God’s Squad CMC in Yarra Junction, Victoria | Non-profit organisation

God’s Squad CMC

Locality: Yarra Junction, Victoria

Phone: +61 481 217 353

Address: 2438 Warburton Hwy 3797 Yarra Junction, VIC, Australia

Website: https://gscmc.com

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25.01.2022 Become wise by walking with the wise; hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces. https://www.bible.com/97/pro.13.20.msg

24.01.2022 Now you’ve got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of your face. Ever since you took my hand, I’m on the right way. https://www.bible.com/97/psa.16.11.msg

24.01.2022 You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this? John 11:25-26 MSG https://www.bible.com/97/jhn.11.25-26.msg

22.01.2022 GOD, you are my God. I celebrate you. I praise you. You’ve done your share of miracle-wonders, well-thought-out plans, solid and sure. Here you’ve reduced the city to rubble, the strong city to a pile of stones. The enemy Big City is a non-city, never to be a city again. Superpowers will see it and honor you, brutal oppressors bow in worshipful reverence. They’ll see that you take care of the poor, that you take care of poor people in trouble, Provide a warm, dry place in bad weather, provide a cool place when it’s hot. Brutal oppressors are like a winter blizzard and vicious foreigners like high noon in the desert. But you, shelter from the storm and shade from the sun, shut the mouths of the big-mouthed bullies. https://www.bible.com/97/isa.25.1.msg

22.01.2022 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. https://www.bible.com/97/rom.12.21.msg

21.01.2022 Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. John 15:4 MSG https://www.bible.com/97/jhn.15.4.msg

20.01.2022 Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth. https://www.bible.com/97/mat.4.4.msg

20.01.2022 God's Squad CMC Victorian 2020 Memorial Run, Saturday November 21. First post iso run uniting our city and rural family, remembering those who have gone before us. Thanks to all who came out.

20.01.2022 Hi folks. Here's this weeks Food for Thought at Zac's Place by Rev Dr David Wilson. Have a grade week and stay safe. https://youtu.be/OS1qRNHkgaA

19.01.2022 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. https://www.bible.com/97/rom.3.23.msg

18.01.2022 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to youyour tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust. https://www.bible.com/97/2pe.1.3.msg

