God is generous, and the Bible is full of examples of people, motivated by goodness, to emulate this - King David poured out gifts from the national
treasury and then from his personal reserves. A poor widow gave everything she had. A woman prepared a room for a traveling prophet. A group of impoverished Macedonians gave more than they dreamed they could.

This morning, we will examine Ruth’s loyalty and her own generosity
before she experienced God’s extravagant generosity through a close family relative of her mother-in-law Naomi. It is a beautiful story with God’s fingerprints all over it.

A message by Janet Dougherty

To say Australia is a land of extremes sometimes seems like an understatement. With extreme heat in the Southeast and Eastern Australia, on Tuesday, Mildura is predicted to nudge up to 50 degrees and Melbourne in the low 40s. Up north WA, they are wrestling with a cyclone.

It is part of the reason why Government and emergency response agencies encourage people in areas prone to natural disasters to be prepared. To have a bag ready to go at a moment's notice.

Even iconic landmarks are getting ready for catastrophic events.
But when it comes to the decisions we make, can being ready make a difference in helping us to live life well?

A message by David Toscano

"I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway."
These are the words the apostle Paul writes to the church in Rome. He is describing what management theorists and life coaches call the Knowing-Doing gap.

The Knowing-Doing gap can apply to individuals, to organisations or systems and it refers to the disconnection we can experience between understanding what you should do and actually doing it. I know for my health I should eat less chocolate and run more often. Actually, doing that though is difficult. That’s the gap.

And we can experience that Knowing-Doing gap as we live out our faith – that’s what Paul’s words speak about. If we want to live life well – we know that we need to spend time with God, we know we need to cultivate the fruits of the spirit, that living life well means living as people who are loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful and have self-control. And yet – actually doing it? We know we are called to be compassionate and generous, especially to those in our society who are experiencing disadvantage – but are we DOING it?
How can we start to bridge the knowing-doing gap.

A message by Samantha B