Help a Brother Out

Guys, do me a favor and help out Sam. Post a comment in response to his burining question.
Sam's Burning Question

The Art of Growing Up

Sean Penn was sitting four rows in front of me on the plane last week. I was in the front of coach class, and he was in the front of a very small first class. I realized he was married to Forrest Gump’s girl, Jenny. I had never been around a famous person for quite that long before. I have spoken to basketball players, and seen movie stars. Heck I even bussed sir Elton John’s table once. This time I was trapped in a flying capsule with a star for around five hours. He didn’t look as glamorous as one would expect. Not that Sean Penn is one of the more glamorous stars out there. It was an interesting experience.
During the whole flight I found myself wondering, “what is Sean doing now?” I wondered if he ate the peanuts like we all did. Did he watch the same terrible movie that we did? Besides being in first class was he just as uncomfortable as we were? During the whole flight there was a slight buzz from the crew and the passengers around him. I must have heard “Sean Penn” whispered a dozen times. After the flight we were walking out to the street and happened to be right beside him as they scurried along, trying to go unnoticed. They skipped the baggage claim area, and went directly out to await their ride home.
This little encounter, or lack thereof taught me something about myself. I do not treat all people equally. I am not real sure how I learned it. I think my thought process went something like this.

Wow there’s Sean Penn

It must be cool to be Sean Penn

I would love to be his friend

Wait a minute Sean Penn isn’t that different from me

He has to deal with the same junk I do

His life is just as significant as mine or the homeless persons

Why do I value him higher

Would Jesus

No

I am not sure if this is rational to anyone else but it was deeply convicting to me. It reminded me of one of our core values at tribe. Dare I say it be THE core value. If tribe does nothing else our goal is to see it build relationships.
But I am locked in an internal debate around this question. Here is my concern. Can relationships of real intimacy, the kind of intimacy you had with childhood friends, be formed this late in life? Or is friend making like language learning – only easy when you are young? Are we programmed to lose this ability when we hit a certain age, or have made a certain amount of friends? DO we start out our life with a certain allotment of friend making – you can make 7 close friends and then you are done? I have to believe that this is not the case, but a lot of evidence points this way. Truth is I know it just take a lot more work.
And I still want tribe to breathe this. It is the reason why we exist and the best platform on which to reach our spiritual goals. Just because it is hard, doesn’t mean that I will give up. To all who are reading this, don’t take it the wrong way. I want your friendship so badly. I have been reading all about church planting lately, and everything tells me that it has to be done with intimate relationships. I am really desiring those. Not just to plant a church, but more because that is how I enjoy life.
Long story short – I am deeply confused by the art of growing up.
Love you guys and hope that our relationships continue to grow.

Your Blog...Doggystyle



One of the funniest things I have ever seen. You put in your web adress (try it on your blog, its a riot) and it converts the text into snooponics. Beware of mild explatives. Give it a trizzle. That's Hizzle.


I Got ID

We got up at 4:30 in the morning. Mellissa’s dad was at our front door a few minutes before five. We spent an hour and a half trying on our way to the airport. We exchange hugs and make our way to the line. We get to the desk and everything is going swimmingly. The Lady behind the counter asks for ID’s. Mellissa’s demeanor changes from excitement to terror in a matter of 30 seconds. She frantically scours places in her purse that her wallet could not be, knowing that it could not be there. The simple laws of physics prevent a wallet of that size from being stuffed into a pocket in the lining of a small purse. But she looked there anyway. Part of it was insincere. She knew she didn’t have the wallet. She was starting to remember that she paid the bills late the night before and didn’t recall putting the wallet back into the bag. She was looking for my benefit and for the lady behind the counters. She felt the more shocked she appeared the more likely that the consequence would be waived. After a little explaining and a little begging, they let us get on the plane. We were both surprised. We thought for sure that the trip was as good as over.

