Well this week as our first week at Ellerslie we developed an understandings of the basic truths of the Bible which we would claim to be the very Word of God in text. For the Bible says about itself that

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine (teaching), for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all god works.” (2 Timothy 3:16 – KJV)

With this as our basis, believing that the Word of God is inerrant, it is truth, and it is central because God himself declares his nature and declares his plan of salvation through Jesus Christ we built on this solid rock exploring foundational truths to Christianity.

At Ellerslie there is great diversity. Students are gathered here from nearly every evangelical denomination imaginable. Some very conservative and others from very liberal backgrounds. Yet here at Ellerslie there is unimaginable unity as we fix our teaching, discussion and study on Jesus. We stick to discussing central doctrines and are free to have our own expressions of worship, praise, prayer etc. The main thing is for us to respect all in the way we express our freedoms in Christ, and not to distract and disturb our fellow students. Seeing this unity in the body of Christ is surely a joyful experience and reviving to the soul.

At Ellerslie it has always been the commission of the men to live as men ought. To live lives of valour and honour. Men act as gentlemen and you will ALWAYS see them opening the door for each other and especially the ladies, cleaning away the dishes and taking the initiative to pray for and protect the women of our campus. Their focus is to ensure that each and every woman in the course is supported in seeing JESUS and the guys are definitely not getting in the way of that with romance or attention-seeking behaviour. It is truly an experience to live among the guys here at Ellerslie as they learn what manhood truly is. It is also an honour to see these women begin to radiate and showcase authentic beauty in this protective and empowering environment.

So what have we been learning?

For many, the word “sin” merely expressed the so-called ‘bad’ things that humans do to one another, and towards God. We dug a little deeper into what this christianese term may actually mean, and why it is so offensive to God. In medical terminology we could classify ‘sins’ not as just multiple sin but more accurately as the symptoms of a root condition, a predisposition of ‘sin’. These ‘sins’ therefore are the effects that we see within our culture. Sins of commission (what we do to God, others and ourselves), and sins of omission (what we do not do that we know we should – James 4:17) are those that stem out of the very root of this problem – the spiritual condition known as “sin”. Sin itself has often been defined as “missing the mark” finding its derivation from an archery term… but how do we miss God’s mark?

Well simply put, it is us placing “self on the throne”. When self is on the throne ruling and running our lives we miss the natural order of things and do not realise that GOD should be on the throne of our lives and that we SHOULD be taking direction from Him. Us being on the throne of our life puts us in direct rebellion to God. It could be likened to a little child going into a palace, finding the throne-room, getting up on the throne in front of the king of that nation and demanding his / her toys so that they can do what THEY want.

Apart from rebellion, there is another problem with us taking the throne of our lives. This problem is rather deceptive and subtle in its workings and the way in which it plays out in life. The problem is described in scripture as the “flesh”. No I don’t mean the largest organ of the human body which covers over bone and muscle tissue. Rather I am talking about the insidious master who actually runs your life when YOU are seated on the throne. The flesh which binds YOU to the throne and is in direct opposition to you getting down off that throne and letting Jesus come and take his rightful place instead.

I have witnessed in so many “christian’s lives” that they continue struggling with sinning and try to conquer their thoughts, tongue and actions through self effort, or even prayer. The problem for many is that ‘self’ remains on the throne and hence the desires / lusts of the flesh run rampant. And remembering that those who remain on the throne are a slave to this cruel master of the flesh, and are bound it is no wonder that so many christians feel like a failure. But “THANKS be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25) that Jesus comes, sets us free from the bondage that keeps us on our own throne and we can step down, and allow Him the rightful place in our lives. On our throne!

Through our studies this week we have seen that the ‘flesh’ has ALWAYS been at enmity with the ‘spirit’ (and / or the righteous ways of God and God’s rulership of our lives).  Throughout the bible there are examples of mans self effort (flesh) and then God’s solution (spirit). This has often been called the 1st born (flesh) vs the 2nd born (spirit) because it has played out exactly that way. The 2nd born in the natural is always the supernatural solution. A couple of examples follow:

• Ishmael (Abraham’s self-solution by union with Hagar) vs Isaac (Child God had promised to Abraham and Sarah in their old age – supernatural)
• Esau (Despised his birth-right and place in Gods salvation of the world) vs Jacob (Struggled with God to get a blessing and was Gods chosen man to be the father of a nation – Israel)
• Saul (First King of Israel – the nations choice “head and shoulders above all others” but disobedient towards God – and henceforth rejected of God) vs David (A man after God’s own heart who sought God and was obedient)
• Adam (first man – rejected God and became his own God through eating the fruit) vs Jesus (the 2nd Adam – reconciled man to God through his obedience, fulfilment of the righteous law, death and resurrection).
• Old Man (Flesh – the way we live with self on the throne) vs Spirit (The way to live according to God with JESUS on the throne).

