Psalm 62.8 + Witty and Clever Title

Sorry for not posting much this week friends, but hiding in room all the time makes people unhappy. But, I'm trying.

Psalm 64.8: Trust in him at all times, o people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.

I really suggest you read this entire Psalm, it's a good one. But I want to look at this verse in particular. (This will also be a good example of how to read the Bible!)

Frist let's look at what it says.

Trust in him at all time, o people.

      Pretty straight forward. We are to trust in God always. All of us are. At all times. Always. There should never be a moment when we shuoldn't trust him. Plain and simple. This means we are to trust God in our relationships (family, friends, significant others, co-workers, teachers, peers, etc.), trust God in manners of money, trust him in terms of the events that go on in our lives, trust God in all things. Now this doesn't mean we're passive about all things saying, "Oh I'm just trusting God." But instead we are to be proactive until God says "Nope." You go in to take a test and say, "Well I'm just going to trust God that I'll get a good grade." No stupid, you need to study. God isn't going to give you an A because you stayed up all night playing the lastest COD instead of studying. Would you expect someone to give you money after you went and blew it all at the casino and told them you expected them to help you? I wouldn't except them to help me. I'd expect them to beat be bloody, then thank them for it. But we are to trust in him, while being proactive until he says no. Understand? Good!

Pour out your heart before him

     Also pretty straight forward. You have a best friend. Your boyfriend just broke up with you, your parents grounded you for texting too much, your car broke down, you just found out you failed a class, your house is haunted, your wallet got stolen, your girrafe got leporsy, and on top of it all you couldn't take a picture of your lunch today and post it on instagram. Man that sounds like a rough day. So you call up your bestie, and tell them about everything that has happened to you today, how bad of a day you had, how everyting is so unfair, and you pour your heart out to your best friend. Instead of first going to your best friend for this (and I'm not saying there isn't value in friends) go to God first and pour your heart out to him. Tell him everything, he wants to hear it. This is one of the reasons for prayer. To pour your heart out to God. Then go to your friend. But pour out your heart to God frist.

God is a refuge for us

     As some people wrongly say, "What does that even mean?" Well look at the words, they're usually there so we know what that means.
1- God: Self evident
2- Is: again, self evident
3- A: round three!
4- Refuge: Here is a word we don't encounter often. Definition: a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble. Basically God is "base" in the life game of tag. Trouble in your life is It, you are the only other player, and God is "base."
5- For: obvious meaning
6- Us: usually obvous meaning, but in truth it means all peoples. Everyone. God is there for everyone.

So let's recap what all this means.

God is a safe place for us. We should always trust in him because he is a safe place for us. We should spill our heart out to him because he is a safe place for us. God is a safe palce for us.

Psalm 62.8

So now go, trust in God, pour your heart out to him, and use him as your safe place, your refuge.

The First or the Best?

In the OT we see a lot of how God wants the first born, or the first fruits of all things. But he also wants the best from us. Well which is it? The first or the best?

I know many Christians wake up in the morning and the first thing they do is pray and/or do a devotional. I applaud them for that. I can't do that. I'm not a morning person. God won't have my full attention at that point in the day.

I had a friend who told me that the first thing he does when he wakes up is tell God, "Hold on." then he goes and takes a shower, wakes up a bit, then gives God his utmost attention and time. I'm more for this route personally.

I read the Bible as me devo every day. Sometimes I slip up and miss a day, then play catch up the next day or two. I hate that I miss days, but it happens. We get so busy in our lives and most times the first thing to go is our God time. Why is that?

It could be that it's not that important to us. Sure it may be important, but our sleep is a bit more important. Our personal time is bit more important. Games, tv, movies, friends, significant others, all these things have a bit higher priority to us than God at times, and his time gets pushed to the side. So when is the optimal time to give God his time?

Well all time is his time. But we have to train to do that. That isn't easy. But we can work on it.