I being the good husband that I am had little reaction besides the shaking of my head in disapproval. In the end we made it to Hawaii unscathed. But the issue didn’t end there. Due to a series of holidays we were unable to get the ID sent to Hawaii in time for the return flight. So during the whole trip Mellissa was living in constant stress of things not going quite as well on that side of the lake. She almost couldn’t enjoy one of the most amazing places on earth because of the constant burden weighing on her. Will they let me on the plane this way? Will I get stuck in Hawaii with my in-laws? She didn’t know and it changed the whole experience.

Ephesians 1:13 says “And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit…”. That is our ID. It is issued by Christ himself, and it is carried by us in the form of the Holy Spirit. We can live out our life with joy if we have our ID. We need not fear failure if we have our ID. We have authority when we have our ID. We need not worry about our trip to the other side when we have our ID. I need to live out every day of my life with my ID. God help me to do that!

My lips are shakin’
My nails are bit off
It’s been a month since I’ve heard myself talk
All advantage this life’s got on me
Picture a cup in the middle of the sea

- Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam in his song “I Got ID”

I'm not so sure he did.

Saving Face

Numbers 20:11 – Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff, and water gushed out. So all the people and their livestock drank their fill.

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We spent a lot of time on this passage in Bible College. The story goes on to tell about God being angry with Moses for hitting the rock when all he commanded him to do was speak to it. Sadly this little blunder is the reason that Moses never gets to see the promised land. Not the getting mad and smashing the 10 commandments, nor the killing of a slave drive back in Egypt. The thing that keeps Moses out of the promised land is beating up on a rock. I don’t want to get into the reasoning of God on this subject. It seems weird to me, but he is God for a reason, and this disobedience must have really upset him. Others would argue that this was written by Moses and so he tried to minimize his sins in this way. I am willing to take it at face value.

The thing that sparks my interest is why in the heck water came out of that rock. Moses didn’t follow gods instructions, and God clearly wasn’t with him in his striking of the rock, so why did the miracle just not work. It seems to me that this would have been the most appropriate response on Gods part. “You don’t obey me, I won’t empower you.” This is what should have happened in the story. Moses should have beaten the rock…and that’s it. Maybe he would try it again and then realize that God said to speak to it and finally get it right after a couple of embarrassing moments.

But God is so big, he must have known the consequences of this, and chosen to do otherwise. Maybe if Moses had failed just once he would have completely lost the respect of all of his followers. So God in his wisdom, made it work for him, saving Moses some face, and keeping his people for the time being. That is all supposition on my part. We can’t be sure to know what God was doing here, but I need to trust that it was good. I hope he does the same thing in my life. I am sure I will sin in my future, and that could possibly jeopardize all that God wants to do in my life. I pray that he would save me some face, and continue to use me, however he sees fit. I don’t want to take his grace for granted, I just want to be covered by it.

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God pour your grace upon me even though I don’t deserve it. I sin too much. Treat me like Moses. Punish me for my sins, but don’t let the punishment ruin my ministry, and all that you want to do in me. I will take anything other than that. Bringing you glory is the most important thing in my life. Give me grace enough to do it. That’s Hot.

We Were on a Break

Well I am back and my goal is to ease back into blogging. It is tough to go from no blogging at all back to 500 words a day or whatever I used to write. Let me take a second to bring you up to speed.

I just got back from Hawaii late last night. It was a great time. For the first time I am really an adult, and didn’t try to get together with all my old friends when I was back in town. I played tourist. We went out to eat every meal (thanks mom and dad…maybe I am not as adult as I would like to think), we hung out on the beach and just vegetated for 8 days. The sad thing is that I pretty much took a vacation from Christianity. I say Christianity in a strict sense. I don’t mean that I sinned for 8 days uncontrollably, or even that I didn’t appear to be a Christian. Heck I even read 2 pastoring books while I was there. I just didn’t center my life around my God, which was surprisingly easy and painless. I say surprisingly, because I’d think that all my joy would have been snapped, because God was trying to teach me what my life is worth without him, but no I had a great time. I am ready to get back to life, and I’m excited to get back to seeing what God has in store for me each day again. I don’t really know what to make of all this. I am still processing. Just know this – I am back and ready to blog

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God I am back, sorry for leaving you out, I think. Maybe you are teaching me something. But I want to make it clear that I am hungry for you. Thanks meeting me 99 percent of the way.