17.01.2022 Nga mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa; warm greetings to you all as we have a look at the gospel passage for today. This week we have Luke 19:11-27. A while back t...he lectionary and our roster for these reflections paired me up with the Matthew 25 version of today’s text, many things are similar but the context that Luke places this story in adds significant weight to what Jesus may be trying to teach us. Our text is known as the Parable of the Pounds, so what is going on around this parable. The story really starts in Luke 18:31 - Jesus and his band are travelling to Jerusalem so that the things written by the prophets can be accomplished in the Son of Man. As they are nearing Jericho there is a blind beggar called Bartimaeus who hears the noise of this band approaching. On finding out it was Jesus he calls out loudly, embarrassingly loudly and pleads for Jesus to help him see. Jesus heals Bartimaeus and he joins the band with Jesus. As they continue into Jericho there is another man, a marginalised and unliked man who also wants to see Jesus. Zacchaeus climbs a tree, Jesus see’s him and invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house. On the way to his house with Jesus and his band of beggars, including Bartimaeus now, Zacchaeus has that transformational moment when the kingdom of God becomes real to him and he decides to redistribute his wealth, much of it gained falsely it appears. Jesus declares that salvation has come to his house. This is great writing by Luke as he describes here how Mary’s song, The Magnificat from Luke 1 becomes reality. The poor would be lifted up, like Bartimaeus, and the rich would be brought low, like Zacchaeus from his lofty vantage point in the tree and the goodness of God would grow. This is the lead in to our text for today.after this moment of transformation and new life appearing Jesus tells the story we have today about a Nobleman who was going away who leaves some servants in charge of his wealth. It is worth reading and reflecting on this story as well as listening to my thoughts. Some use this text on stewardship Sunday to encourage us to be faithful with our wealth and support their church projects. I am not sure Luke thinks this is what Jesus is on about. Jesus is expecting to be mocked, scourged and put to death (Luke 18:31-34) when he gets to Jerusalem soon which is a similar fate to the ‘wicked and lazy servant’ Luke writes about today. Our nobleman cannot be a God figure rewarding his servants faithfulness like we have heard for so long. God is not an austere figure who punishes people for not ‘reaping what they did not sow’ or ‘collecting what we did not deposit’. Those practices are stealing, theft, robbery and extortion nothing to do with the way of Jesus. This must be a cautionary tale to warn us about the way the world of wealth accumulation works and that by choosing to live in the way of Jesus we will be in danger of being trampled by it. There is a cost in following Jesus as Renea reminded us recently. If you are feeling screwed over by the financial system, the prison system and not fitting in with the wealthy you are not alone and Jesus see’s you. Hang in there. This year has been a crazy one with Covid’s effect on us all. When it first appeared we were told that house prices would fall, people would loose their jobs and our society would fall apart. Here in Aotearoa house prices have not fallen, they have continued to rise at a staggering rate meaning that only those with increasing wealth can buy them. Of course bigger prices means bigger mortgages and bigger rents for the poor who cannot get a desposit together but they can pay the weekly rent. There is a strange quirk of law here where those of us who are poor enough qualify for an accommodation supplement from the government to help pay our rent. Great news for those already rich enough to own multiple properties as their rent charges are now topped up from the tax pool the government collects. Are the ‘tax collectors’ today getting rich through false means our investor landlords?? May we have eyes to see like Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus - that salvation comes, that the kingdom of God comes to us when the poor are lifted up and the rich are brought low so that their excessive wealth can be redistributed fairly. I encourage us all the read and re read today’s text, to wrestle with the context and what Jesus is really teaching us. May we faithfully serve Jesus and not the rich nobles who get wealthy by harvesting what they did not sow or deposit. We may get smashed by the financial over lords and cast out even prisons today are a tool to farm the poor and make the rich richer. This story reads us and questions us today who are our kin, who are we connected to and what do we aspire to be in this life. The poor are a gift to liberate us from the lies of wealth and power, may we not be ashamed or afraid of being cast out or slayed with them. After all our club moto is friend of outcasts and sinners. So this is another incredibly challenging story from Jesus, this road is not an easy one but it is the way to God’s kingdom. May we be strong and encourage each other to keep going in this way. Rangimarie e hoa ma Cheers Buckshot - Wellington chapter, New Zealand

17.01.2022 Another TV ad from the archives, this one is from 1979. This TV ad was made by Christian Television Australia (CTA) and featured John Smith in the very early da...ys of God's Squad CMC in Melbourne. Back then commercial TV stations had to show 1 hour per week of free Christian content, how things have changed. This is a great piece of our history and showed how John Smith and God's Squad were household names from the very early days. See more

14.01.2022 Сьогодн один з нас пшов до Батька. Дорога була важкою та болючою. Але зараз вн у Царств Небесному, в обймах Того, Хто зараз плаче разом з рдними та друзям...и. Життя нашого брата надихало нас. Нехай його вдхд до Царства наблизить кожного з нас до Царя. Ми любимо тебе, Василий Бодрягин. Ти завжди будеш в наших серцях. Прощання з Васею вдбудеться 10.11 (ввторок), о 13:00 за адресою: Буча, вулиця Польова, 19.