I do realise that I have just spent a HUGE chunk of this post on some of these things that we have taken hours to learn this week – actually that was just a small part of the first session (and admittedly I am not the best one to explain these things), but this is merely an expression of the many things that we are currently learning.

Other topics this week include:

• The Gospel (see video)

• Intercession (see video)

• Holiness (the #1 attribute of the person of God and how we should view him)
• Egypt, the Wilderness and the Promised land (an old testament picture of the saving work of Jesus Christ)
• Fatherhood (Can we really trust God?)
• Fact, Faith and Experience
  • Okay so I really need to explain this one. Fact = Word of God, Faith = our actions / application of, Experience = experience. In our modern Christianity we often base our life, living, and salvation on what we ‘feel’, what we can ‘see’, and our past experience. Examples include prayer – we feel so defeated because it seems that God just hasn’t answered our prayers in the past, so is it really worth praying again?
    The truth is that we cannot trust experience. Rather we must trust the truth found in scripture. We must learn not to look at circumstances, situations, and stories of the past, rather we must hold onto the very promises of God found in the Bible. So that when we turn away from the nagging voice of experience and fix our gaze firmly on the truth of scripture we can truly walk out the life of victory with faith in the promises of God. This confidence is based in two critical facts:

• The word of God is the word of God (John 17:17, 1 Thess 2:13)
• God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29, Titus 1:2)

I could also write of the messages about “reckoning with truth”, “the anatomy of truth”, “the body” but you would probably be asleep.

Not that this week has been relaying any foundational doctrine (teaching) for us, but rather we have gained a deeper understanding of many facets of the gospel and Christian life. We have had the beautiful opportunity of seeing many of the other students come through times of testing what they believe or have grown up being taught and seeing Christ at the centre and clinging to him as their ‘all in all’.

What our day looks like:

• 5:30AM (Corporate Prayer)
• 6:30AM (Individual prayer and study)
• Breakfast
• 8:15AM (Corporate stillness – prayer, reading the bible, etc)
• 8:45AM (Devotional)
• 9:00AM (Corporate Worship)
• 9:30AM (Session 1 – 2 hours of intensive teaching by staff)
• Lunch
• 1:15PM (Session 2 – more teaching by staff)
• 5:45PM (Dinner)
• 7:00PM (Student Life Activities)

Yes it is a rather hectic schedule, but we have found it really beneficial.

Other Stuff:

We have also had many other joyful experiences this week including:

• Getting to know our classmates
• Welcome Banquet (a very formal affair with a wonderful message by Eric Ludy)
• Sermons of Yesteryear (This week: Paris Reidhead – Ten Shekels and a Shirt)
• Social outing to Lilly Lake (Currently frozen – Estes Park – Northern Colorado) – pictures included below
• Being invited to lunch at an Ellerslie family’s house and sharing wonderful fellowship.
• Working on our SUV that we bought… still working on it (Roy)

But a WONDERFUL first week – oh and we aren’t quite as cold and out of place as we were at first. Altitude settings have been adjusted successfully, and we there are just so many friendly people around town. We love living in Windsor.

Lilly Lake... In winter

Chrissy on our Hike

Roy on our hike

Overlooking Lilly Lake and up into the mountains

The Creation Station - a really cool little cafe in Estes Park

Please Enjoy…our photography skills are slowly getting better and better.

Ellerslie Campus

The Church At Ellerslie

Banquet Night

The Lake at Ellerslie

The Lake at Ellerslie

Windsor Lake

Windsor Lake Houses

Hawk / Otherwise unidentified bird

Windsor Town

Hope You Enjoyed.

Auckland Airport

We were fortunate enough to run into a  couple from Denver, CO in the transit lounge before we boarded the flight to LA and got all the tips on living in Colorado, some really nice places to go camping, driving and buying cars. It always really helps to talk to someone who knows the area way better than we do ourselves.