A Vacation From My Problems!

Well tribe, and company. It has been an amazing 46 days of continual blogging, and thats a lot. I am writing this to say that I am just about to leave for hawaii (I know its rough) and am not sure about the blogging conditions there. I will try to get a few posts up, but I can't guarantee them to be daily. This is the verse I am praying for this trip:
Psalm 26:8 - I love your sanctuary Lord, the place where your glory shines.
Help me to live in that.
See you guys in a week. Stay dry. (mwuhahaha)

Learning how to Climb

Psalm 24:3-4 –

Who may climb the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?
Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies.

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This whole Psalm really jumped out at me. I am convinced that a great song could be written using just the interlude of this psalm. But more than anything this verse stood out to me. It kind of went along with a passage I read in Leviticus today as well. The passage told the story of a young man who blasphemed the Lord. No word on what he said, but the community could not exist with something like this within it so the Lord ordered him to be stoned. I find that I have been writing on this topic a lot lately.

I figured that the reason for that is an overall tolerance for sin. I don’t hate my sin. The problem is when I think about this verse all that pops into my mind is the sins of others, and how they might be separating our generation from what God wants to do. Be that as it may, I need to take the plank out of my own eye first. I need to really hate sin in my own life. I would lose my job if I were completely open here and the right people read it. When you hear that statement you think I must be in some kind of horrible sin. Involved in a secret lifestyle of some kind, but that is not what I am talking about. My sin however needs to be seen in my own eyes as horrible. I have bought into the lie that I only have small sins, but the truth of the matter is that there really is no such thing. They all break Gods heart and separate me from him. The way I tell lies of convenience, the way I speak poorly about others to build myself up. Those are just a couple. I want more of God and he wants more of me, so I will start by doing my best to give him this.

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God I need your help. I can’t do this on my own. My prayer is that you would show me the areas of my life that break your heart. Help me to hat them the way you do. I want to bring you more worship in this way, by keeping your boundaries. You are worth it.

Something Worth Living For

Acts 20:24 - But my life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus – the work of telling others the good news about Gods wonderful kindness and love.

Thomas’ Personalized Paraphrase

The Life that I live now is meaningless. I am a complete waste of space, and good for nothing. There is no reason for me to live…unless I use it in service to God. I need to get out there and stop wasting my life and tell people about God. Not just about him, but about how relationship with him is once again available. He truly is so loving and kind to make something like this possible.

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God help me to live accordingly. Use me to increase your worship by adding to your kingdom. I really am worthless without you. In light of that fact help me to find my worth in you. If you could use anything Lord, you could use me.

Provide or Change Me, Either Way

Psalm 13:1, 5, 6

Oh Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the Lord because he has been so good to me.

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I relate to David here. Of course my problems are few compared to the issues he is addressing. I am so quick to say or think that the Lord has left, or is not with me. I hate to say it but it is kind of like that cheesy “footprints” story. I am in a situation involving our finances and my attitude so far has been like that of David in the first verse. Am I going to have to deal with this kind of crap forever?

But I need to adjust my attitude the way that David did. Even though things may seem a little tough I need to worship the Lord and rejoice and know that he is going to be rescuing me. It is as good as done. He will take care of me. I need to trust him.

A friend of mine prayed for my circumstances lat night, and he prayed interestingly. I have spent all of my time praying for god to provide, but he chose to pray that God would do what he is trying to do. That we would learn what he is teaching us, and that God would resolve it in his time. That is my prayer too. I want what he wants, and until I get that, I will sit back and trust him.

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God I trust you. Provide. But even more than that, change me. I give you permission. I want more of you. As we go to see our tax guy today, do something. Provide or teach, or both. I want you more than the result.