12.01.2022 Warmest greetings from South Wales in the UK, where our communities are going back into local lockdowns as covid infections rise again. This week on our blog, w...e take a look at some tough statements from Jesus recorded in Luke's gospel. As a patch wearing motorcycle club I’d like to think we know something about commitment not only among ourselves, but also among many of those we spend our time with. With colours identifying who a club are a declaration of existence a tribal identity, a coat of arms a guarantee that those who wear them have counted the cost, or so they thought, of whatever price may be paid in wearing them. I guess, we all at times wonder if a price is worth paying. I still love the stories of Jesus on the road with his mates. Not least of all, because it was on the road his first bunch of disciples learned how to follow it’s where they learnt what it meant to be a genuine disciple of Jesus. They were rough diamonds, work in progress but even so, Jesus didn’t exclude them from what he was doing, nor made it any easier because they were misfits they needed to count the cost of discipleship the cost of following Jesus. A large part of Luke’s Gospel is set on a road trip to Jerusalem. There will have been an initial sacrifice for the disciples and others on the road with them I don’t suppose many will have had their family travel with them, they had left jobs and profits behind, and they had to travel light, not always knowing where they would crash out that night. Jesus knew the road way ahead of them was going to be tough, long after he was gone. He knew they would face rejection, persecution, pain and for some, execution, as he would. He wanted to prepare them for the bigger picture. This was training not just in a set of beliefs but a whole way of living. The context for our reading today, comes just after Luke records Jesus’ disciples arguing about who’d be the greatest. They’d also had some bitter words towards a bloke that was seemingly doing miracles they knew nothing about and their own racist national pride came to the fore, as they suggested they might call down lightning bolts to strike some Samaritans, who’d not shown them hospitality. They were definitely ‘work in progress’! We’re going to look at Luke Chapter 9, verses 57 to 62. To be honest, at a glance they’re pretty sobering words to read. ... As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus replied, Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. The un-named person in these verses may have been a religious teacher as recorded in Matthew 8, but the person’s identity isn’t important here. What matters is that this person makes an extreme offer of commitment to follow Jesus anywhere. An incredibly bold offer of allegiance. But Jesus’ response almost seems a bit sharp. With a little creative licence, I imagine the tone of his reply saying, ‘Have you any idea how tough this road is going to get? I know you’re steeped in religion and you think you can do this standing on your head, but have you really weighed up the difference of looking religious, or being a disciple?’ In much the same way, the responsibility of wearing colours can never be fully appreciated until you have taken the journey so the road of discipleship with Christ can never be fully grasped, until, you’ve seriously faced the challenge what a life realigned with Christ, will bring. The reality was, Jesus was now a travelling man, without a home, without possessions and without the majesty of heaven he had put aside. As this person found out, there’s a world of difference between quoting the scriptures, and living the scriptures, between putting on a religious performance and wrestling with the cost of discipleship in the core of your soul. Next, Jesus asks another person to weigh up the costs. He said to another man, Follow me. But he replied, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. Jesus said to him, Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Still another said, I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family. Jesus replied, No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. These were explosive remarks from Jesus. If this was said around the dining table, there would have been such a sharp intake of breath, nothing will have been left on the tabletop. Within ancient Israel, there was nothing more sacred than to show honour to your father in his burial. Why did Jesus show such disrespect for his own Jewish tradition and laws, by suggesting that, those who have no regard for the concerns of the Kingdom of God, bury the dead? Jesus chose what is most important, the one thing that everything else in their world stops for, a family funeral, and draws a comparison. The matters of the Kingdom of God have a greater sense of urgency than even this. Again, with a little creative licence, I wonder if Jesus was implying, ‘Listen. You know what happened when dad died. The whole family community put everything else on hold. Showing honour to dad became the most important thing in your world at that moment in time. The demands of the Kingdom of God, command that level and an even greater level, of natural respect and reordered priority if it’s that important to us’. At the heart of being a disciple of Jesus, is a desire to honour God, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Sometimes in the course of that our priorities are challenged. We can’t delay what needs to be dealt with now. Similarly, we can’t absorb ourselves in self-indulgence when, when the demands of the Kingdom of God cause us to be looking not to our own interests, but the needs of others. I am sure there were times when many followers of Jesus, even then, dared to take a look back. ‘Surely it will have been easier to have stayed fishing’ some might have thought. ‘I might as well have stayed collecting taxes, at least I’d have been rich and miserable,’ Matthew might have muttered under his breath. But, they slowly learned what it was to become a disciple. To dare to call Jesus ‘Lord’, came with a preparedness to be open to the Lordship of Christ. Of course, not all those who encountered Jesus on the road went travelling, but they still had things to learn. Legion, the naked, demoniac, madman, living in a graveyard next to a pig farm, was told in no uncertain terms to stay home after his transforming encounter with Jesus, when perhaps he wanted to leave. Whatever our circumstances, if we dare to take the road with Christ, if we dare to call him Lord, if we dare take the road of discipleship seriously, there will, at some stage be times when we feel compelled to go against normal conventions for the cause of Christ and wherever it takes its shape, the Kingdom of God builds communities that are changed. The call to follow remains. We may echo the words of the old hymn, ‘I surrender all, all to Jesus I surrender’, but under our breath we might be muttering; except that stuff that affects my wallet, my pride, my national identity, my popularity and my ability to get on in life... ‘Hang on a minute Jesus let me live a bit first’. The cause of Christ, the pursuit of what the Holy Spirit instils in our hearts if we let it, will mean that costly matters of; justice, love, mercy, humility, grace, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation all of the things that are at the heart of the good news of Christ will become more important than our own need for power, popularity or comfort. But I am also reminded that the road with Christ is not only tough at times, it is also incredibly liberating and THAT is both worth living, and dying for. Cheers and God bless and stay safe. Sean GSCMC, South Wales International President The Bible passage can be viewed here in both the NIV & Message translations https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/

