Dear Friends,

A great week is already underway. We have the Tent of Promise here visiting with us, they are a travelling "big tent" ministry that go all around Australia. Yesterday we helped them setup the tent which took about 4 hours. I snapped heaps of cool pics and have put together a nifty little page with the photos. If you have ever wondered how to setup a big tent, you can click and find out.

Anyway allow me to share with you for a few paragraphs what the Bible says in 1 Peter 2:5 says that "you also, like living stones are being built into a spiritual house." The Bible is clear that each believer is a living stone and that God wants to build our lives together to become a spiritual building. Although this might sound a little mundane, actually it is quite significant. If you have ever done any stonepitching or bricklaying you will know what this means.

The bricklayer picks up each brick and puts it into the wall. The brick gets no say over where it is placed or who it is placed next to. Its the same with God because really we must allow God to place us where He wants. Sometimes he puts us in a church that we are not comfortable with, but it is for our own good. Also, sometimes to make a brick or stone fit the wall it needs to have its rough edges knocked off. Each of us have rough edges and we may not notice them but other people do. Also other people have rough edges that we notice. But God wants to knit our lives together with the other believers we associate with. He wants us to be committed to these people and stick with them through thick and thin. This does have an effect of knocking our rough edges off and it helps to make us beautiful people.

When two people enter a marriage they start with a committment to each other. Not every moment of their marriage will be happy but because they are devoted and determined to make it work, and as they perservere, they eventually become one in their thinking and values and they become unified and happy. Its the same in our faith. There are many people around us that test us and try us and make us miserable.........there is definitely no shortage of them. However we must remain committed and devoted to them........even if it hurts, because over time God is going to use it to make us better people and to make us all unified. When this happens we will really be a great example and blessing to all the unbeleivers.

So think for a minute of that annoying person in your church.........the bible is saying that God wants both of you to be joined together as part of a spiritual building He is constructing............WOW! What a thought that is. So let us not give up or get frustrated because we have faults too. Let us work with God and let Him do a job on our hearts. Let us allow Him to knit us into the church we we attend. Let us be patient with our fellow believers. Let us overlook their sins and forgive them when they don't overlook ours. Let us perservere.........................well you see God is up to something and only good will be the result.

Cheers - have a great day
David