A Strapping Young Man

I have two Jobs. Truth is I have never had a full time job before. This is not to say that I don't work full time now. I do, just not all at one place. I was talking with some guys from my tribe tonight, and we were talking about work and worship and how we can worship at work (funny thing is that I am preaching on this exact topic tomorrow night). I shared that I am good at serving the Lord in one sense at my job. That one sense is doing everything I can to win my coworkers with the gospel. At the same time I really suck at worshipping the Lord at work in another sense. That sense is working with excellence. I am called to work as hard for my boss as I would if it were JC himself.
I am not a terrible employee, there are just some small things that I don't do, just because I don't want to, and this should not be. The one thing that comes to mind is rolling straps. I drive a delivery truck for a machine shop (which happens to be run by my father in law which makes worship extra difficult). We have these filthy oil soaked straps that we use to tie everything down that we transport. At one point theses straps were a solid bright yellow. Now they are a frayed, steel splinter infested, and two shades short of being black. I hate rolling those dang things. They give me splinters, they get the grossest shop grease all over my hands, and the worst thing is that I am the only one who does it. Every time I come to work and the truck had been used, all the straps would be wadded up in a heap/knot, ready for me to get dirty and splintered. I hate them.
But I know what my mission is now. I need to be excellent in the way of the straps as well. I am sorry if this does not make sense to you, but it is a calling I have. How can I preach on this tomorrow if I don't live it the day before. So tomorrow morning, I am going to get up and go out to the truck and wind up the straps that I piled up. I am not looking forward to it, but I have to believe that the Lord will be pleased by that.
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Lord help me to worship you at work. Show me ways that I can have more integrity at work, and bring you more worship. I am sorry for not representing you quite as much as I could.

The Unknown God

Acts 17:23 – “for as I was walking along I saw your many altars. And one of them had this inscription on it – 'To an Unknown God.' You have been worshiping him without knowing who he is, and now I wish to tell you about him.”
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Sometimes I feel like I am just praying to myself. I say my prayers but I don’t really even think of who I am praying to or what he did for me. I will sit in my room and make my requests, with no thought into who I am actually praying to. Does this matter? It is like talking to a person, But I have fallen into such a rut in some ways that it is more like am talking to myself.
I realize that this is not what this verse is really talking about, but I asked myself this question after reading this. Do I worship and pray to him and not really know who he is? How often do I do that in my times of worship. I say the words, but how many of them are actually directed to God. How many of them are sung the same way I would sing I saw the sign by ace of bass. It takes some real intense concentration to really mean the words you say, whether it be prayer or song.
God deserves that. I am not very good at paying attention. Maybe it is years of exposure to video games, or maybe it is my diet that consists of unhealthy amounts of sugar, but I for one am not really paying attention to what I am saying most of the time. I respond out of habit. I am sure that I will do this again, but I know that I am saying right now that no response to my Lord should be out of habit or routine. He is worth so much more to me than that. I want to cease using meaningless mumbo jumbo and tell him exactly what I mean. He deserves my focus and my attention even more than that. From today on I will do my best to be even more real before him. He is worth it.
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God I know that even in this space I have written prayers that mean nothing to me. Don’t let this be one. I am sorry for doing that. Your death and your love for me makes this worth it. Forgive me for not esteeming you higher. Help me to focus on you better. Teach me. I have often concluded with a short statement of worship, but today I mean it more than ever…I am yours.

Getting out of God's Way

Acts 16:4-5 - Then they went from town to town, explaining the decision regarding the commandments that were to be obeyed, as decided by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in their faith and grew daily in numbers.

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The Lord is showing me the opposite side of the coin today, as opposed to what he was showing me yesterday. Yesterday I was feeling the importance of not holding the non believer to the standards we hold believers to. That is very true, but I feel like this verse clearly shows the importance of holding the believers accountable to the lifestyle they are supposed to live.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine and I got into a conversation about sin in the church. Basically the idea we were wrestling with was – Does our sin as a church (I mean the church in general, not a specific church) hold us back from the mighty and amazing things that God wants to do? Does our pride, and gossip, and sexual immorality, and all of our lies cause God to delay whatever he has planned? I thought this to be true and when I look at this verse I am convinced.