Customs
Well it seems like a married couple, planning on living in the United States for a Year, studying the Bible and being supported financially by God (through family, friends and others) requires quite a bit more questioning.

Luckily we know that our God has not only CALLED us on this adventure, but has the strength and resources to KEEP us on this adventure until he says so.

Right off, God showed me the customs officer who we needed to go and talk to, so in agreement with what he was saying, I prayed that the line would be split in such a way that we were called up to her… and it did.

On looking at our passports, acceptance letter and hearing that we wanted to stay for 12 months (and longer) she really started asking a lot more questions. We were happy to answer, and she ended up leaving us to go and ask the higher authority. Referred to the Secondary Interview room we were questioned further about the course, and about Chrissy’s organized university placement in an American school. At that point in the interview it seemed like the customs officer was ready to just give us 6 months (and in fact initially stamped our form with 6 months expiry). As always though, God had a plan, and the officer at the next desk came over after overhearing some of the conversation and encouraged him to let us stay and that everything was just “fine”. Without looking at all the forms that I had in my folder, they changed the date on the visa form and granted us 12 months entry with advice on how to extend date of departure should it be required.

Praise God! We were able to walk out and collect our baggage and walk through to the bag security check section of the airport. The officer there was wondering if we would leave anything behind in the US, and explaining that we were here to live for a year he exclaimed “Hang on, they granted you 12 months??? Let me see that Passport again”.

Los Angeles
We were so happy that we took the advise of the hotel and boarded the super shuttle (a little like a maxi taxi for those Aussies following) which transported our 3 large suitcases, 2 snow jackets, 1 guitar, 1 camera bag and 1 overnight bag (a lot of luggage to otherwise carry around) along with 8 other people to the various hotels / motels. This was a great opportunity to see downtown LA as we were the second last stop on his itinerary. Winding through the streets of LA, passing through Skid Row (a notorious part of downtown LA – large homeless population, drugs and violence), past the flower market region, fashion region and china town gave us an appreciation for the city we were briefly visiting.

If ever there was a destination that we were happy to arrive at… it was “Stay on Main Hotel”. With a contemporary orange and white décor, we were welcomed and given the key to our room where we promptly fell on the bed exhausted. Refreshing ourselves with a nice hot shower, we hit the town in search of a feed and found our match at the “LA Café” – a 24 hour bakery / restaurant / café who even delivered 24 hours a day 364 days a year.

Greyhound
I know that LA is meant to provide one of those amazing experiences in culture, diversity and the rest of it, but quite frankly it was a relief by the time we could actually catch the bus out of there. Through our wait at the various Greyhound transit centres  we have learnt much about the country, its’ people and the economy. We area really glad that  despite the many hours of driving cooped up between small chairs which incapacitate legs and make it hard to sleep we have caught the greyhound from LA to Ft. Collins.

A full 26 hours of busing it across the US has provided us a unique perspective on the country that we would have otherwise totally missed were we to just fly into Denver.

California

The rough desert with the sporadic cluster of houses every couple of miles (yes still getting used to miles, feet, inches, gallons etc.) and the winding mountain highways cutting through the hills transforming into heavily populated areas seen by the brilliant lights, shop fronts and signage all adds to the adventure, the awe of discovery and our Ellerslie Journey.

As we are writing this post (initially) we are travelling through the night on the leg from Las Vegas to Denver. We have just entered into Utah and are making our way up Route 15 towards Grand Junction. There have been reports of snow up ahead and we have witnessed some interesting situations involving passengers on the bus, but onwards we travel by moonlight glistening against the backdrop of a grey sky and blackened mountain ranges.

A few hours into Utah we looked out the window to see the hillsides covered spectacularly with snow. The snow glistened under the full moon and brought awe and wonder to the new surroundings.

Our Greyhound Bus

After a number of “situations” arising on the bus we finally arrived in Grand Junction, CO and were taken off the bus for an hour so that they could clean it and fix the “mechanical problem” that they were experiencing. We made a couple more friends during this time including a man who delivered RV’s around the country and had been trucking for 30+ years. Everyone was complaining about the wait as we continued to run behind schedule further and didn’t even have the bus in sight. The connecting coaches for nearly everyone was due only half an hour after our scheduled arrival into Denver and so with good reason everyone was a little agitated.