I try to give God his time when I first wake up. It's hard. Like I said, I'm not a morning person. I'm a zombie for about an hour when I first wake up and I'll try to rip someones head off if they talk to me too loud or too much. It's rough. But I try to thank God every day when I first wake up for letting me wake up. It usually sounds a bit like, "mumnks." Then I fall back in bed for a few more minutes and abuse my alarm clock. But later in the day, after the work is done, I give God my best time. Between 8-11pm. I'm awake, I'm alert, I'm able to focus, and give God my full attention. This is the time I read, seeing what he has to say. I'll talk with him about whatever, just spending time in communication with him. I don't take the full 3 hours, I usually take about an hour because I need time to zone. But those are my hours when I am at my best. and I give God his time then.

As I said, all time should be his time, and I'm working towards that, as we all should. It isn't easy, but we try our best, because that is what God wants.

Our Best.

Not some half asleep mumbled prayer or unfocused devotional time, but our best.

When I was working during the summer, my best time was in the morning. That was when I was able to focus on the task at hand, and I took an hour a day every work day for "Jesus Time." I figured if I was trying to get teens to spend time with him outside of church I should too. Those were some of the best times I spent with God. Personally, I don't know if it was at my best time, but a pot of coffee helped.

All joking and personal stories aside, I want what God wants: For you to give him your time. Your best time. When you're awake, aware, able to focus on him. Turn off the cell phone. Shut off the TV. Kill the Xbox or PS whatever's out now. Get off Facebook and Twitter. Find a place to be alone, or even get a group of people together who are like minded, and spend time with God.

Maybe it's the first thing in the morning. Maybe it's the last thing at night. Probably it's somewhere in between. Find your time when you can give him your best, and do just that.

Then work towards making your entire day like that. Not be a monk and spend all your time in prayer or scripture reading. But take a second out of your day and thank God for something, anything. Have a minute discussion with him. Reflect on a verse or passage from whenever. Maybe after a while, and with a lot of practice, you can begin doing that all through the day, giving God your undivided attention all day, pouring your love for him in all you do. Worshiping him in these ways (Romans 12.1).

Take some time, and give God your best.

Trusting God is Hard

Trusting God isn't easy. It's one of the hardest things you can ever do. But also the most rewarding. But that's not why we do it, it's because it's worth it. And we have faith in that.

Sometimes in our life, we make deals with God. A good friend of mine went to preach at a church for a "trial run" at their senior minister position. The deal he made was "If 90% vote for me, I'll take it."

Others have made deals with God like, "If I don't get this position, I'll go do this instead."

I've made my own deal with God recently, "If I don't get an internship at this church, I'll go do an internship doing campus ministry." I knew before hand that I was supposed to go to campus ministry first, but through people I was given doubts.

I went to some people and told them of how I was thinking of doing campus ministry, and how with that I'd have to raise my funds and how I really though this was where God was calling me. They're response was, "Well sometimes we think God is leading us somewhere but really he isn't. Go do the simple thing."

Trusting God is not the simple thing to do.

I get into this because recently I have been having a mild freak out over what God is leading me to. Trusting him is hard. Incredibly hard. But this is what we tied ourselves to: Trusting God in all things, through all things, and for all things.

How can we make sure that we trust God in all of these things though?

Prayer and scripture.

As I take my journey though the Bible, I am encouraged by the stories that I'm reading, the faith that the heroes had. I see their examples of faith, and their actions that show their faith. It blows me away. A little kid going up against a giant. Building a giant boat because an invisable voice told him to. Leaving everything he knew behind because an unknown God told him that he'll bless him for it.

Such great faith.

Prayer also helps us keep our faith in God. I've been praying like mad lately to my Homie, asking for his help, for him to help me strengthen my faith, to help me with what he has called me to. At times I lose my mind with worry. Other times I find great peace in God.

It's hard to find that spot, yet it is found. It's difficult, but it's what we're called to.

Do the hard thing, trust in God.

**End Note** I've heard it said, "The things you deal with arent what your students are dealing with." Well I have limited interaction with whoever it is that reads this, but if you have things you want to know about, things you're struggling with, let me know. I'll do the best I can to help you out.

The "Good Enough" Gospel

Be excited, I’m posting on a Saturday.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed by now, most of the things that I post about I either had, or still have, problems with. Including todays.

Obviously I’m going to be talking about “Good Enough” or “Close Enough” Christianity. This is basically trying to do something for God, something that you should do, missing the mark, then shrugging your shoulders and say, “Eh. Close enough. Get points for trying.” Tell you what, keep trying that you’re entire life, and we’ll see what happens when our time ends. Sound good?