If I remember correctly from yesterday the “decision regarding the commandments to be obeyed was that the believers could not eat a few different foods, and couldn’t be sexually immoral. What we see here is that when Paul and Silas present this truth to the church, it is warmly received, and then God started a mini revival. If we look at this we see that the only precursor to a revival is Paul preaching a repentance from sin. The church needs to take this seriously. We need to stop worrying about the sin in our culture, for a little while at least, and focus on the problems in our church. If we can just get those under control, I believe we could expect God to show up and take care of the non believers by the power of his holy spirit, which we no longer quench since our turn from our sins. I’ll be praying about this, but the bottom line is that we can’t tolerate sin from ourselves, and to some extent our Christian family.

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Help me to be full of Love and Grace, but still have a great desire to see you worshiped by people keeping your rules. I don’t want to be part of preventing your revival for my generation. Let me be a promoter not a hindrance. I want it so badly, so consider this a prayer asking you to revive my county also. Help me to be as relevant to my generation as Jesus was to his.

Turning on a Dime

Acts 15:19 – “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.”

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How am I at this? Do I make it difficult for the gentiles who are turning to God? Paul here says this in a specific context. He is saying it at a meeting of the apostles and elders of the whole church, and they are discussing whether or not Gentiles can even be Christians. They conclude that they could, and that it would be best to not make it to difficult for them. They didn’t even require them to follow the Law of moses with the exception of a few major laws. Three of them are dietary restrictions, and the final one is to abstain from sexual immorality.

One interesting thing that I believe the Lord is showing me here is that this all came after they became Christians and received the Holy Spirit. God was all ready filling and using these guys, even though they didn’t know any better about the sexual immorality. It was all part of their culture. The point is that God saved those who were living wrong. My thought is that as Christians we shouldn’t care at all about how perverse unbelievers are. That’s all part of our culture. When we share the good news with them we should limit it to that…the good news (see my posts from last week for a definition of good news). This is not to say that we trick them into the faith, saying they can do whatever they want, but we need to stop caring so much about how pagans live their lives and worry more about how those who currently are witnesses live their lives. I need a change in my heart in this way.

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Lord help me to be most disgusted by the plank in my own eye. I have a lifetime of my own sins to control and be forgiven of. Let me never confuse the Gospel with the Law, because the two have never coexisted. Let the church grieve deeply for their sins, but for the Lost I pray that you would help me to be not judgmental. Help me to be a better communicator of the Gospel. I want desperately to increase your worship, not necessarily make the world a holier place. I’ll let you take care of that.

Be Posted!

Acts 14:10 - So Paul called to him in a loud voice, "Stand up!" And the man jumped to his feet and started walking.

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I have never tried this. Someone pointed out to me not to long ago that no one in the bible ever prays for people to be healed, they just tell them to be healed. Paul didn’t even say in Jesus’ name. I have never given this a shot. Maybe I have become too formulaic in the way I pray for things. Maybe the idea of healing people matters more about the spirit and the faith in your heart than it does the exact words that you speak. In fact I would have to think that this might be the case. God has used me to heal a few people in my life, and never have I tried to do it just by yelling and believing in my heart the way that Paul did. I very rarely nowadays get a shot to say these kinds of prayers to people.

I would like to say that my application for this verse would be to get out there and just do it, but that is scary. It takes some major guts to just get out there and yell at somebody to do something they can’t do, and expect God to do some amazing stuff. But I feel like I need to try. On my prayer list I have a guy named joe up there. Keep praying for him. Lately however he has been complaining about some leg pain. I hope that next time he has the guts, maybe I can just say…be healed and see what happens, but then again it still has little to do with what I say. I could probably yell, “nuprin is yellow” and get the same results if I have faith that God is going to do something. But for this first try, I will stick with - be healed, or something like it.

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Lord give me the faith to see something like this work. I want to see your power change peoples lives. Give me the boldness to actually put you out there to prove yourself to those around me. Help me to trust you more.