Story

Well, we finally boarded. New bus driver, new seats (ours had been rather rudely taken by the secondary bus driver) and we were now sitting next to Tim, a friend we had made throughout the trip. At around 3:30am in the morning Tim wanted to know what kind of music I was listening to on my IPOD. It was a sermon of course, so that introduced us into a lengthy conversation about real Christianity and the effects of such conversion. Tim had grown up in the catholic church and understandably had become bitter towards “organized religion”. With the passing of many of his close family early on in life, he had questions of God that he wanted to ask, and believed that he was better than those around him so he should be going to heaven or at least purgatory for a couple of years beforehand.

 When he tried to say that he was trying to be “good” and live a better life, I just plainly told him that he couldn’t and never would be able to stand up to the real standard that God expected. You see Tim had always compared his goodness to others around him as opposed to Gods standards and at the top of the list, he was in total rebellion to God.

 Tim wanted to know more and more about what the bible said, and what he had never heard before, so we were able to explain that even though his goodness could never put him in right standing before god, and that the consequence for his sin and rebellion deserved death – God made a way for him to be saved.

The whole reason for Jesus dying and being raised from the dead in HIS place and for HIS sins now made sense, and the concept that God would send his only son to take the penalty for his sins actually seemed “unfair on god” according to Tim. Wonderfully we were able to explain the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life, give testimony to what God had been and was doing in our life and leave Tim with a decision to make (before death) on what he believed, and for whom he was going to live.

 I guess one of the main things that we have seen in Christianity is that many believe in Jesus, many confess to be saved and on their way to heaven, many would say that they are Christians… but most have not made Jesus the Lord (master) of their life, and they still live with themselves on the thrown in a life of rebellion to God.

In terms of the bus trip… we made our connections (just), and slowly found ourselves journeying through all the small towns on the back roads as we made our way north of Denver to Fort Collins. We were practically ecstatic as we finally got off the bus and knew that this is the area we were going to be living in for the next year.

Sunrise at Frisco, CO

Last stop before Denver

We continued in amazement of the diversity, beauty foreignness of our surrounds as we were taken to our new home and given a wonderful little room downstairs (slightly below ground level) with a bathroom, closet, chest of drawers, bed and a fridge. It was wonderful to be at home!

 Needless to say, we were even more exhausted by this trip than you probably are reading about it (sorry I know it was long, but the stories were worth telling) so we had a really good night’s sleep.

This week I have been asked many questions about how we came to be studying at Ellerslie, spending a year in the states and what we mean by “God told us to go study at Ellerslie”, so in a couple of posts time, we hope to give you some more of an insight into the journey and provision that we have experienced so far.

“If we once get above our Bibles, and cease making the written Word of
God sole rule both as to faith and practice, we shall soon lie open to
all manner of delusion, and be in great danger of making shipwreck of
faith and a good conscience. Our blessed Lord, though He had the
Spirit of God without measure, yet always was governed by, and fought
the devil with, ‘It is written.’”
–George Whitefield

For me (Roy), the week involved everything from replacing all the grocery shelving in our pharmacy / supermarket (this started at 6PM and finished at 8AM the next morning), cutting down a rather large dead tree at the farm (when attaching the chain half way up the tree I was still unable to reach arms around its trunk) to prevent further damage, and packing our house up. We don’t think that sleep will be an issue on the plane  / bus trip.

I think we have re-packed our bags several times, cutting out shirts, socks, books and shoes that were deemed non-essentials and repacking the bag, standing on the scales and trying to figure out how we are going to lug so much luggage around the airports and LA.

I don’t know about others who have rented… but our cleaning needed to be PERFECT! So for a full day we ferried stuff around, and washed, cleaned, dried, vacuumed and mopped all the areas of our house which was definitely a home for the first year of marriage.

Finally after all the cleaning, storing of items we want to keep and saying goodbye to all our friends we are done and ready to have a house inspected.

After trying to say goodbye to so many people, explain what we are going to be doing so many times we are simply ready to get on the plane and end our wearisome packing.

Also, we have been reading “Real Marriage” by Pastor Mark & Grace Driscoll. We would HIGHLY recommend this to anyone married, getting married or dating. We are also able to listen to the series as Pastor Mark preaches chapter by chapter through the book. It has been extremely useful to both Chrissy and I as we explore how we can make improvements in marriage and live as men and women of God.

Feel free to check out some of the “Real Marriage Campaign” material at http://pastormark.tv/campaigns/real-marriage and videos at http://pastormark.tv/content

Well time to get everything finished, and board the plane. Hope you hear from us soon!

