Mike Oliver's Messages

Many people are primarily concerned that theirs will be a comfortable future. This is a principal that my father passed on to me. That future comfort is dependent on funding our needs and desires, and capitalism is the system that offers everyone an opportunity to achieve this. Meeting the mortgage, rates or rent, the power, phone, transportation, medical, clothing and food, are priorities. Everyone hopes they will have disposable income above the necessities to afford desires. This disposable income is increasingly becoming a distant illusion to young kiwi families. Far too many are feeling the “pinch” of recession and tragedy such as has befallen so many victims of the Christchurch quakes with businesses and jobs in tatters. Believe me I know what it’s like to be disciplined by business failure and by unemployment. I am also familiar with close personal and family problems. I am in no doubt therefore that we at present are going through a period of correction on two fronts, firstly i...

Insecurity is anxiety or fear. Insecurity comes across as negativity and feelings of insecurity rob us of our happiness. We may constantly feel threatened even if our external surroundings impose no real danger to our survival. Some say it’s the mind’s habitual tendency to focus on everything that can go wrong. Larry O’Hanlon says that a perfectly healthy human mind can trick itself into seeing things that are not there, and new research has exposed exactly the sort of conditions under which that happens. O’Hanlon reports on research that shows the less control a person feels, the more likely they are to see patterns or make connections that don't exist. O’Hanlon says people who feel in control are less likely to see things that aren't there and experience a wide variety of health and social benefits. When people feel in control they can also endure longer and more intense pain and recover from illness more quickly. [1]  Having control is a big thing for most people but if achi...

We read from the Sermon on the Mount that we are to be the salt of the earth and the light to the world, that we should not become flavourless or to be hidden away. When I asked the Holy Spirit this week to give me the point in a nutshell, He hit me between the eyes with the AND in between. I was also asked to remind of our obligation to God. We are supposed to be both at once. Now my wife majors on salt of the earth, doing whatever is good and right in any situation, helping everyone, doing the good works of righteousness even to her own detriment at times. Now there are many I see like this in the congregation around me. I don’t see myself so much as salt of the earth, but I am light to the world as I stand before a crowd and reveal Christ. Shelley is flavoursome but not so illuminating, while I am better at dispelling darkness but perhaps not so appetising. Yet we are obliged to be both salt AND light, hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church. We have a saying which spri...