The Moody Generation

Acts 13:52 – And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

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The thing about this verse is that it is taken from a segment about the persecution of the disciples. They were getting chased down and some were getting killed, and this is their response. When I read this I get to thinking about my moodiness. How can I even come close to justifying being not joyful, when I live in such a peaceful little world? I deal with nothing that these guys had to go through, yet I get depressed, and in bad moods. In many areas of my life I am missing the joy of the Lord.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a pretty even keel guy. I don’t have huge mood swings, but I know myself better than anyone with the exception of God. I am not as joyful as I may come across. This week even I was feeling like I was in a bit of a funk, and no matter of praise could break me out of it. My question is whether or not this problem is new to the world? Did people in Jesus time have the psychiatric problems that we have today? Why is it that Jesus never does anything about these kinds of issues in scripture? Did they just not talk about that kind of stuff?

I don’t want to get to deep into the questioning. I realized today that my blog needs more application ideas, so my application is to, note when my mood appears to be lacking joy, and get down and pray for God to fix that. He wants me to be filled with joy and the Holy Spirit, so what is keeping him from doing something about it? Me. I am keeping him from giving me his joy, and I don’t want to stand in the way of that.

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God, I want your joy. Please give it to me. Show me times where your joy is missing in my life, and remind me to get on my knees at those times. Life is so much better when I live in just the shadow of your joy.

Missed Opportunities

I am such a chicken. I had one of those experiences today where I was confident that the Lord was calling me to do something, and I couldn’t get the guts up to do it. Usually it is just for me to go and talk to somebody specific, and I wuss out for some reason or another. But today he had a big assignment for me. There is a guy at our church named Jason who has been going through a tough time, but has seen Gods power in his life really straightening out. We had a great time of prayer for him, and he was crying and God was doing something. I prayed for God to use me to give him a word or something. He did. I felt compelled to read a segment from acts chapter 8 (the story of Philip baptizing the eunuch) and encourage him to make today his day, and be baptized. The spirit was flowing and He probably would have done it. But I couldn’t follow through with it. I was afraid of being rejected, and looking like a dummy.

Since that time, a little over an hour ago, I have replayed that scene in my mind several times. I am a bit angry with myself. I didn’t follow through when the lord gave me the work I asked for. Not only that, Jason could have had a life changing experience and a powerful testimony, and I stole that from him. I know that this experience is not lost forever for him, but I just feel bad for not following through with what I was to do. Thank God for his forgiveness.

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Lord help me to follow through when you give me a task. Especially when you give me a task that I ask for. I repent for missing the boat here. I pray you would restore Jason and change his life sooner rather than later, despite my shortcomings. I know you will, your plan is bigger than me. Please trust me again, I still want to be used, and restore me. Help me to live my life as a sacrifice to you.

Acceptable for Worship

Psalm 19:14 - May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

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God has graced me with the ability to see scriptures theological concepts in totally new lights lately. This verse in no exception. My whole life, or for at least as long as I can remember, I have known this verse and lived under its shadow. I just never really understood it before. The word that is used for pleasing in most translations is acceptable. I just never understood what that word meant.

If you are not careful, you can easily interpret this verse to mean, “have clean thoughts, have clean speech.” But it appears to mean much more than that. Our requirement to God is even greater than that. We are to please him with our words and our thoughts. They are not only to be tolerable to him but to be acceptable in terms of worship to him. I have often made my speech tolerable, not bad, but certainly not good. God wants more than that. It goes into so many areas of my life. God has been showing me that he just really wants to be worshipped. I want to bring it to him.

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Lord help me to give you more worship. Keep this truth burning in my heart. Keep teaching me the way you have been. I am excited to see just one more place where I have missed out on your true message. I want to worship you more. Help me to bring you more glory. Help me to live in our relationship. I love you.

A Quick Post

I am glad that this blog is all about being open. I am sure it is weird for a lot of you to see how messed up someone on our church staff is, but that is what goes with openess. I have been preparing for my sermon for a few hours the past couple days, and I was just not feelin it. I am not sure what it was, there was just no life to it. Then I came to realize that the whole thing was comming together out of my own efforts. I have spent very little time if any asking God to guide me. Not only does the sermon stink so for, but on top of that I feel like crap. I essentially wasted 2 days, by not allowing the Lord to be my provider. SO that is why my post is going to be short today. I need to get my first things first. Let me just say thanks to all you guys for making this a great month and 3 days of spiritual growth, and that it feels so good to be part of a tribe. I can say this amd really mean it - I love you all, thanks for building me up. - thomas

The Sabbath and Much More

Exodus 34:21 – Six days are set aside for work, but on the Sabbath day you must rest, even during the seasons of plowing and harvest.
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God really cares about this whole resting thing. As I have been reading Exodus, the theme seems to come up over and over again. On top of that I have been reading a book on finances and it has a whole section of the Sabbath and how it relates to finances.