Yes, I am guilty of this as anyone else. I’ve had times where I really could have gotten into the Good News with a non-Christian, and yet I barely touched the surface, and that person’s life was never changed. “Eh. I told them I believe in Jesus. Close Enough.”  Looking back I have some of the worst regret in my life because of those moments. I was a part of the “Close Enough” gospel.

Most of us have been there, and most of them don’t realize it. “Oh I go to Christian conferences. I teach Bible Study. I baptize people. I tell others about Jesus.” Do you actually get them to know Jesus? Really know? Not just the Sunday School “Jesus is my savior and the Son of God” answer, but the down to earth, in the dirt, “Jesus is seriously the guy I go to for everything first” answer. The answer that tells you that you didn’t just inflate the tires, but you actually helped get them on the road. Did you do that? “Well no…but I told them I believed in Jesus. Close enough right? I still teach Bible study and Sunday School.” Okay? But do they know Jesus? “Umm…”

I’ve had this conversation with people before. It broke my heart. Not only do we have people living the “close enough” gospel, but we have them teaching, and being role models. So the generations coming up are learning this “close enough” gospel. The Christian life style of aiming for the mark, expecting to fall short, then just shrugging your shoulders and going “Eh.”

How is that going to expand the kingdom? How is that going to put a smile of God’s face?

Now don’t hear me wrong. Yes, we will mess up, we will fall short. It happens. But why are we so content with that mediocrity? There are two phrases from school that I can’t help but think of concerning this type of Christianity. The first of which is “Good is the Enemy of Great.” We strive for good, we’re looking to get around the bullseye, somewhere, so that we can look at those watching and say, “close enough right?” Yet we have a chance to hit the center of the target, right in the middle, and say, “BAM! Look at that!” We could be great with more effort, yet we settle for good enough. The second phrase that popped up was “C’s get Degrees.” Really? You just want to get C’s? That’s cool. I hope that goes well for you and you waste tens of thousands of dollars for a piece of paper that you lazily acquired because you don’t care how much it costs. Way to throw your money away. (I was very guilty of this early in my college career.)

But these two phrases are exactly what is being talked about here. We try to be the “good enough” Christian, thinking we get points for trying and purposefully missing the mark, but when it comes time, I don’t think C’s will get degrees. I think excellence will. Not excellence in the sense of “I’m perfect and do no wrong,” but excellence as in “I tried my best in everything I did. I fell short sometimes, but I tried my hardest.”

God will know where your heart was in all your actions. He’s good like that. So he’ll know when you just try to be “good enough” and get “close enough.” He’ll also know when you’re busting you rump to do the best you can for his glory. Not right before your project is due, but constantly, consistently. (Yes this applies to school too.)

So my only question to you tonight is going to be this: Are you just going to be “good enough?”

What to Do With Your Tools

Yesterday I talked about tools to use to understand what you read in the Bible. Today I want to do a short post of what you can do with what you read in the Bible.

As you may know by now, I've been reading the Bible, and I'm around 2 Samuel now. there we follow David, and his rule. Last night I read about him and Bathsheba. For those of you who don't know the story, I suggest you go read 2 Samuel 11 and 12. For the short version: David gets a woman to cheat on her husband, gets her pregnant, tries to get the husband to "get her pregnant," fails, has the husband killed in battle. Well God of course knows all this, and there are consequences for David's actions. The child that is born to David gets sick, and dies. While the child is sick, David fasts and prays to God to spare the child, but the baby stll dies. After the child dies, David ends his fast, which at the time is a sign of mourning, and goes to worship God in the temple.

David is at one of his lowest points in his life, and he goes to worship God in that moment.

He worships God for the death of his child.

Today, I was in a foul mood. It happens. I was working, and people were tying up traffic just to tie up traffic, it was easy to see watching what they did, how they acted, and seeing where they were looking, trying to find ways to make others angry. Well I lost my temper a bit, it's something I struggle with and am still working on. A lot.

