Will You Come To The Christ?

I want us to stop and think about how blessed we are to have our salvation in Jesus Christ and to be completely forgiven of all our sins. This is not a claim that we make based on our works to try and earn salvation or what “we can do for God” but this is something that has been counted to us only by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God saw this pleasing and satisfying to himself that God the Father would set up the execution of His only Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for the sins of those who would trust in his redemptive nature: this is amazing and all together humbling when we who have cursed God in our lifestyles and abandoned his truth realize that His sovereign hand has reached out to rescue us from hell.
The seductive allure of the counterfeit has confounded men throughout the ages when discussing sin and redemption in the church. The church has tried to appease itself by “working hard” for God, rather than been completely satisfied in the Grace and Mercy that it our only hope.

From the beginning of the early church this heresy has been an underlined shadow in our theological and practical ministries that is choking the life out of local pastors, parishioners and people who are pursuing truth. Paul writes the book of Colossians because this heresy is running rampant among the believers in Colosse and the attack that is being presented is undermining the identity and sufficiency of Jesus Christ alone for the believer. Paul sets the record straight by making the main idea about this letter to be: “knowing the truth about the power of the gospel (death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) and the person of Christ (the deity and divine) is the believers (those who have trusted in Jesus Christ) best protection against the deception that we need “more” than Jesus to satisfy our needs (spiritual, physical, mind, body, and soul).

Colossians 1:13-14 “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

God’s grace and peace in a person’s life comes from knowing the power of the gospel. Money won’t do it, relationships with people won’t do it, degrees won’t do it and church won’t do it. The only thing that gives the soul any satisfaction is to know and experience God and all things in Him and Him alone. The reasons our churches are dying is because we have made works a claim of the gospel rather than Christ alone. Our justification before God was made whole the moment that Jesus Christ opened our eyes to see His truth and our sanctification was made whole the moment Jesus Christ called us to Himself in salvation and grace. We can never be loved by God anymore or any less at any point of our journey because we are not the determining factor in the relationship, Jesus Christ is.

God delivered us from the dominion of darkness and he is brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. God has literally transferred us by moving us from one place to another. He has taken us from Satan’s dark realm and placed us into the bright and hope filled light of Jesus Christ and Savior and Lord.

God’s work of redeeming a lost people (you and me), for which believers should be joyful and content about is pictured further through redemption and forgiveness. Jesus Christ has bought us back and set us free from sin, death, hell and the grave. To forgive someone means to ‘send away and to cancel”. Through Jesus Christ death and resurrection God has canceled the debt of sin because God the Father knew that we could never repay it, so now we are laid before the grace of God and have been adopted into the family of God because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In other wards: smoking, cussing, drinking, divorce, pre-martial sex, liberalism, hypocrisy, homosexuality, adultery, being a bad parent or bad spouse, murder, rape, stealing, lying, legalism are all sins that Jesus Christ died for that can be forgiven by God and DON’T DISQUALIFY A PERSON TO RECEIVE THE LOVE AND MERCY OF JESUS CHRIST.

Listen I am not saying that these things bring honor to God, we all have our personal sins and struggles, but what I am saying is that you can struggle with these sins and ALL sins and still have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ because your salvation and redemption is NOT BASED ON YOU, but rather based on what Jesus Christ did by dying on the cross for our sins. It’s not about works or “how good” you are. It’s only about accepting the free gift of Love and a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Will You Come To The Christ?

See ya Later Granny Gran

Its been a long first month to the year but God has been faithful. I lost my great grandmother on the 19th she was an amazing Christian lady, @ 92 she went to heaven. After she passed I was going through her Bible and looking at all the verses she had underlined and one that really stood out to me was in 1 Thessalonians when it talks about prayer. Praying was the center of her being because she knew that in prayer she connected to God and to be connected to God is the center of the soul in fellowship with Jesus Christ; that’s were she wanted to be. To my granny gran who l love even more and miss every second of the day, you will be missed and I love you and I am so happy that you are dancing with Jesus in fields of grace, you deserve it.