In the time of the exodus, when these things were written, it was unheard of to work only 6 days out of the week. Weekends were not a reality. In Egypt, they worked non-stop, especially the Jews, who were slaves 7 days a week. Then God changed all of that. The question that stands out is “Do you trust me enough to provide for you in six days as much as you could make for yourself in seven. The answer to this question should be yes.

Enter my circumstance. If you have been reading my blog you know we are in a financial crunch. This week in order to put a dent in our debt, I decided to work on Mondays for my father in law. These were normally my day off, but we need the extra dough. Is this an example of me not trusting the Lord to provide for us in six days? Maybe, but I also see that I am in a special circumstance. My job isn’t like other peoples jobs. I work at a church. I pretty much have Saturday and Sunday off, I just have to be at church on those days, and sometimes play a role in the service. It is kind of work, but at the same time not. Look at Jesus he “worked” by healing people on the Sabbath. How is running a church service different than that? I am not sure what a guy is to do.
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Lord, I know you could provide for me in 6 days more than I could make in 7. I am not sure if what I am doing is wrong. I ask for your direction. I am willing to go for it either way. I know you will meet all of my needs, and I trust you. Help me to live the way you want me to live. Give me wisdom.

I chose this to be my new background for my computer. I just thoght it was beautiful. That and my wife and I got engaged on that island. I am such a romantic... 

The New Gospel

Acts 8 – The phrase “Good News” (gospel) appears 5 times.

Why in the heck do we capitalize these words? I had never noticed that before but each time they appear in my NLT bible they are capitalized. For the past few days I have been on a kick to define the Christian Climax, what is the pinnacle of the Christian faith. Today I am faced with another facet of the same question. I realized today that I have bought into a falsehood that is common in our generation. This false hood is that the gospel is the “how to go to heaven” message. As good as that news is I don’t think it is "the" good news.

Like I was saying, this phrase appears 5 times in this one chapter. It appears nearly 100 in the New Testament, so I didn’t have time to cross reference each verse, but I took a look at a few of them and they appear to mean something other than the good news that I have been trained to accept. They for the most part appear to mean that the kingdom of God is beginning to be restored. The Good News is that no longer do we have to liven in a downward spiral called earth. We can now live in a regenerating world, because Jesus is bringing back the kingdom of God. The good news is all wrapped up in Jesus setting a chaotic world straight again. When the apostles preached the good news, this is what they were sharing.

Now what to do with this wisdom? I have been wrestling with these thoughts for a few days now and they are changing my whole perspective on Christianity. I am on God’s side, not mans, so I am going to share God’s gospel, not the gospel most convenient to man. For years I have been praying for a stronger heart for the lost. I think I missed the point there. Yes I am supposed to care about those who don’t know the Lord, but the center of my heart should be the Lord. I should have a heart for the Lord, who has an even greater heart for the lost than I possibly could. If I do I will be much more effective. Last entry I talked all about relationship, and I still believe that is what is at the center. I want to live in worship to God and see more people come into worship with God. I care very much that people are saved from hell, but the bottom line is that I am more concerned with God getting his due. He is my God, and therefore has rank. I will live my life for his true gospel, not the one most convenient to me. The Gospel must not be man centered as we have made it. It must be centered on God.

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God I am out there for you. You are truly my best friend, and I want other people to be your best friend to. You are so good, and deserve it. Remind me to make you the center of my life. Help me to always share the true gospel, one that’s centered on you. Help me to live the true gospel, a life centered on you. You, yourself, (not what you do for me) truly are good news.