But while driving and trying to keep my temper under control, I thought of this story, how David worshiped God when most would curse him. So I began to try and do what David did, and worshiped God. Not singing praise songs, or listening to Christian music. I turned off radio, and talked to God for a minute, asking him to help me be the best and most curteous driver I could so thatI can worship in that action, to do the best I can for his glory.

Instantly my foul mood began to fade away, and I was driving less aggressively. I began to worship God through my thoughts and actions, even though people were driving me up a wall.

All because I read a passage and understood it.

This is why I want you to learn to read and understand the Bible. Little things, random things may remind you of what you have read, and it effects you, and changes how you live. People see this, and see Christ through this.

This is what we are called to do, to show Christ to all, in every way we can.

So get in there, see what God can show you, and live it.

Getting in the Tool Shed

I keep having ideas about what to blog about, but I always forget what they are and I'm usually in the middle of something so I can't write it down. It's frustrating.

Just thought you should know.

But today I want to talk about Bible reading some more. I know I talked about this a while ago, how to read and such, but I want to expand on it a bit. But that I mean give you tools to help you suceed in reading the Bible.

Last time I talked about this my main focus was how when we read scripture, we just see words, we don't see what the words mean when they come together, we lose the meaning of scripture. This is sad. (I'm as guilty of this as anyone else, probably more so.)

But sometimes the issue is not that we aren't truely reading the text, but instead that we don't understand it, or understand where the writer is coming from. Yes, we can tell that Paul is angry, but why? Yes this passage is about peace and reconciliation, but what does that actually mean?

Well there are tools to help us with these types of questions. Now you can either make use of this, if you really want to understand what God is trying to tell you, or you can shove it off, it's really up to you.

The frist tool I would like to give you is this: Multiple translations.
The Bible comes in many different translations, NIV, KJV, NKJV, ESV, AMP, NLT, NASB (these are the most common). If you're reading something in the NIV and don't quite get what is being said, grab another translation, see how that one says whatever you're reading. Grab a few, multiple translations can help you more than you know. A useful thing for this is 1) have multiple Bibles 2)biblegateway.org 3)the YouVersion bible app. All of these will help you in looking at different translations.

The second tool I would like to pass on is: Commentaries.
I've been reading through the Bible in chronlogical order that is the order things were written in, so the Psalms are mixed all through my OT reading. There have been a few times when I get to the Psalms, and I don't know the history that is going on behind it, who is writing it. Sure I may recognize the name, but what's going on in their life to write this Psalm? Enter the commentary. Now of course you can go buy a bunch of commentaries, or you can just search online "Psalm 89 commentary." Now you won't always get a home run commentary, but after searching and consulting a few you can find some good stuff. Also biblegateway.com has commentaries and references as well.

The third tool is similar to the second: Study Bibles.
Basically with study Bibles it's a lighter version of commentaries. They have introductions to every book of the Bible, maps, articles on different topics, and most important, notes on verses. They also have cross referencing, which is basically "This verse relates to this verse. And that verse relates to these verses." And it goes throughout the entire Bible. It's fun to chase the rabbit sometimes.

The fourth and final tool is this: Smart people.
I say smart people because I can't think of anything else to call them. Paul's? Barabi? Wise old people? What I'm getting at is go to a person you respect and can talk to, or even multiple people (get different views) and ask them what this verse, or passage, or book means. What is the author getting at? I see the trees but what's the forrest?

These are the tools I can pass onto you, because they are the tools I have. I hope this helps someone out there. Now go dive into God's Word.

When God Says NO!

Everyone has someone that they look up to.  Me? It’s mainly professors, a minister or two here and there and that’s about it. I’ve had a rough history with family members, and even today it’s still hard to get over those past issues. But I would not be who I am today without them.

Some people though their parents are their heroes, others it’s actors or actresses, professional sports players, friends, teachers, whoever.

Now of course I have to get into a “Sunday School” “Bible-ly” thing. But this one is actually really good. So get ready.

Go now and read 2 Samuel 7. Yes the entire Chapter.

I’ll wait.

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I read this sometime last week and it blew me away. The main person here is David, and basically how this particular story goes is David builds a huge house for himself. Then he thinks, “Why is it I have a huge house, and the Ark of the Covenant, where God is, have been in a tent all these years? I’m going to build him a temple. A huge, awesome temple, for a huge awesome God.” David then proceeds to talk to a prophet about it, and the prophet, before consulting God says, “Go for it!”