Massachusetts got a new senator, a republican to fill the seat of the now deceased liberal lion. It had nothing to do with a bad candidate; this had everything to do with the health care bill. People want health reform they just don’t want government take over reform. This was not about the president or even the candidate that won; this was only about health care. The republicans could have put a shoe as the candidate and they still would have won because people like their health care they just hate the cost.

The President made his first state of the union, no surprises from my perspective. Washington will continue to be Washington until the people throw all of the bums out and start over that’s my opinion. All should go; I support term limits.

I am looking forward to a new semester, a new change in ministry and all that goes with that. My New Years resolution is to love more people like my granny gran did.

Seasons Change

I’m turning 25 years old this year- wow is all I can say. I still remember being a kid in my first Muny play “We Pals” I think was the name of it. I remember sitting between my grandparents when my grandmother Margret went to heaven, wondering as a child where was heaven because I wanted to go there to0. I remember being 11 years old and God calling me to salvation and what that was like, not knowing what was going on, just feeling the pull of the Spirit to pursue God and go to the altar and ask Jesus into my heart. At 15 he called me into the ministry at a David Nassar conference in Tennessee and that was my 1st life changing moment. I remember my 1st kiss, my 1st cigarette, my first love, my first drink, the first time my heart was broken and all the 1st that go into someone’s live. I remember the 1st roommate- Derek Jones. I remember the moment when I first felt hopeless: it was then when I felt like God was an abstract being. My first presidential vote and so many other 1st that have shaped me into the person I am today; 1st church that I worked on staff, 1st college ext.
For me I like controlled atmospheres, I like to know where things are and to have a say in what is going on. It is not because my motives are wrong but rather I want to be structured in the way that things go; because…. Truthfully I am scared of the unknown; not scared of death because I know where I am going. But scared in a lot of ways of tomorrow because she holds her own future.
Today I realized that I can no longer be in control. I have helped to set certain things up, and now I must let them go. I think that I have had my rightful place and have been given a fair chance in the lives of people and in situations to say my point of view. Now comes the time where I step back. This is good. This is to the glory of the father, because now is the time for me to leave and to live. In my flesh I want things to stay the same forever, never changing, but in the way I have tried to lay them out. But even thinking of that I laid them out so they could go, now I must let them go. Am I going to cry- yes. Am I going to hurt- yes. But all of this will be pain of joy. This is what I have prayed for and this is what I have tried to help come to pass; now this is what must take place. I have been here before. But maybe because the roots are a little different is why it feels the way it does. I will glory in God for seeing His plan go forth. And I will now wait until the new mission comes along.
In this new season of my life I am going to step back and focus on school and ministry. I am going to try to develop better spiritual disciplines and allow the word of the Lord to soak into my everyday actions. I am going to breath a little easier, take care of myself a little more, and trust that God will hear my cry. I am not going to react. I am not going to be upset. I am going to live, because it’s about time. I have gathered myself and my emotions, asked for forgiveness from God and people who I have hurt and now I am going to focus on the next 25 years.

Political predictions for 2010 that will make news:
• Republicans will gain at least three Senate seats (Connecticut, Nevada, and Arkansas) and Hold on to Missouri since Kit Bond (But this is only if health care reform passes and conservatives actually come out to the polls in Missouri) is stepping down.
• Obama will get health care reform and a climate bill passed and he will get rid of don’t ask don’t tell in the military.

Bring Our Troops Home!!!!

We have seen a lot of non action take place in our government in the last thirty years, a lot of talk about helping the people but not enough action of keeping us free from government bureaucracy, free from higher taxes and free from the right to control and make our own decisions. Listen I am against socialism because I am against other people, especially government telling me what to do on issues that involve my personal life. I don’t think that the government should be able to tell me where I can buy my health insurance. Its not a “public option” that I need, what I need is the government to not make it illegal for me to buy health insurance in Maine if I want. I don’t need better medicines, what I need is for the government to stop regulating prescriptions with all kind of outrageous taxes that jump the prices and cause people to pay more for the service of handling the prescriptions and getting them to the consumers rather than the consumers and I should be allowed if I want to be able to perchance cheaper prescriptions from Canada and Mexico, but again I would not have to do that if the federal government would stop enforcing its rules and regulations on my personal life.

