Nick Vujicic on national Chilean TV.

I have seen several videos of Nick Vujicic before, and all of them are very touching. He is an Australian guy born without legs and arms. He has impressively learned to live with his disabilities and has a strong message of hope. Today I’ve been watching the following videos. It’s Nick being interviewed on national Chilean TV only a couple of days ago. It’s great to see how he talks freely about God’s greatness on national tv, and also encouraging to see that national tv lets him do it. Much of the talking is in Spanish, but he replies in English. It’s very strong. Have a look whether you understand Spanish or not!

Exploring New Castle.

I’ve just been visiting New Castle with my mum. We decided a while back to go on a trip together, and since I love Britain and mum has wanted to visit New Castle for a long time, we decided on going there. Little did we know at the time that New Castle is a great place to go shopping. Well, we didn’t mind when we found out. Stuff in Britain is quite a bit cheaper than in Norway, and they also have brands and stores we don’t have, so I decided to take advantage of the great shopping opportunity by saving up some money to spend there.

We had also heard that New Castle is not particularly pretty. I disagree. It might not be the most spectacular and classy city I’ve seen. After all it’s a city based on industries like for example coal. But I found it very charming with all its pubs and restaurants and its elegant Grey Street.

Here are a few things I found interesting about our trip:

1. In New Castle old people go out shopping and visiting cafes. They seem to be all over the city during daytime. I felt this created a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere. We need some old people in our lives to keep the pace down. ;)

2. There are all kinds of people in New Castle. I saw traditional, tea drinking, nicely dressed, typically polite and smiling English people. I also saw girls (and guys) in short skirts and no jackets at night, heavily made up girls with a double dose of mascara and too much foundation, kind of like the cover girls from the sixties… I saw several people with pink and purple hair, some of them over fortyfive. I saw even more tatoos than in Norway. I saw black clothes along with dyed hair and piercing. I also saw fewer redheads than expected; I thought my hair color would make me fit in. The city lacked of the main stream, nicely dressed style or the sporty style that often dominate first impressions of Norwegian cities. But I don’t see that as a bad thing. I like diversities. All the different styles I noticed matched my impressions of the British culture. It goes all the way from classy to tacky, new to old, all revealing or concealing what’s behind the clothes inside people’s hearts.

3. We ate at Friday’s one evening. We ordered Sizzling chicken with mashed potatoes, which was a great success. Our waitress was a extraordinary nice girl, showing interest and even telling us her name. She reminded me a little bit of Cheryl Cole with her looks and sympathetic behaviour. We came back for dessert the day after, and when I got the wrong type of Sundae the same waitress gave me a new one with extra ice cream and my money back!

4. We also talked to a Romanian guy, selling The big issue. I bought one for two pounds, and my mum gave him another two, which he gladly kept. His English was bad, but I think he tried to tell us that he’s got three children to feed and a high house rent. After contributing the four pounds we promised to pray for him, which didn’t seem to comfort him very much. I told God I hoped he would surprise him with his goodness after we left, and I trust he did.

5. There are lots of clubs and pubs in New Castle. The city is famous for being a party town, which we easily could tell even at 10pm. Even that early people were raving drunk in the streets and some couldn’t even stand on their feet, so they just laid down on the pavement instead. Some evenings we passed “Sinners” and “Babylon”, two clubs in the city centre. I didn’t know whether to cry of laugh – I think I did a bit of both on the inside while thinking to myself that this city must be a good place to evangelise…

6. On the flight home on Saturday the crew consisted of four male flight attendants in addition to the pilots of course. I’ve never experienced that before in my life. I must say they did a great job, just as good as any female attendant, only with a masculine touch. One of them I’m pretty sure was Scottish, judging from his accent, and his smile reminded me slightly of James McAwoy.

After my four days there I have concluded that I liked New Castle for its charm, but I loved it for its diversity. I’d love to go back sometime.

Summertime.

“Summertime and the living is easy.” That’s how it feels these days. Today was the first day of my summer vacation. I arrived back home at my parents’ place on Saturday. The sun has been shining and the temperature’s been nice (although some pleasant raindrops have fallen). There’s space around me and not so many things to keep busy with, which feels great. I’ve had an old friend visiting and we went swimming yesterday in a local lake before BBQing with my mom and dad in the garden. Today I’ve actually been laying down in the sunshine outside our house. I feel sooo blessed, being able to enjoy these things right now.