That night, the prophet has a vision from God who tells him that David is not to build him a temple, but instead one of his offspring will. So the next morning the prophets runs to David and tells him that God said that he is not going to build him a temple.

God just flat out told David “no.” And what does David do?

Well he flips out, yells and screams, and does what he wants anyway because he knows what’s best right?

No.

He drops down on his knees and thanks God for telling him no. And for blessing him in all that God has done for David. And thanks him for all he will do for David’s offspring. He spends about a third of the chapter thanking God right after he was blatantly told no!

Now how do we act when we’re told no?

Back when I was growing up my parents would point blank tell me never to do certain things, never giving me an explanation why. Well I was a teenager, I was smarter than they were, and they didn’t give me any reason. Heck. I’ll show them and do it anyway. No one can control me!

Years later full of regret and pain I see why they said “don’t do this.”

Whenever we are told not to do something, we generally turn around and do it, just because “we’re an independent person and we don’t need no rules.” (I cleaned that up so no one would call me racist again.) But really that’s how we act. We’re told not to do something and we go and do it. Sometimes we need some coaxing, like Adam and Eve. But I seriously wonder if when God told them not to even touch the Forbidden Fruit they got an itch in their hands to reach out and poke it.

It’s what we do, and it’s something we have to fight constantly. I wonder if David had to fight the urge as well when God told him he wasn’t going to be building any temple. Did he first think of defying God? Or was his actual first thought his actual first response?

David is a hero of mine. When God told him no he went ahead and said okay then thanked him for it. Of course he had his downfalls as well, as we all do, but this is a life style I want to live. To constantly thank God, even when he tells us no.

Where Does Your Salvation Lie?

There’s a movie called Black Snake Moan, I suggest you don’t watch it. But it’s a good movie none the less, and there is a great illustration in it. There is a woman who struggles with sex in it, and that is her weakness. She ends up on the side of the road, beaten and bloody, and a man finds her on the side of the road. He picks her up, takes her to his house. After a few escape attempts to go fall into temptation, he chains her to a radiator (non-sexual) and waits for her to take control of her weakness. Later, she gets married in the movie, and during the ceremony she wears a gold chain around her waist. On the drive from the wedding her weakness, the thing she struggles with starts to fight back, as it always does for us all, and she grips that chain, remembering what her previous chain was attached to, the radiator. Throughout the movie we see the man, Samuel L. Jackson, go to the radiator to find peace, to find God (he was a religious man, good friends with a pastor in town). Here the woman finds her peace with God, and begins to overcome her weakness.

A professor of mine told the class of a time when he was in campus ministry, and they got rid of an arm chair. A simple chair. Now I like chairs, I have one in my room that I always sit in. But he told us of when he got rid of it at his campus ministry, and when the students came in the next day one of the students was livid that the chair was gone. This is the chair that he sat in when he came to Christ. They threw the chair out and it was in the garbage, I believe at the dump. The student went and grabbed the chair out of the dump, and kept it. It reminded him of when he came to feel the grace that God gives us.

Recently, I gave a sermon for a class where I talked about the sound of grace, using the song Amazing Grace as my take off point. In the old hymn, we hear the words, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…” and I began to wonder, what is the sound of grace? Now of course John Newton, the writer of the hymn, probably meant the sound of the word “grace.” But I began to wonder, what is the sound of grace? What does grace sound like? I began a journey at that point, looking through scripture and my own life looking for the sound that grace makes. I ended up at a few different conclusions. The first of which is that there are many sounds of grace. Two at least from Jesus, maybe more, and one from each of our lives. I looked through my own life and found the sound that the grace of God made in my own life, where I found his grace on KCU hill in the pouring rain with a hood up.

I went for a walk in the pouring rain one day, a Sunday (I skipped church because I didn’t care back then.) I eventually ended up KCU hill. For those of you that don’t know, KCU is a trip to get up to. First you have to pass through a grave yard, then through a wood with thistles, then you reach the top. I was soaked to the bone by the time I reached the top. The rain was pouring down and I looked over the town that KCU is in, Grayson. At the time I was questioning my calling, my faith (again), and even my life, though not in a suicidal way this time. As I looked over Grayson, and heard the rain falling on my hood, I had a conversation with God, and I began to feel his grace fall upon me. This was where I felt the grace of God wash over me. This is where I found God again.

