The opening ceremony of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games was a spectacular piece of stadium art, filled with all the light, colour, sound and dance that you would expect.

Opening ceremonies have definitely carved out for themselves their own genre – it is a chance to tell the narrative of a nation and the distinctives of their city.

The opening scene was the dawn of time, where our world was united as one land. A traditional dance showed that from the birth of our continent, our land has been looked after by the indigenous people.

The shift was then made to the distinctives of the Gold Coast – the stadium was turned into a spectacular scene of our fun-filled beach culture.

It certainly captured aspects of out past and current culture. However, was it a true narrative of Australia?

Imagine if we put God in the picture, how would that change things? It’s hard to imagine that in secular Australia.

Romans 1:18-19 says “what can be known about God is plain to us” but “we suppress the truth.”

When we deny the truth of our maker for long enough we can then no longer even remember him at all.

Imagine an opening ceremony where God was on display – where it was his hand that formed our world, our continent, our beaches – where we remembered that God created us all in his own image, so that all people should be treated with care and dignity.

Indeed, it was these very Christian beliefs that helped form the social and justice systems of Australia that have allowed us the freedom to enjoy our beautiful country.

At the end of the opening ceremony, without God in the picture there’s not much response to make. But with God in the picture, as the creator of all those wonderful things the response is one of thankfulness to Him.

Why don’t you take a moment this week, to notice what God has given us and give thanks to him.

Simon Chaplin.

There has been a lot happening this week as our church and the churches in our region have partnered with Moore College students to run many Jesus is___. events.

Hundreds of people have attended the public sessions at the Civic Centre, over 1000 students have been at special SRE assemblies, and 2000 high-schoolers were at the Free To Be event.

At the heart of all this flurry of activity is one simple message: Jesus is the great exchange.

There were lots of events this week, but there is only one event that really matters: it is the moment where this great exchange takes place in your life.

No-one else will see this moment, for it takes place in your heart, and yet at the same time it is a cosmic event.

1 Peter 3:18 says “For Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God”.

The great exchange is this: Jesus stands in our place; he swaps his life for ours and he does it so that he might brings us back home to God.

Ben Pfahlert, the speaker at the public sessions, put it like this: He took our place that we might reconnect with our spiritual old man.

This is the great exchange of love divine, as a recent song puts it:

Oh great exchange
Of love divine
My greatest gain
I leave behind

So turn my heart
And calm my fears
For you will bring
Me home again*

In this great exchange we are solely the receivers. We offer nothing as part of of the deal.

God himself, out of only love, offers us it all. Nothing can rival this offer, so we can leave all gain behind.

And nothing can take it away, so our heart is assured and our fears are calmed. His life for ours, that he might give take us home.

Simon Chaplin.

* Love Returns : Luke Woodhouse and Gav Perkins.  Voyagesongs.com