Erin is cool . com

Blog resurrected

2009-04-23T14:40:00.002+12:00

The other day Scott Mackay & I were talking about blogs. He reminded me that I used to have one. He thought that I should start writing on it again. I laughed. Then today I was faffing on the internet & remembered my blog again. So after confusion on where to find it I have raised it back to life. The true test will be in whether I use it & if anyone actual cares & will read it. Erin is cool. com is back online :P

HELP!!

2006-11-24T11:43:00.000+13:00

Ok, being the computer illiterate girly that I am I am having trouble putting a photo on my profile. I have tried to do it through changing my settings but I keep getting an error type message. Could someone please help??!!

Signing off: Damsel in distress,

e ;P

Long long long long long awaited post of Trinity study response from MINTY

2006-11-23T10:52:00.000+13:00

Earlier on in the year my good friend Chez suggested that I put some of my study responses up, especially my stuff on the Trinity. 'Earlier on' translates to July... So, here is my much awaited thoughts. This study response was answering the question: How does God being Three and One make a difference in your relationship with Him?
So here goes it, enjoy :)

To be honest from the outset, the idea of the Trinity was always something I took for granted. I was taught that God was One in Three persons and remember reciting the things about Trinity as a child but I never thought about the implications of this in my relationship with God… until I read Grudem.

Grudem helped me to realise that God was more complex and wonderful than I had ever thought. It helped me to understand that the character of God could be known to me as a human, the Holy Spirit was a more complex part of the Trinity then I had previously thought and why the humanity and divinity of Jesus were important.

Jesus said that He and the Father were one so if I am to know anything about the God of the Universe I am to get to know what Jesus was like when He was on earth. It is such a blessing that God wished to make Himself known to me and that Jesus, being fully God, became man to show me what God is like. It has also struck me recently that Jesus being referred to as the Word of God means that I can get to know God through Jesus by reading the Bible, the very word of God. I try to remind myself of this so I don’t take the Bible for granted and read it daily as a way to get to know God for myself. This is something God has convicted me of recently because in the past I have sat back and let people tell me what I can know about God and Jesus rather than reading the Bible myself. To use an analogy, it is like I’m trying to get to know a person simply by hearing about them from someone else rather than getting to know them myself. It decreases the work but also decreases the personal relationship. I am thankful to God that he has given me the opportunity to know Him through the person of Jesus and His Word so I pray that I get on and do it!

It is quite a new concept for me that the Holy Spirit is also fully God not just the spirit of God. This has changed my relationship toward the Trinity and the Holy Spirit in particular in the fact that I now realise that it is God, not just some ‘messenger’ spirit that works in me now and has equipped me for a holy life. This helps me to be more respectful of the Holy Spirit which is now within me as a believer as it is fully God. As a temple of the Holy Spirit I have God within me. This humbles and overwhelms me.

I have known all of my life that Jesus was a real man and that He was the Son of God but I didn’t realise until recently what that meant for how He related to humans. The fact that He was fully human means that He can relate to my struggles and pain which give me great comfort. However, this is because I know He is also God and the fact that God can relate to my struggle and pain lets me know that He cares and can relate. Also, because of the sin of human kind has separated from God I marvel at the logic behind God’s plan for salvation. God is the only being that can save us from sin but He could not let the sin of man go unpunished. So, God the Father sent God the Son to become man and die for the sin of all men. Salvation is from God but a Son must die for the sins of the people (as with the Passover and the eldest son being killed for the sins of the Egyptians). I’m overawed by the complexity and genius of God’s plan to win us/me back. I marvel at how holy and loving God is that He must punish our sin and rebellion but He loves His people enough to die for them and take that punishment. God is too cool!

The fact that the Trinity is something I struggle to understand fully and explain effectively shows me how complex God is and how his ways are higher than mine. Ultimately, the fact that God is One in Three persons exemplifies how awesome and worthy of praise He is.

Let me know if you want to see any of my other stuff.

Peace out,
e

Goodness talk

2006-05-04T21:52:00.000+12:00

This was the bible talk on goodness from 2 Peter 1:3-11 I gave at Teacher's Christian Fellowship:

BEING GOOD

As teachers you know all about being good and good behaviour.
Your students are good when they do what they’re told and endeavour to do good work. As teachers you strive to be good by controlling you temper, preparing your lessons thoroughly and teaching with gusto.
But really, how far does this goodness go? The good behaviour of children and teachers leads only (though importantly) to a happy learning environment. This goodness may also affect life outside the classroom but it fails to affect life in Christ. Goodness that leads to Christ has many more elements than just being good. The elements I will talk about cover the source of our goodness, how we strive to be good, what happens when we don’t strive for this goodness and the ultimate purpose of that striving to be good.