I say again because there was a time where I was seriously questioning my faith, which I think all Christians need to do at some point. I know people will argue with me about that, but I feel faith becomes stronger with you fight against it. I grew up in the Church, and was “baptized” at about 11 or 12. I don’t really remember much from it because I was young at the time and just wanted to be a “big kid” and thought baptism was a type of rite of passage into adulthood. Little did I know that it just makes me younger. But during this time of questioning in my life, I laid in bed, 3AM and couldn’t sleep, school the next morning (my junior year of high school), and I questioned God’s existence. I was exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to sleep so I could function at a minimal level the next day at school. “God, if you exist, let me sleep.” That was my only prayer that night. I didn’t expect anything from it, but I was hoping.

That was the best night of sleep I’ve ever had.

Four hours is all I got, yet I haven’t slept better to this day five years later. It is in my bed at the time that I found God, truly found him. And it was on that hill that I found his grace.

I’ve rarely been on that hill since then, but I still remember that moment. The rain beating on my soaked hood. The city beneath me. The rain moving away from me. I can picture it now as if it were yesterday.

One day at KCU we had a speaker come in for chapel, and I remember he told the story of how he came to Christ, and how it was in his friend’s basement, and how that basement holds a special place in his heart all these years later.

We each have a place where we find God, and find his grace, we even have a sound that reminds us of his grace. Every time it rains while I’m at home I hear the rain hit the pool, or at the moment the cover of the pool, and it reminds me of that moment on the hill.

So I have this question for you: Where did you find God? Where did you feel his grace? Where is your salvation?

The last question is not a “If you die today will you go to heaven?” type of question. But where did you feel his salvation come upon you? Where did you encounter God’s grace?

Is it on a hill? In a chair? In bed? In a basement? During a trying time in your life? When you questioned God? Or was it when you came out of the water?

Where is your salvation?

You Never Know...

I just saw that well over a month ago I got a message from a guy who was in a class that I “mentored” in high school, and he told me that I had a positive impact on his life. I laughed at myself for that one. Me? A positive impact? You gotta be kidding.

I’m not degrading his opinion, but I’m shocked at how I, especially high school me, could have a positive impact on anyone. I was terrible in high school.

Yet some how…I had a positive impact in this kids life, and years later he still remembers me and thanks me for it.

As many of you may know, I’m heading out to Pittsburgh here in about a month, and I have to raise support. So I’m sending letters to whoever I can to get some help. Some people that I sent letters to I haven’t talked to or seen in almost a decade. Yet I send a letter to them because 1: I hope they’ll be willing to help me out, and 2: They had a similar impact on me, and that without that impact they had on my life, I would not be in ministry today.

There’s also this thing that’s going on right here. If you’re reading this, this is exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t know who reads these blog posts. I don’t know if they’re any good, if I’m on track with what’s going on in their life, or even if I’m right about have the things I write. There are days where I get 4 views on a post, and days when I get 20 something. I never know who’s reading this, where they’re at in their life, or even if they’re a Christian. I have no clue. And in a way, I don’t care.

I say that because of this.

I don’t care where you are in the world, where you are in your life journey, where you are with your walk with Christ, or even if you have a walk with Christ. It doesn’t matter to me. All I know is that God gave me a mind, people to care for, apparently some skills with writing else people wouldn’t read this, and a knowledge of his Word and himself. Half the stuff I write on here, and most that I do outside of blog posts is just live. I did nothing special in that class that the guy was in from high school. I just lived. I was just myself. The people who helped lead me to ministry, they didn’t know that they were going to do that. I was just a kid when those things happened. Yet the groomed me for ministry none the less. They had no idea that years down the road I would be in graduate school for theology and have a degree in Bible in ministry.

When I had my youth ministry, I had no idea how much I was helping those kids, until after I get texts saying nothing is happening, no growth is coming for them. I thought I was a terrible teacher. But apparently they were learning.

I hate constantly using myself as an example, but honestly I know my life story than anyone else, and God let me be smart enough to look back and connect all the dots.