Before I went on vacation I uploaded a new youtube video. I sat down making it on friday night between my last day of work and packing my suitcase. It’s not really a video, it’s a presentation of one of my songs that I wrote a few years back. It’s a simple song to Jesus; It’s a song of few words expressing strong love. It’s a simple recording, a demo, far from perfect, but hopefully it will bring you something good. Be blessed!

The good side of twitter.

As you can tell from my tweets in the sidebar I’m one of those people twittering. I hear many good reasons for not liking Twitter, but I want to share with you some good reasons for liking it; Here are some insightful tweets from people I follow.

“Faith is not a conclusion you reach…it is a journey you live.” AW Tozer

“Every Christian would agree that a man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God-C.S.Lewis” CSLewisDaily.

“I repent of paying for what I get for free.” Jimmy Needham.

“If YOU are up for it, God will fulfill His word in your life. HE was up for it before you were even born!” BrianCHouston.

“If you will make the decision that you don’t mind being inconvenienced or interrupted, God can use you.” Joyce Meyer.

“The God we serve can accelerate your life faster and further than you could ever imagine – all through His mighty power.” Joel Osteen.

“God’s desire is that we love Him, and let Him love us.” Joyce Meyer.

“Jealous Christians just don’t know who they are.” Bill Johnson

“Grace is not the freedom to sin; it is the power to live a holy life.” Joyce Meyer.

“The good news isn’t that God is victorious. How can He not be victorious? The good news is we can be victorious, too.” AW Tozer

“God does not exist to make a big deal out of us. We exist to make a big deal out of Him.” Max Lucado.

“To beg God to heal someone is to assume you have more compassion than He does.” Bill Johnson

“Bible study must create active dialogue with God. Scripture gives us conversational material for our prayer lives.” IHOP-CK.

“God is our defense. And what He doesn’t defend isn’t worth defending.” Bill Johnson.

“We’re half-hearted creatures fooling with drink & sex & ambition when infinite joy is offered us. We’re too easily pleased” CSLewisDaily.

“Most of God’s promises for increased blessing are not guarantees but invitations to partner with Him in holy, believing, persevering prayer.” IHOP-CK.

Some tweets are food for thought:

“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil-CSLewis” CSLewisDaily.

Here’s a few funny ones to finish with:

“Just overheard very fit guy next to me on phone say, “I mean, I still look like Tarzan but I feel like Jane” :)” Chris Tomlin.

“Ever notice how any guy a girl hooks up with who doesn’t become their boyfriend is automatically referred to as a douchebag? So unfair lol.” Robert Hoffman.

“Winter Wonderland in Cardiff closed because of snow! Ironic.” Roger Aubrey.

“I swear, some of these people who manifest just the sake of doing it are going have some serious back and spine problems when they get old.” Samuel Gatlyn.

Jesus according to John.

I’ve been listening to and reading the gospel of John lately, and especially noticing all the different things that Jesus says about his own identity. I realise even more than before that the book of John is a great book to start off with if you want to get to know Jesus. (-even though some of it might be hard to understand at once.) Jesus is obviously not the kind of guy who finds it difficult to talk about himself. ;) (And he shouldn’t, since he actually is God.)

I’m a bit amazed after realising how many different names Jesus is given in the gospel of John, either by himself, by his disciples or by the author of the book. Here’s a list of what John writes about Jesus.

According to John Jesus is:

-The Word. (1:14)

-The Lamb of God. (1:29)

-The Bride’s groom. (3:29)

-The source of living water. (4:14)

-The Saviour of the world. (4:42)

-The Bread of heaven. (6:35)

-The Bread of life. (6:48)

-The Holy one of God. (6:69)

-The Light of the world. (1:9; 8:12)

-The Good shepherd. (10:11)

-The Door to salvation. (10:9)

-The Resurrection and the Life. (11:25)

-The Son of man. (6:27; 12:34)

-Lord and Teacher. (13:14)

-The Way, the Truth and the Life. (14:6)

-The True vine. (15:1)

Wow…

Jesus even says in 8: 58: «Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.» The Jews had been accusing him of having a demon because of his radical and to them offensive statements, and he replied by using the name of God that was revealed to Moses, which was so holy that it was never supposed to be uttered. (Yahweh = I am.) Not only does Jesus say it out loud, but he more or less directly claims it to be his own name, meaning that he is the eternal God…

I’m thankful that John, the rest of the Bible, and God himself through his spirit and power bear witness that this is true.

Carlton from Fresh Prince.

I just had a reunion with Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which I used to watch a lot during my teenage years. Even though I am fan of Will Smith I have to admit that he might only be the second coolest character in this series; No one in the series has funnier moves than Carlton, played by Alfonso Ribeiro. Here’s a youtube video of him singing various songs (with various funny moves).

Pondus

I’m not really into football/soccer, but every now and then I like reading the Norwegian comic strip Pondus, which often centers around English football. It’s created by Frode Øverli, a cartoonist from Bergen,  and has become one of the most popular comic strips in Scandinavia. Sometimes the strips actually make me laugh out loud because of their hilarious drawings and spot on points. Today I saw this one and thought it was cute.

A bit impressed

Generally I’m not really into sports, but every now and then some athletes or sports get my attention. I while back I discovered Danny MacAskill, a Scottish street trials rider, through a friend’s link to a video of him. He is a pro, and what he does with his bike is quite amazing. Most of the videos I’ve seen of him are from cities with concrete and asphalt, which is cool and impressive, but he’s also got this beautiful video called “Way back home”. He drives from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides where he grew up. The video reveals some great landscapes and nature. He stops at suitable places and does awesome things with his bike, using sticks and rocks (or whatever) to do cool tricks. The combination of his bike riding and the wonderful scenes makes a beautiful video. Have a look!

“That’s My King”

While listening to the audio versions of the gospels of Matthew and Mark lately, my view of Jesus has been refreshed. It has strengthened my revelation of him. I have been listening to all the stuff he did and said, and I’ve thought to myself «What a great guy!» while at the same time he is the Son of God. He is compassionate and meets people’s needs. He shows them great love and gives them his attention. At the same time he is King of the universe and Lord of all creation.

All I can say about it is: «Wow!…»

One of my favourite speakers has said that it is important to always live with a fresh revelation of Jesus Christ. As a christian that should be a matter of course because everything we believe in centers around Jesus. Still hearing him saying that has made me more conscious of it every day. I think in order to love Jesus and consequently serve Jesus you have to have a fresh revelation of him. I believe that if you don’t, everything you attempt to do will end up as striving because you use your own strength instead of receiving strength from Him.

I have watched a video on youtube a few times now; it is a speech by the late American baptist pastor S.M. Lockridge. It is his most famous speech, given in Detroit in 1976, and it’s called «That’s my King». It gives a great picture of who Jesus Christ is and what makes him so wonderful. It’s basically a long list of describing names, expressions and statements, based on what the Bible and history tell us about Jesus’ identity and doings. I share it here because I find it strong and refreshing. Take a look:

Faith comes by hearing.

Lately I’ve been listening to an audio bible that I’ve downloaded from http://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/. This is a great site; You can download for free many different translations of the bible in different languages. Some of them are dramatised versions, which makes it a lot more interesting, I think. I downloaded the New Testament of the English Standard Version a while ago, and now I have also downloaded the Old Testament. I’m really looking forward to listening to it.
At first I found listening to it funny in a slightly negative way, because I thought it sounded like a cartoon. I thought the demons Jesus met sounded ridiculous and some other voices unconvincing. Now that I’m used to it I think it’s really good. Over the last days I’ve been listening to Matthew and Mark. I’ve had my note book and pen ready, while following the texts on http://www.biblegateway.com/ where you can find the right translation. Then I both hear and read it, which help me to remember. I’m not a fast reader, and texts don’t stick easily to my memory, so this is really helpful. I assume it would be helpful for others as well.
Remembering is one thing. It also allows me to receive the stories and messages in a different way. How often do we really sit down and read aloud the Bible to each other? I know I don’t do it so often. But faith really comes by hearing! (Romans 10:17)