Nov 27, 2007


Ephesians 5:1-4 says this…
Watch what God does
And then you do it.
Like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.
Mostly what God does is
Love you.
Keep company with Him, and learn a life of love.
Observe how Christ loved us.
His love was not cautious
But extravagant.
He didn’t love in order to get something from us
But to give everything of Himself to us.
Love like that.
Don’t allow love to turn into lust,
Setting off a downhill slide into
sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed.
Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip,
Christians have better uses for language than that.
Don’t talk dirty or silly.
That kind of talk doesn’t fit our style.
Thanksgiving is our dialect.

(The Message Remix, emphasis added by me)

This passage of scripture was our focus at the Spring Lakes prayer meeting November 21st and it has stuck with me for the past week just like all of the calories I consumed that week. When I read it I get two main things from it. The first is that it is a passage filled with actions for us to participate in; watch, do it, learn, love, keep company, observe. The second is that there is a list of things we are to avoid; don’t withhold love, don’t love in order to get, lust, sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, bullying greed, gossip and dirty silly talk should all be left out of our life style.

These four little verses hold quite a punch. As I searched this passage I think it is the last line that is key in helping us to accomplish the rest. When we allow ourselves to live lives of thanksgiving, we can by Gods grace accomplish the rest of what He is calling us to in these verses.

If we are truly thankful for the life that we have, the things we possess, the place that we are, then we will be able to love extravagantly, as Christ loved us. If we are thankful for who we are, then there is no need for comparison and thus a lack of jealousy. If we are confident and thankful for the life that God has blessed us with then there is no need to complain, and put others down in order to build ourselves up. When we allow ourselves to be satisfied with that which we have, then we will not need to lust after that which we do not possess.

So I invite you to join me in continuing in the spirit of Thanksgiving throughout this Christmas season. As we live lives of thankfulness may our words, thoughts and actions reflect the love of God who sent His one and only son to us as the ultimate expression of love to us, expecting nothing in return. May we surprise Him with our act of worship as we live lives out of a thankful heart for all He has blessed us with.

Nov 26, 2007

Name Fines


I have always had a thing about names. Sometimes I really question parents' sanity and cruelty when naming their children. We have all heard winners like Ima and Ura Pig or Bar Bee Que and now celebrities naming their children things like; Apple, Camera, Puma, Denim, Suri...It's as if they just looked up and named the first thing they saw.

Then this weekend I was hit with a whole family of names that should have never happened and that is why I was so pleased to find out that the people of New Zealand are taking a stand and finally doing something to punish the parents for naming there children such sad names.



Maybe this will catch on here in the states. In fact maybe my friends at Child Care should take it upon themselves to start fining parents who drop off kids with horrible names. You could put the money towards next summers Child Care Shirts or Retreat.

J E S U S

I am speaking tonight at Young Life and the topic I was given was "Jesus"

Seems simple until you sit down and think about just who Jesus is. I found this video along with many others listing just some of the many titles used in the Bible to describe who Jesus is...



I hope that it was as inspiring to you as it was to me, to see who this Man Jesus, was and is and will continue to be.

We are already in the midst of this holiday season and I want to keep Jesus at the center of it all, may this reminder of just who He is help you to do the same.

Stuck



I watched part of this video at the National Youth Workers Convention a month or so ago, and it has really stuck with me. Now that I have seen the whole thing it is clear that the message was meant to be, get fit, don't be lazy. But at the point it was cut for NYWC combined with the venue the message was; are you at a stand still in your faith, in your ministry? Are you waiting for someone to come and get you going again or are you going to take action. A similar point when you think about it.

How often do we in our everyday lives and especially in our spiritual lives just expect to get somewhere by getting on the right path. We step on to the "escalator" and expect that we will reach the top even though we have stopped moving of our own volition. Then when we fail to get there because the path we chose stops doing all the work for us we just give up, yell for help and plop down unwilling to do any of the work required to move forward, upward.

I see the same thing in my life and in the lives of those around me. An example, we attend a class or a program, and expect that just by attending we are going to grow up in our faith, in our maturity even. But then we discover that the class is not meeting all of our hopes and desires, it is not getting us where we thought we were going at the speed in which we had hoped, so we start complaining and we give up. We don't take some ownership and action and dig deeper for truth, or answers. We don't even ask the hard questions we just give up and wait for someone else to come along to fix our path to move us along, so that we don't have to work at all.

This is not how it should be. We are not to be mindless followers of Christ. In Ephesians 4 it talks about this. That there are times when the old ways have to go. We (who have been Christians for some time), we have learned Christ. We know who He is and what He is all about, we cannot be dependent on someone else to continually feed us and move us along. But we must be constantly looking to where Christ is and following Him there. Doing what we know He is all about.

I know that this has become one of those rabbit trail type posts, but what did you expect the name of my blog should have clued you into the fact that there was bound to be some random rants and ramblings. And there has not been for sometime and I am not one to disappoint. Hope you got something out of all these words flowing from my brain. If nothing else know that all this to say if you are that guy or gal stuck on the escalator you chose to take, and you are frustrated with the fact that it is not getting you to your next point in life spiritually or not, then pick your feet up and walk to the top, reevaluate as you go, but please don't just sit there complaining, yelling for help but unwilling to do any work.

Nov 12, 2007

Question of the Day #2...

Share the joy of your favorite...What's your favorite Web site?

Nov 8, 2007

Question of the Day...


Who's your favorite Muppet? And why?

Nov 7, 2007

Ahhh my life backwards

This video is was made by The Skit Guys who perform at Youth Specialties as an entry for a South West Airlines Commercial competition. It will be airing in April, but they showed it at the convention I just went to and it rang so true, that I wanted to share it with you. Enjoy.

Nov 3, 2007

All Saints Day




Without meaning I ended up celebrating All Saints Day. On November 1st I made an Italian meal for my family. My Dad named our main dish Trinity's All Saints Lasagna Pie. I think that is a bit long so we'll just drop the Trinity's and stick with the rest. I also made some Tomato Bread Salad and a Blackberry and Pear Crostata.
Not a bad way to celebrate all those saints.

quotes i love

  • "they will never care how much you know until they know how much you care."
  • "never be afraid to trust a well known God with an unknown future." - Corrie Ten Boom
  • "God doesn't need you, He loves you, that is much better."
  • "the world has yet to see what God can do through a man/woman who is totally commited to him." - D.L. Moody
  • "be who you is, cause if is ain't who you is, you is who you ain't."-
  • "some people say movies should be more like real life. I say real life should be more like the movies."