So the reason I got on this tirade is so that I can tell you: You never know what impact you will have on people. Either positive or negative. I guarantee you I have had more negative impacts than positive. I interviewed with a church, got in a…discussion with the minister, I about flipped out on him because neither of us would give ground in our discussion. Negative impact. I’ve dated girls and did absolutely nothing about getting them saved. Some of the biggest regrets of my life right there, not caring about their salvation. My life styles at the time were a huge negative impact on them.

You never know what your actions will do to impact a person.

Back in high school, I wasn’t a good guy. Yet somehow, I had a positive impact on this kids life. This makes me more conscious of my actions now.

Remember this: You will never know who is watching, and what you mean to them.

How did I End Up Here?

There are a lot of things that I don’t know the answer to. There’s this one that I still have trouble with, no matter how much I read and think about it.

That question is: Are we born good, get broken, then try to get better, or are we born bad and try to get better from the day we’re born?

This is a deep theological question, going to the very core of human nature. I’m in the camp of we are born good, get broken, then try to get better. But even while we try to get better, we still end up where we don’t want to be.

Now I talk about this because of a few things that have come up in the past 24 hours. Nothing big, just a conversation and a haircut.

Today I got a haircut, and not just a buzz, for the first time in 9 years. I came home, did some stuff around the house, and was working in my room. I looked up and saw myself in the mirror, and I had no idea who I was looking at. I didn’t recognize myself.

Last night I was talking with come friends of mine, and one of them was telling me about his brother, how he’s living with his girlfriend, gaining massive amounts of weight, and knows that everything that’s going on in his life isn’t good for him, yet won’t do anything about it, continually living in sin.

I’ve had times in my past where I wake up, look at myself and wonder, “How did I end up here… I was going really well in my walk, and now I have no idea where I’m at, who I am, I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”

I wonder how many people are like that, who look at themselves and wonder, “How did I end up here? How did I end up living in sin? How do I not recognize myself in the mirror?”

My theology tends to come from experience and scripture, and my experiences have been that we are good, then get broken. Then we try to find a way to get back to the good. These can be referred to as “seasons,” as one of my friends last night called them. We are raised by our parents, and if they do it right, we end up pretty well off. But we live in a broken world, and sometimes parents are that good, sometimes they’re down right terrible, and we are raised wrong. But even if we are raised right, we’re still in a broken world and we’ll still break.

No one has ever been without sin. Except Christ. He is the only unbroken person who has ever lived.

And he is the only way we can get right, get good, become unbroken and put us back together right. Even if we are raised right, we’ll still break, it’s inevitable. But when we come to Christ he will put us back together, and through him being with us we can actually be good again. It’ll be hard, we will fail at times, but that’s why we have grace. So that we can get back up, and try again, harder next time.

So when we do have those times when we get to those seasons where we don’t recognize ourselves, we can remember that Christ is there to help us get to where we need to be, so that we can see who we really are, and see ourselves as God sees us.

Find out where you are in your life, and find out where God wants you to be, and ask for God to help you get there. If you fall, get back up, he’ll be there to help you.

Be Fearless

In the movie "The Knights Tale" there is a commission in it that starts off, "Be without fear, in the face of your enemies."

Liam Neeson, my all time favorite actor, says this first in the movie while he's dying, and knighting his son. What this has to do with anything, I don't know. I'm sure if I dug, I could pull something up. But that's not what I want to talk about.

We all have fears, just like how we all struggle with things. Maybe your weakness is fear, who knows! Only you and God do. But we all have fears. Mine are spiders, snakes, heights, lack of control.

I got to thinking today, in the beginning there were no fears. In perfection, the Garden of Eden, where God was our King and our Friend, walking among Adam and Eve, they had no fear. Animals were their friends, there was no death, no sickness, no pain, no sadness, nothing to be afraid of.

Then sin broke the world, and suddenly there were things to be scared of. Heights because we can fall from them and die. Snakes, spiders, tigers, bears, bugs, frogs, whatever, can kill us, and we fear that.

Think about it, if the Fall never happened, there would be absolutely nothing to fear. Yet now we all fear because there are things that have negative consequences and we know what those consequences are. If there was no Fall, we could have every animal as a pet. We could cliff jump with no worry of dying. We could live fearlessly.

