One Not Forsaken

Me Church

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:52:20 -0700

Ok, ok, you may have already seen this, but for everyone who has never watched this great video, here ya go:

If you use Vista, you will love this!!!

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:29:48 -0700

I use Microsoft Vista. This commercial completely captures the experience you would have with it. I laugh everytime I watch it.
Enjoy.

One Year Later

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:40:34 -0700

One year later...
(Well, almost a year from the last entry I made in my blog...)

I sit inside my office and I look back on my earlier entries and I like being able to look back at things I have written. It makes me feel... oh, connected to myself? I know that makes very little sense and yet how rarely I take time to be me. I spend time being a husband (not nearly enough I know my wife would think), being a father (a little better with my time), and a minister (where most of my time goes). I rarely spend time with myself.

So, I will, once again, take on the task of penning to paper (wait, is there a digital equivalent to that phrase? fingering to keys, perhaps?) my thoughts and stories. Will you be here to read them? Irrelevant. I am.

The True Man

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:16:08 -0700

I am in a preaching class (which I dogged on a while back) and a part of our class work is to read and reply to entries from other students in the class on the online Discussion Board. We are each assigned a topic to respond to by the teacher. We then post our response and other students read the writings and they respond to us. It has been a great tool and I have enjoyed this part of the class greatly.

Lately we have been discussing the fact that men do not see church as being relevant to them. They see themselves not needing anything in the church. Church seems weak. Church seems needy. Church seems a 'crutch.' God created men with a desire for strength, respect, significance and honor. The problem is that the world has twisted what these things mean to manhood. The world says: strength from force, respect from intimidation, significance through acquisitions.

Jesus defines these same words differently:

True strength from fellowship.
True respect from emptiness.
True authority from humility.
True significance from sacrificing one's self.
True honor from being honorable.

I am convinced that if the church would focus on and teach these aspects of manhood, it could not contain the flood of men who would pour in its doors.

For all your friends who send you forwards....

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:44:04 -0700

Direct them to this site!
http://www.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~sivann/pub/swf/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf

Religion Quiz

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 07:59:00 -0700

I took the "Which Religion is Best for You" quiz over at QuizFarm thanks to a posting by Kevin Bowman. Here are my results:

You scored as Christianity. Your views are most similar to those of Christianity. Do more research on Christianity and possibly consider being baptized and accepting Jesus, if you aren't already Christian.

Christianity is the second of the Abrahamic faiths; it follows Judaism and is followed by Islam. It differs in its belief of Jesus, as not a prophet nor historical figure, but as God in human form. The Holy Trinity is the concept that God takes three forms: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost (sometimes called Holy Spirit). Jesus taught the idea of instead of seeking revenge, one should love his or her neighbors and enemies. Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross to save humankind and forgive people's sins.

Christianity

92%

Buddhism

54%

Islam

50%

Judaism

50%

Paganism

25%

Hinduism

17%

agnosticism

Satanism

atheism

Which religion is the right one for you? (new version)
created with QuizFarm.com

Amazed at my son.

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:05:54 -0700

I am constantly amazed by my William. He is such a wonderful and smart boy. Despite the fact that I want to throttle him sometimes because he can also be a blockhead, he often shows a maturity I would never expect from a child.

We arrived in Pryor, OK to stop in and see Pa in the funeral home before we went out to see the rest of the family. We walked in and there he was lying in the casket. We approached and William began to cry. "I will miss Pa." I took him up into my arms and told him that Pa loved him very much and that he was at rest with Jesus. We stood looking at the body for a minute when William leaned forward and placed his hand on Pa's chest. "Pa's not here," he said. I was taking aback. "No, William, he's not here." "Where is he?" "He is with Jesus, William. He left his body so he could be with Jesus," I answered. He looked at me with his big brown eyes welling up with tears. "That's good, but I will miss him."

The day Pa died, they removed the respirator from him and he lasted only about 5 minutes. When he had breathed his last and died, Jeni's dad leaned over with tears in his eyes and said with a smile, "Way to go, Dad."