10.01.2022 Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you. John 8:32 MSG https://www.bible.com/97/jhn.8.32.msg

09.01.2022 God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Dayour standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful lifefear of death, fear of judgmentis one not yet fully formed in love. https://www.bible.com/97/1jn.4.18.msg

09.01.2022 Repeat these basic essentials over and over to God’s people. Warn them before God against pious nitpicking, which chips away at the faith. It just wears everyone out. Concentrate on doing your best for God, work you won’t be ashamed of, laying out the truth plain and simple. Stay clear of pious talk that is only talk. Words are not mere words, you know. If they’re not backed by a godly life, they accumulate as poison in the soul. Hymenaeus and Philetus are examples, throwing believers off stride and missing the truth by a mile by saying the resurrection is over and done with. https://www.bible.com/97/2ti.2.15.msg

09.01.2022 Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That’s why the prophet said, The old life is a grass life, its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers; Grass dries up, flowers droop, God’s Word goes on and on forever. This is the Word that conceived the new life in you. 1 Peter 1:24 MSG https://www.bible.com/97/1pe.1.24.msg

06.01.2022 Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you, we can boldly quote, God is there, ready to help; I’m fearless no matter what. Who or what can get to me? Hebrews 13:5 MSG https://www.bible.com/97/heb.13.5.msg

05.01.2022 G'day friends, here's this weeks Food for Thought. Have a fantastic week. https://youtu.be/nJrYcl2L5ds

04.01.2022 So be content with who you are, and don’t put on airs. God’s strong hand is on you; he’ll promote you at the right time. Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you. 1 Peter 5:6 MSG https://www.bible.com/97/1pe.5.6.msg

04.01.2022 Yesterday we joined other chapters in a memorial run for our brother Whitey who moved on to eternal glory 3 years ago. It was our first run together since lockdown opened up (about 8 or 9 months). Whilst it was fantastic catching up with mates, it was also a good time to reflect on the life of Whitey GBNF

03.01.2022 But don’t let it faze you. Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teacherswhy, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother’s milk! There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or anothershowing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. https://www.bible.com/97/2ti.3.16-17.msg

02.01.2022 Oh, thank GOD he’s so good! His love never runs out. All of you set free by GOD, tell the world! Tell how he freed you from oppression, Then rounded you up from all over the place, from the four winds, from the seven seas. Psalm 107:1 MSG https://www.bible.com/97/psa.107.1.msg

01.01.2022 A HUGE thanks to everyone (43 bikes & at least 60 people-appropriately distanced of course) who attended God's Squad CMC Victorian Memorial Run today. What a to...p day of fellowship, celebration, and sorrow as we remember & honour those taken (sometimes seemingly far too soon). The photo is of current & former Members, Associates, supporters, & brothers from other clubs who came and supported us, at Mount Macedon Memorial Cross. Our thanks, love & respect to you all. See more