If God was our King, as he was in Eden, we would have no fears.

But he is our King. That's what it means to be in the Kingdom of God. Jesus' main message was that the Kingdom was coming, and was here. There is a lot into that, but the main thing is that it was an actual Kingdom. He is our King, he is Lord of our life. Just as it was in Eden, where we can have an up close, personal relationship with God, while he is our King. I don't think the Queen of England has a personal relationship with all of her subjects, I know the president doesn't. I never met one president in my life. I work with people in their 70's and they've never met a president, let alone have a friendship with one.

Yet this is how it is with God, and this is how it was at the beginning.

Lord of our life, King over us.

And casting away our fear.

He has our back, he is on our side, what is there to fear?

Let's Get into It

This is truth. We all need to keep our bodies in shape, else they turn on us and kill us. (Basically that’s what happens.) So instead of giving you a long drawn out devotional to do, I’m making you do one yourself. I will do a different one as an example. Sound good? Good! (Haha, you can’t argue with me!)

Alright, I will do Psalm 15. It’s short and I like it. Basically what I’m going to do is read it, and comment on it, and probably do some cross referencing to other scripture. Then you’re going to do it! Sound’s fun right?!

“LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?

            Who may live on your holy hill?

He whose walk is blameless

            And who does what is righteous,

Who speaks the truth from his heart

            And had no slander on his tongue,

Who does his neighbor no wrong

            And casts no slur on his fellowman,

Who despises a vile man

            But honors those who fear the LORD,

Who keeps his oath

            Even when it hurts,

Who lends his money without usury

            And does not accept a bribe against the

                        Innocent.

He who does these things

            Will never be shaken.

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Asking God who can be in his presence? Who can be around God?

Who has the right to be and is worthy to be around God?

Well the author goes and answers himself.

He who:

-Is blameless

-Does what it righteous

-Speaks truth

-Doesn’t slander

-Doesn’t do anything against his neighbor

-Doesn’t slur anyone at all

-Hates the wicked

-Honors the righteous (those that fear God)

-Keeps his word (even when it’s easier not to)

-Lends money without over charging interest

-Protects the innocent

The one that does all this won’t ever lose his footing, will never be shaken.

Who do I know that is like this? Who can do all of this? No one. Roms. 3.23. No one is worthy of being near God.

Now how did I do that? I just read the text. It’s all right there, plain as day. There was one word I didn’t know, “usury” but I looked it up. It didn’t take but 30 seconds. I could have even just looked at a different translation and seen what that said there.

I have a chair in my room where I do most of my reading and blog posting. Within arms-reach (not including the computer) I have at least 6 different translations of the Bible. If I don’t understand something in one, I look at another. Always use a Bible that you’ll read, that is rule number one when choosing a translation. Rule number two is always have other translations to help you understand. I know people will disagree with this, but the Message is a great one to use. Sure they miss the mark on some things, but it’s easy to understand and really helps convey the spirit of the text as opposed to the words. These are tools to help you understand the text in a new way.

Now, the last thing I did after I went through the text and basically just said what it said, was I related it to me. I looked at it, saw what it meant to the original reader, then saw what it meant to me.

The text says, “Who can be near God?” then lists off a ton of different attributes that are needed to be near God. And no one could do every single one of those. That person will not stumble. Do you stumble? I do. Every day. I can’t make this list. No one can make that list. Romans 3.23 tells us that. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Everyone falls short of his glory, and if we look at the OT we see that the glory of God is his presence. We all fall short of it. So this text is more of a reality check than anything else. The author (I can’t remember who actually wrote it) is telling us, none of us are worthy of being near God. No one can be in his sanctuary or on his holy hill.

Except Jesus. He’s perfect in every day, and has made it so that we can be in God’s presence. He took our place so that we can take his.

Now, it’s your turn! Read Psalm 18. It’s a long one but probably my favorite Psalm. Just look to see what it says. Look to see what David calls God. See if God fits any of those labels for you. And don’t bother lying about it and say yes to all of them. You are only lying to God at that point and that’s just stupid.

So now go, and have fun!

(This looked a lot better on my Word Document.)