I love being a Christian. I love Christ. No where else in life can we look at death and say "That's good" or "Way to go" except with the Christian. Whether 3 or 43 or 93, the reality of life is the same:

I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. - Philippians 1:20-24.

A Short Break...

Thu, 9 Mar 2006 09:33:00 -0700

Due to travel, I will not be able to make blog entries, so check back in one week from the date of this post.
Thanks to all of you who stop by to read!!!!!

Death in the Family

Wed, 8 Mar 2006 09:31:46 -0700

Today, Jeni, the kids, and I will begin our trek down to Tulsa, OK because Jeni's grandfather died yesterday. He went into the hospital last week, got pneumonia in both lungs and his lungs failed. Last night his children decided, upon recommendation of the doctor, to remove the life support system which was doing 95 percent of his breathing. They each got to say their goodbyes and then they removed the tube. Within 5 to 10 minutes he died.

I am unashamed to say that I am happy for him. I have no sorrow: none. And I loved the man. He was a Christian. Wow! To rest and be removed from the curse of the Garden. To no longer toil, to no longer be in sorrow, and to no longer have to taste the sting of death. I am excited for him. He is free. Now he gets to rest, really rest, until the return of the Lord and the new life we have been promised.

Death is still scary. But for the Christian it is a curse turned into a blessing: it is for us a 'birth' into a new life. Just as a child is terrified as it goes from the womb into a new world, so death scares us. The reality is, though, that it is a great world. And in that world we get to meet our Father face to face. Before we could only hear his voice in the womb of His Church, but in that birth we emerge out of the darkness and into the realm of abundant light. And there He will be... to take us into His arms. And we will see Him face to face.

Are semantics a problem?

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:19:20 -0700

I read this article today by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. This article is as follows:

The major social and moral debates are often simply battles over language. Indeed, whichever side succeeds in choosing the words our culture uses to discuss these issues will control the way people think about them. Abortionists speak of �terminating a pregnancy� instead of killing a baby (or is it �a fetus� or even simply �fetal tissue�?). �Having an affair,� with its connotations of glamour and lack of consequences, is a euphemism for adultery. The semantic shift away from �sodomy� (which its Biblical allusion to sin and judgment) to �homosexuality� (a medical-sounding, pathological term) to �gay� (denoting happiness, joy, and celebration) has made this �sexual orientation� seem perfectly acceptable and moral.

A person who thinks in terms of the Biblical language may be less likely to commit the sin than the person who thinks in terms of soap opera language. We think with words. Our attitudes and our behavior are shaped by the language that we choose, or that we pick up unconsciously from the world around us. For this reason, Christians need to cultivate a sensitivity to language. Reading and reflecting upon literature is perhaps the best means to that end.

I was taken aback by the very clear truth he shared: we think with words. Many churches have taken upon themselves the duty to 'dumb down' the language of the Christians to make them more palatable or acceptable to the world around us. We do not use words like 'sanctification' or 'justification' in our language anymore because these words might confuse and isolate the visitors or new Christians. So we purchase paraphrase Bibles with simplified words, and I wonder if such correlates to our simplified Christians running around. By removing 'sanctification' we remove the necessary changes God is performing in us to make us like His son, Jesus. Is it ironic then that we see people denying that their actions affect their salvation? I wonder then if there is a connection with maturity and with the fact that it is the Word that transforms us, the Word which sets us free, the Word which brings light into the otherwise dark world, and the Word which shall judge us. When we alter the 'words' we use, are we, in essence, altering the 'Word' and robbing ourselves of its power?

I watched a video where Billy Graham was being interviewed. He was asked what make his sermons so powerful that people rushed to dedicate themselves to God. He responded that the best sermons he preached, the sermons where he had the most responses, were the ones where he simply preached the words straight out of the Bible. He found the less he tried to 'explain them' or 'make them easy to understand' the more power they had to change lives.

I just wonder why Christians have more faith in what the world says it wants than in what Jesus says it needs.