deduce with certainty the contents within a box which is covered in a sheet; they (in perfect conditions) could not even tell wether it were a solid block, a box, or a wire frame. When the sheet is removed though, the observer receives revelation of the nature and contents of the box.

I think of this often when I am studying the Bible. For quite some time, I have been taught various methods of studying the Scriptures, most of those methods being oriented around a literal interpretive framework (what does the author actually mean?). I have found them to be of tremendous value, and cannot be neglected by anyone wanting to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the written Word of God.

However… not all things can be deduced and induced by the acquisition of knowledge. The apostle Paul is an appropriate example of this: the man (Saul at the time) had been trained his entire life in the Jewish religion and tradition, a Pharisee, and zealous! For all his knowledge of the Word of God, though, he failed to give proper attention to Jesus, for the Christ’s nature was hidden from him, until Jesus himself accosted Saul on the road to Damascus.

Similarly, Peter did not somehow deduce that Jesus was the Christ, it was revealed to him by God (Matthew 16:13-17).

This we must keep in mind, when approaching our faith and approaching the Scriptures. We may gain knowledge and understanding through study of Scripture (and we should!), but many of the primary aspects of our faith must be revealed to us. Indeed, the first step we recognize of our Christian lives, the understanding of the gospel, is not something we deduce… it’s something that is shown to us by those around us and revealed to our hearts by the living God.

Prayer and worship are so foundational to knowing God, to truly understanding Scripture, to knowing who we are. We may well approach the Scriptures with academics; but only if we are being unceasingly steeped in the Presence of God.

May God meet you were you are and impart to you such wondrous things as your heart never imagined.

For quite a while now, I have been reading A Practical View Of Christianity by William Wilberforce, who is famous for campaigning the abolition slavery in the British Empire in the early 1800′s.

William Wilberforce

In his book, he sought to (and was successful in) present a clear, no-frills picture of what the Christian life ought to look like; it’s quite convicting, some two hundred years later. We still need to be reading this book.

I was just reading through the third part, Defects Of The Religious Systems Of Confessed Christians. In part of this chapter, Wilberforce responds to a proposed “Opponent” in a “Consideration of the Reasonableness of Affections towards an Invisible Being”.

In this section, Wilberforce argues (and he is quite long-winded at times) that it is not seeing or hearing that most affects our affections (emotions) but the closeness of contact. Wilberforce quotes Adam Smith’s Theory Of Moral Sentiments: (continue reading…)

I’ve been thinking about my future.

Click To Zoom

Right now, I have no idea where I am headed.

I am somewhat dis-satisfied where I am now, this much I know has been evident through the blogs I have written lately; obvious enough that more than a couple of you have picked up on that. If you could pray for me, I would be much appreciative.

I am thinking I will take a few days just to fast and pray… go somewhere out of the way where I won’t be interrupted by people, and examine my heart. Here, there isn’t much room to do it, even in the prayer room.

What are the main things I need to consider?

Where is God leading me in the ministry I am currently associated, for the remaining months I am here (or am I even supposed to stay any longer)? What recurring issues and attitudes continually sneak up on me that need to be addressed? What sort of a future am I preparing myself for? Do I choose one passion to pursue or try and balance them all, or only a few of them? What are my real passions?

Why am I here?

I assume these are normal questions to be asking for someone of my age.

Why are these questions coming up now? I think it’s probably a combination of my circumstances and the things that are immediately ahead for me, things that I am not fond of considering. The very fact I am so opposed to those things makes me want to examine my heart to see what’s going on.

Anyhow… if you want more detail… email me! If you are willing, please do remember to pray for me, I have no doubts whatsoever about the efficacy of prayer.

I’m really starting to suck at keeping this blog updated, eh? 

These days, I haven’t felt I’ve had much to blog about. Which… is sad, really. I should have so much to blog about. Here I am, a “missionary”, living halfway around the world from my home in a beautiful country. I somehow manage to get through every month without having a job or asking for money. God is quite amazing, He is!

The last week has been a busy one, or so it seems. Looking at restructuring a lot of our web stuff, which means a lot of work for me. I am also now a part of one of the Youth Street Live bands that play on Saturday nights, here… last week was the first practice, and we’ll be on in a couple weeks for the first time. A few of us also started practicing during the week for worship, which is cool; it means that we’ll have two or three or even four practices in for every time we play worship. It’s really nice.

So… that’s really good. (continue reading…)

Well sadly it’s been a couple of weeks since I have written here on my website and blog. Some of you reading this will know more or less about what I have been struggling through the last few weeks, and even the last couple of months.

Here I am, though, back at YWAM Reef To Outback in Townsville, doing what I do here… for the most part, that is working on the different things we do on the web. Other responsibilities have also recently fallen to me once again in the area of I.T.

It’s a hard job for me, at times… I like creating and innovating and accomplishing and discovering, and there is always something to be thought up when it comes to keeping up with the times in web world. I don’t know a lot about I.T. stuff, either, so it’s interesting having to problem solve on the fly, sometimes. (continue reading…)

Well, I’m sitting here by myself, watching the Flames game, playing poker on Facebook, waiting for Chinese food.

I haven’t updated for a while (since I was in London) so it’s about time!

Right now, I can’t even remember what I’ve done in the last week.

I suppose there have been a couple of highlights, though! On Saturday, we drove up to Red Deer to Scott’s Parable Place to do some shopping… I was able to get a whole bunch of books that I’ve been hoping to get. I am bringing them — a whole box of them — back to Australia with me, so that’s quite exciting. I think all in all, as of this moment, I’m taking 13 books back to Australia (not including the ones I brought with me). That’s really awesome.

On Sunday, I spoke for about twenty-five minutes at my Church, skimming (and I mean REALLY skimming) over what I’ve done in the last two years at YWAM Reef To Outback. I was really encouraged by the response I received and the generosity of the church towards me… I was very blessed! They had a barbecue fundraiser for me, and it was great!

Sunday afternoon my family (and a friend) drove out to Canmore for some mountain experience. I’ve been here nearly a month and I still hadn’t gotten out into the mountains! So that was really good to be able to do that.

So here we are, lef to right: me, Weston (brother), Sienna (sister), Kelly (friend):

I just noticed how obvious my knife is in the above picture. Ha!

We spent quite a bit of time breaking off the ice shelves you see above, using the biggest rocks we could haul (you can see a rather large one in the above picture, too. Here we are in the act:

Finally, the end of the day in my beautiful country: