This passage, quite interestingly enough, is one sentence (in Greek). With that in mind, this passage can not be neatly broken up and understood in its various verses as we have traditionally done so. While there is worth in the things that are mentioned, it carries more depth within the greater whole. (Also, the writer has an intended message to convey in his writing.)

Without an extensive knowledge of Greek, let me attempt to simply the passage:

God has blessed us to be the children of God, making us holy and blameless through our salvation and forgiveness by grace, elected before all time and marked by the Holy Spirit acting as a deposit until all are redeemed for the glory of God.

This blessing He brought about to reveal a mystery, by His wisdom and understanding, through and fulfilled in Jesus Christ who deserves all praise and glory to whom all things are under his headship, in accordance with His pleasure and good will.

That is a heck of a lot of detail to put into one sentence. Yet, I would urge you to read it as my paraphrase can only do so much. There are two key ideas which I want to focus on:

• Election and Will
• Glory and Authority

Election and Will

This is often a large area of debate about predestination but I want to try and avoid that (for now) and focus on what this means for us. The obvious question is: If God has chosen those who will believe in Him, what is the point of me trying to live life differently?

Paul addresses this and responds in saying that, according to the will of God, as the children of God we are given salvation and forgiven by God’s grace. That we would live a life that is holy and blameless for His glory. The point being that those who call themselves Christians, the children of God, reflect this through their actions, ultimately resulting in God being glorified.

What about evangelism? If God has chosen people to be His children, why is there a need to evangelise? Let me try and illustrate this:

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, there is a scene where Harry is with his godfather, by a lake, being attacked by the Dementors. In this scene Harry sees a figure, who he believed to be his dead father, in the distance which casts a spell driving away the Dementors. That figure is Harry himself. Later travelling back in time, Harry ends up on the opposite side of the lake where he expects to see his father show up and drive away the Dementors, except he doesn’t show. Harry realised that he was the one who would drive away the Dementors, using a extremely powerful spell, which he later comments that he could only perform the spell because he knew that he could (because he saw himself doing it already).

In the same way, sure, God has chosen who will be His children and believe in Him. Yet, in order for people to become His children someone has to tell them. We can’t stand around wondering why our friends aren’t becoming Christians expecting an angel to appear and cause our friends to gasp in wonder. We need to realise that we are the ones who will, through God’s will and election, bring people into His family. Furthermore, we can expect that people will come into His family, because we know He has chosen them. (Boy, this is a hard one to get the head around…)

Glory and Authority

It’s not about us! It was never, primarily, about us. I’ve heard it said, in relation to this passage, that God wants to bless us and it’s all about us…well, no, no it’s not. Yes, God does want to bless us but if you carefully read what Paul is writing, he isn’t talking about us at all. There is one key aspect that keeps coming out in this passage: it is all for the glory of God.

In blessing us and making us His children, God glorifies Himself. Salvation, forgiveness, redemption are all given so that He would be glorified through our righteous living. This mystery Paul talks about is that all things would be under the authority and headship of Jesus Christ, so that He might be glorified.

What does that mean for us? Know your place. It goes for me too. Life isn’t about us. It’s not about ‘me, me, me!’ It’s about ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!’ Trust me, it is one of the most freeing realisations you can come to…it’s not about me! Repeat after me, it’s not about me. Just try it, I dare you.

A smile at times can be confusing. A smile may say one thing, but is translated as something completely different to what it was intended. A smile that says, “Thanks for being a great friend,” may, on the extreme side, be understood as, “I have feelings for you.” (This is merely an example, so there’s nothing that I need to inform you of.) A smile may show happiness, when really the person is being torn apart from the inside. They aren’t always all that simple.

Then there are times when there are no apparent reasons behind a smile. (If you know me, then you’ll find me having a lot of these moments.) In my experience, these are the most beautiful and powerful smiles of all, like seeing the sunrise at dawn. A smile that arise from the deepest places of our hearts. A smile that conveys that, for all its faults, all its troubles, all its worries, and all other things, life is good.

When was the last time you could just sit and, in the midst of all of life’s worries, smile?

At my height (175cm), my ideal weight is about 75kg. I currently weigh 84kg (I’m not a girl and I’m not afraid to share…hehe), if I was to lose 10kg, that’d be a big deal. Mind you, not being having regular exercise, I maintain my weight. If I were to make a habit of it, I might be able to lose that 10kg…but really I’m just too lazy.

Anyway, we’ll see. Maybe one day, I’ll be “normal”.

Moreover, his courage in openly and publicly addressing the Tibetan issue has only proved his political prowess. Seemingly having crafted his speech in such a way that it was not the central point but carried the force of criticism against China’s handling of the situation. Unless you are aware of the Asian culture, what Kevin Rudd did was a brave move. To stand up in a public arena which was not addressed to the leadership but students, is a slap in the face, almost going behind the back of the leadership.

However, Kevin Rudd has continued to meet with Chinese leaders and will continue, it seems, to challenge their decisions and actions regarding Tibet. It will be interesting to see how Kevin Rudd comes out the other end.

Assuming that I’m an average person, I probably only speak to 10% of my contact list on a regular basis. At one point, I had over 200 contacts with probably about 50% were never online, so I’ve got through and cleared a good number of them because I knew they were never online and I never spoke to them anyway. Add to that the number of people who have their IMs on startup and automatic sign-in, most of those people are signed in but are nowhere near their computers.

Anyway, back to my main point, what are the point of statuses now? If it’s to avoid talking to people, why go online? I would suggest because they want to be connectable, but not necessarily make the connection. It’s worse when you do want to connect with someone because you want to talk to them and they are on “Busy” or “Away”. What’s the protocol? Normally, out of politeness you wouldn’t send them a message unless it was urgent. However, these days, you can never tell. People go on “Busy” and “Away” for varying reasons and usually not because they are busy or away.

Person A: I wanted to talk to you about something last night on MSN.
Person B: I didn’t get any messages from you.
Person A: Well, you were on “Busy” so I didn’t want to disturb you.
Person B: You should have just sent me a message, I wasn’t doing anything, just listening to music.
Person A: But, what if you were busy and you didn’t want to be disturbed.
Person B: But I wasn’t!
…

I’ve had that conversation before. So, people, if you’re busy or away, then fine change your status. If not, why aren’t you online? There might be someone who actually wants to talk to you. If you don’t want to talk to certain people but want to talk to others, go Invisible/Appear Offline, that’s what it’s there for. Anyway, I’m busy, so I’m gonna get back to work.

Status: Busy (for real!)