We are currently doing a teaching series at Lifeplace called Thrive. The backdrop of this is the worst financial crises in modern history. It provides a great object lesson to see how God responded in the Bible to difficult situations.

The master key we find in the Bible on how to do well in hard situations is faith. It opens doors and gives access to new dimensions that without it you are locked out.

When the Israelites where in the wilderness, they sent 12 people to go and spy out Canaan, which was their Promised Land.

What was natural in the OT is now spiritual for us in the NT. So you have a promised land. A place of potential. A place of destiny.

However, at this point their situation is bad. Real bad. They are in the desert. In the wilderness. It is dry. It is hot. It is dusty. They always get sand in their tents! It is barren and lifeless.

Numbers 13: Moses sends 12 spies. They went for 40 days. 2 very different reports. 10 said it was impossible. 2 said it was achievable. People hated the good report so much they wanted to stone the 2!

The only 2 that every made it into the Promised Land? Yep, the 2 with the good report.

Faith = a good report.

Now today, in the same way, we are always assessing the current climate. What is your report? Is it faith or fear?

Faith won’t magically change your circumstance, but it will help you thrive in even the hardest situation. There’s no easy formula, magic want, or wonder pill that makes life perfect. But faith gives you buoyancy to stay afloat.

Go ahead, take the master key. See what doors God can open!

Here is a really interesting article.

It is amazing to see how open Australians are to Jesus. Here’s what the researcher said:

“We are staggered. We thought the survey would show the profound scepticism of Australians,” he said.

“Instead it shows there is a base-level assumption among the Australian public that accepts the Jesus story even if it has no relevance to their lives.”

Let it inspire you to invite someone to church – how many people in your family, at your work, and in your social circle are justing waiting for an invitation.

Read article here.

Joseph was an amazing man. Let me paint the picture of this guy’s life.

You might read his story and like it and find it inspirational but you would NOT want to live what this man lived.

• He was betrayed by those closest to him.
• He was thrown in a pit.
• He was sold a slave.
• He was framed.
• He was locked in a prison.

And the list goes on.

But do you know the environment that caused Joseph to thrive the most? Famine.

Read it now – Genesis 41:46-57

What was famine?

Famine was one of the worst situations you could be in if you lived in Joseph’s day. It often resulted in disease outbreaks (Jer. 14:18), and most gruesome of all, cannibalism of one’s own offspring (Deut. 28:47-57). This famine  lasted for seven years. There were 11 major famines in the Bible.

But Joseph THRIVED in the middle of the famine.

He spent seven years storing up food.
Then when the famine hits he exports it to other countries. He takes their herds, land, and money!

3 keys to surviving the famine:
1.    Joseph saw opportunity where others saw disaster
2.    Joseph trusted in God not circumstances
3.    Joseph saved and used natural wisdom to stockpile for the future.

You can thrive in any situation – more to come this Sunday at church!

A crisp autumn breeze gently ruffles the shirt on my back. Hotel balcony. Lights of Melbourne skyline at night in front of me. Pause button pressed.

Thankful in life for God’s mercy, grace, faithfulness, gifts. Thankful for wife, son, and a Godly family. Thankful for health and peace. Thankful for provision and opportunity. Thankful for Jesus and eternal life. Thankful for privilege of serving in ministry. Thankful God is in control and holds the earth in the palm of His hand.

Breeze now bringing aroma of Chinese food. Time to eat!

Thankful.

I’ve never done this before. Consider it a sneak peak – a preview of what is to come.

Here is part of my message for my new teaching series tomorrow called “Thrive”. You get to hear it even before it is preached. This is like getting a copy of tomorrow’s newspaper today!

We start this series against the backdrop of the worst financial crises in modern history. It is a very unique situation.

Here is my study methodology: I searched the Bible to find some of the most challenging situations, and how people were able to thrive in them like a flower in the desert. Then, I set about excavating principles and keys that we could then activate in our own lives.

Here is the amazing discovery: It would seem that it was not the rare occasion, or the exception to the rule, that God would act in hard situations.

Rather the Bible shows God specializes in crisis.

He always rose to the occasion. God seemed most active, most at work, most powerful, most strategic, and most able when the odds were stacked up against one of His people.

Here’s a principle in scripture we can apply right now:

The 10,000 promise
Psalm 91:7 (NKJV)
A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not come near you.

In other words, things around you might get downright impossible. But God’s odds are so high that even in a room of 10,001, if you are living for God, then all 10,000 people may fall but you are the 1 that stands.

See – I told you – God specializes in crisis!

And that’s just a taste test. That’s not even the introduction! Come Sunday morning for the main course.

See you at church!

For anyone involved in church, Psalm 127 is perhaps one of the most striking scriptures in the Bible. “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.”

Why? It gives a blunt warning to us, that despite hard work, vision, sacrifice, strategies, ideas, and all kinds of human ingenuity, if God is not at the centre of it then it is all in vain.