“In the Irish Revival of 1859, people became so weak that they could
not get back to their homes. Men and women would fall by the wayside
and would be found hours later pleading with God to save their souls.
They felt that they were slipping into hell and that nothing else in
life mattered but to get right with God… To them eternity meant
everything. Nothing else was of any consequence. They felt that if God
did not have mercy on them and save them, they were doomed for all
time to come.”
- Oswald J. Smith

Brisbane Taxi on the Loose - Credit for this goes to the beautiful Chrissy!

“Though the cross of Christ has been beautified by the poet and the
artist, the avid seeker after God is likely to find it the same savage
implement of destruction it was in the days of old. The way of the
cross is still the pain-wracked path to spiritual power and
fruitfulness. So do not seek to hide from it. Do not accept an easy
way. Do not allow yourself to be patted to sleep in a comfortable
church, void of power and barren of fruit. Do not paint the cross nor
deck it with flowers. Take it for what it is, as it is, and you will
find it the rugged way to death and life. Let it slay you utterly.”
-A.W. Tozer

The Gospel – Eric Ludy

The basic idea at the start of the clip is that as sinners and rebels we are in a prison cell and cannot get out. Just as we face judgement, Christ steps in and takes the hit that was rightfully ours. Chains fall off and the sign outside the prison cell changes to “justified”, “forgiven” etc.

P.s. The video says it much better than i can.

And it is at this point that the following though occurred to me…

Many who believe themselves save are actually still living in their prison cell. Some have believed and yes some have even realized that their door is unlocked, but they have made their prison cell home. In IKEA (a big warehouse furniture store) last year I saw a kitchen that was fully set up within the store as a display. They had designed it with a balcony and a high quality photo of the view from a balcony looking out over the neighborhood. If you didn’t look carefully and see the joins you could easily feel like you were in the suburbs rather than a gigantic warehouse.Everything else seemed to fade away as you sat down at the table and chairs and looked out the “window” at the neighbourhood.

We have fooled ourselves on Christianity today by putting up pictures and living as if we are outside whilst really remaining trapped within the prison cell. We need to look at the joins and show people where we really are, open the door, walk out into the sunlight and live for our king!

“There is nothing, indeed, which God will not do for a man who
dares to step out upon what seems to be the mist; though as he
puts his foot down he finds a rock beneath him.”
–F. B. Meyer

P.S. 14 days till we leave for the US.

Lychee Season at the Farm

Thus, we were sent into a frenzy and started packing up furniture and taking it to different storage spots and up the sunshine coast (all the while keeping a keen eye on the weather). That was all fine, we were tired but we still had a full day to recover and rest… or so we thought.

At 6am the following morning we got this phone call “Chinese new year is monday… we need to pick the fruit!”. Well one thing every lychee farmer knows is that Chinese New Year is the deadline for good lychee sales. The problem is that in our distraction in moving country, we had forgotten all about the date.

So after lunch and after a couple of hours rest, some excitement from me nearly stepping on a snake (AGAIN!)we started our first ever afternoon pick.

Starting at 4PM we tackled all the Bengals (a variety of lychee) and finished picking with the aid of a spotlight and headlights. After a quick dinner we started processing the Lychees and by 11PM we were finally finished! So with a quick drive back to Brisbane we jumped into bed and slept.

6:30AM Friday morning… Work at the pharmacy. Luckily i survived.

A great start to the Lychee season, and an interesting week. Our house now definitely looks rather empty.

Photo from the Kuta Cafe (Mt Cootha Summit) - Date Night

So I am working for a couple of shifts as a pharmacist in Australia, and then flying off to the USA where I can’t work for at least a year. I guess that is in a way God’s special way of encouraging me to trust Him and not in my career and own strength.

It is just over 3 weeks until we leave Australia, and there seems to just be SO much to do. I have been working at the farm – It is currently Lychee season and the irrigation needs repairs, the shed needs cleaning along with all the other odd jobs that are always on the books. But it is funny, each day that I spend at the farm, I realise i can just work with my hands. I feel a lot of relief and feel like i can just spend time working with God.

“What are you going to do when you get to eternity, if you can’t stick in an hour with God down here? In God’s name, what are you going to do in a million year s in God’s presence? Expect some reports from earth about football or something? We are not eternity conscious enough.” – Leonard Ravenhill