Speaking of things ‘good’ I don’t know if you have ever counted how many times the word ‘good’ is in the account of creation in Genesis 1 but I found 7 goods. That’s quite a few goods. We see through this overuse of the word good that everything God creates is good as it says in 1 Timothy 4:4. Through the Creation story we see that all goodness around us and within us comes from God.
In 2 Peter we see that God has called us by and because of this goodness and in turn has given us, in verse 3, ‘all we need for life and godliness’ which includes goodness.
We must realise and acknowledge that God is the ultimate source of goodness, the only being that is ultimately good and that real goodness is from him and for him. This is given to us by his divine power or Holy Spirit. It is from this divine power we are granted the divine nature, a nature like God's. So, if God has given us everything we need to be good what are we meant to do?

I always tried to be a good little girl. I went along to church with my parents every Sunday. I sung in the choir, did readings during Mass and lead children’s liturgy. I worked hard at school and with the many extra curricular activities that filled up my life. I did many good things but I lacked one thing - FAITH.
It is no coincidence that faith is the first thing or base that all the other things or qualities are added to. It is from faith in the promises of God through the work of Jesus that we are granted life and the ability to grow in the godly character that the list of qualities makes up. We must begin with placing our trust firmly in God and His promise that we have been taught and have learned from His Word.
Once our faith is established we must grow that faith with goodness or virtue. We are to use doing good things for God to grow and show the faith we have in God. Our doing good things must add not replace our faith. In my own life it is a daily remembering of why I do good – that I do good because of the good God first showed me through Jesus. I must remind myself not to do good just for the sake of doing good or the earthly gains but for the sake of my life in Jesus and God's glory.

We must then add knowledge to our goodness. This means growing in our knowledge of the whole truth and will of God through His Word. We need to continue to read and hear teaching from God’s Word so we know more of Him and what it is to live as good people according to God.
The goodness that we add to our faith and that is added to with other qualities is, however, ultimately something God has already equipped us with by his divine nature. We have seen in this passage that true goodness is from God and we access that goodness through the Spirit by working at our faith. The ability to grow is from God but the responsibility of growth is with us.

Speaking of growth, if you have ever had a plant you may know that if you neglect it it will die. This analogy may be crudely applied to ones faith After talking about the qualities that believers are to add to their faith Peter goes on to say, in verse 9, that those who don't, will forget. In other words if they you neglect, you will forget. Those who lacked these qualities, in verses 5 to 7, had forgotten that they were cleansed from their former sins. Ultimately, they had lost the freedom and life they had in Christ. They were again slaves to their sin.
But there is another way. Peter say, in verses 10 and 11, that if you practice these qualities you will not fall and you will prepare yourself for eternity with God. In Hebrews 10: 23-25 it says “let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir one another up in love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near”. We are to hold fast and grow in good works. We are to meet together and find way to encourage each other in that. We are to pray and share our lives with one another. This will help us prepare ourselves and help others in their preparation for the End. This has been worked out in my life with the bible reading plan that myself and the other Minterns have been following this year. It is a way of adding knowledge to the faith we have and the good works we are doing on campus. It also works as a way for us to gather together and encourage each other to grow in this way. Having faith in God's promises through Jesus which has goodness, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love supplemented to it will grow believers into people who look like Christ here and in heaven. These qualities are part of a godly character that we are to work at.

The goodness that we have seen in this passage is:
Firstly, from God and through his goodness we are given the ability to show goodness as well.
Also, the goodness we are to work out in our lives must be built about the foundation of a faith in God's promise in His Son, Jesus. We must grow our goodness with knowledge of God through His Word.
Lastly, but importantly that striving for goodness keeps our memory and faith in God's promises alive and assures our entrance into God's kingdom.

So, what is your motivation for goodness at the moment? How could you grow goodness in your own life? How can you help believers around you grow in goodness?

Bloggy McBlog Blog

2005-07-20T16:44:00.000+12:00

I know have a Blog. I am now cool