In fact, it uses the imagery of building a house. I built our first house in the US (well I chose the paint colours!) and the whole process was a lot of work for the builders who laboured on it for months in the rain. Now imagine going to all that work and not being able to live in it. Imagine being told all the effort was in vain!

This applies to church – let’s make sure we are building a “God house”. But it also applies to our lives personally. As we are building the “house” that is the sum total of all our life’s work, let’s be sure it is Jesus that is the centre.

Here are 5 quick keys to building a “God House”:

1.    The right blueprint (the Bible)
2.    The right materials (the people)
3.    The right foundation (core values and DNA)
4.    The right workers (mature trained leaders)
5.    The right purpose (what will this house be used for? Build accordingly)

Here are the details for our Men’s Breakfast this Saturday morning, hosted by Pastor Ben at his house:

Date: 18 April

Time: 9:00am.

Cost: $5

Location: 37 Scrub Road Carindale 4152

It’s going to be a great time, and please feel welcome to bring a friend along.

Please RSVP by sending an email to info@lifeplace.com.au

I am pumped about the new teaching series we are starting this week at Lifeplace.
The title is “Thrive: 7 keys to succeeding in any situation”.

Right now all around the world there is a lot of uncertainty. Our economy is in recession. Financial institutions are collapsing. Thousands of people are losing their jobs. Companies are going bankrupt. And fear is running rampant.

The current situation presents us with some challenges.

But this series will show you how it also presents us with opportunities.

Here’s the crucial question: Has God ever worked in a hard environment?

You will discover the answer to this and how your thinking, attitude, mindset, and perspective is vitally important right now. You will also learn how throughout the Bible God continually performed miracles in people’s lives in even the toughest of situations, and the keys for seeing the same thing happen in your life.

The definition of “Thrive” is:
1 : to grow vigorously : FLOURISH
2 : to gain in wealth or possessions : PROSPER
3 : to progress toward or realize a goal despite or because of circumstances

God wants to see your faith thrive, your business thrive and flourish, your health and emotions, your relationships and networks, and your finances prosper.

Do you have work colleagues who might benefit from this teaching? Bring them to this series. Do you have young people who need to be trained? Bring them to this. Are there families you know that are going through a tough time? Bring them to this series for an injection of faith.

You have read the newspapers, heard the media reports, listened to the radio. Now it’s time to explore what God says because the Bible has a message of faith and hope for you.

God wants you to thrive.

Wherever you are right now, you have greater potential.

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday at 9:30am at the Carindale cinemas.

The heartbeat of starting a new church can be captured in one word: pioneer.

It’s a powerful word.

It is not just the pastor that requires this quality – it is the entire congregation. After all, it is the average church goer that is going to be the one giving up some of his or her previous luxuries to help create something new.

But that’s the same reason people leave careers in corporations to hammer out a prototype in a dimly lit garage. It’s the reason people pass on money and opportunity to follow a dream.

Sometimes luxuries only hold us back from changing the world.

If you want luxury go to a 5 star hotel for a night. If you want legacy then dare to pioneer.

If you look at history, it is always pioneers that brought change and caused breakthrough in society. Imagine that applied to church. Creative ideas, breakthroughs in effectiveness, new approaches, more people reached for Jesus.

Pioneers know that sacrifice is required to see success, that comfort is vastly over-rated, and that even the smallest of start can grow into something significant.

To all the pioneers who come to our church every Sunday: you are my heroes.

As a new church, we all come from different backgrounds and ministry experiences.

All of our journeys are unique. But that’s what makes unity such a powerful thing. It brings people together, no matter how diverse the group. A union is a collection of different perspectives and ideas but unity is having one heart.

In Kings 10:15-17 (ESV) we read an intriguing story:

And he greeted him and said to him, “Is your heart true to my heart as mine is to yours?” And Jehonadab answered, “It is.” Jehu said, “If it is, give me your hand.” So he gave him his hand. And Jehu took him up with him into the chariot.

Notice the order of the dialogue.

Before anything else, Jehu asked for his heart before he took his hand.

Our heart represents our loyalty, our unity, our commitment. It is the core of who we are.

Our hands represent the task or job that is required.

Jehu revealed to us a very powerful leadership principle: partnering with people is first a matter of the heart before it is a matter of the hand. In other words, the tasks will take care of themselves when somebody has a heart commitment to you.

The job is secondary to where a person’s loyalty lies.

Remember this: heart first, then hand.

Here’s an interesting study done some time ago:

“A British publication once offered a prize for the best definition of a friend. Among the thousands of answers received were the following:

“One who multiplies joys, divides grief, and whose honesty is inviolable.”

“One who understands our silence.”

“A volume of sympathy bound in cloth.”

“A watch that beats true for all time and never runs down.”

The winning definition read: “A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.” “