I understand why certain people believe in socialism, they want government to take care of them, but here is my suggestion move to Cuba or North Korea. Those countries allow their governments to run their lives. They regulate what they eat through government ran grocery stores. They pick their doctors for them, through government ran hospitals and health insurers, they take the rule of law out of the hands of the parents and they make parents send their kids to government controlled and government ran schools that have a specific doctrine. Look at places like Iran, their government makes the teachers teach a certain curriculum and the students have to learn it and are forced to go to those schools, there are no other schools for them to go to. No private schools. In public government ran schools and in those countries parents aren’t allowed to home school their kids.

People say well it will never get this way in America…… Ok well what do you think has been happening over the last 30 years. Less parent involvement in schools and more public schools and there is a public school curriculum that school districts have to teach and the federal government has standards and testing standing and measurements to determine the success of a child and the learning development of a child. This is based on an entire school or school district, and it is not based on the observation and communication of each individual child and the child’s parent like it should be.

Think about grocery stores- we have the FDA, a group a federal government appointed people decided where our food comes from, rules about our food, tells private farmers what they can grow, who they can sell their food to. The farmers are being out beat, our produced and out marketed by foreign government food suppliers, and their taxes are getting higher and products are NOT being bought because the federal government gets to make the rules and regulations rather than the American people who buy and spend their money in these grocery stores. Farmers are producing less and paying more. Grocery stores are supplying more foreign food, less American foods, paying more taxes and producing a lower quality of product and then the consumer must pay for the loss of the grocery store. Were no longer simply paying for what were buying were paying: foreign, local, city, state and federal taxes and money to the truck companies who bring the food. This is how I would put it: in reality 10 Bananas probably cost $3, but because of all the middle men and taxes to be paid its probably going to cost you $5 or $6 for 10 bananas. Outrageous.

President Obama is loosing his grip on the America that we know of and love. Everyone’s mad at him for all the right reasons. Conservatives, real conservatives like myself and Ron Paul, know that America has no business trying to police the world. Build a strong national security and bring all of our troops from all over the world home.

The number of countries that the United States has a presence in is staggering. According the U.S. Department of State’s list of "Independent States in the World," there are 192 countries in the world, all of which, except Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, have diplomatic relations with the United States. All of these countries except one (Vatican City) are members of the United Nations. According to the Department of Defense publication, "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country," the United States has troops in 135 countries. Here is the list:

Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Antigua
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belgium
Belize
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burma
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Congo
Costa Rica
Cote D’lvoire
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominican Republic
East Timor
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Fiji
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guatemala
Guinea
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Liberia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Mali
Malta
Mexico
Mongolia
Morocco
Mozambique
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
North Korea
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia and Montenegro
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovenia
Spain
South Africa
South Korea
Sri Lanka
Suriname
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Uruguay
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

This means that the United States has troops in 70 percent of the world’s countries. The average American could probably not locate half of these 135 countries on a map.

People need Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!!!! Until this president lowers taxes and allows the private sector to start hiring again, no one is going to support him.

Listen we need to get this country back on track and that is by having less government and more people telling this president- thanks but no thanks!!!

Keep your Public Option, Bring Our Men and Women Home From All Over The World and Lower Taxes So The Private Sector Can Breath Again!!!!

Just My Opinion- I Could Be Wrong But I Doubt It!!!!

She died.....

An Obituary printed in the London Times -

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who had been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

You where there....

The rabbi, the teacher, the great prophet all of these names are what they called him. Messiah, friend, and the one who forgives sins is what many of us knew him personally to be. The night was dark, our spirits were low, tears flowed from our eyes like streams of salt water; we his followers were broken. We the people who knew him couldn’t believe that this had happened. We knew not what they said of him or accused him of. The crucified personal messiah is now looked upon as he hung so high but felt so low. Jesus of Nazareth had come, had healed, had lead and brought light now this Jesus, Mary’s son, Josephs boy was dead. How could one who spoke life of living waters into the souls of multitudes, how could this man who knew the scriptures better than the religious leaders themselves, how could this friend of so many now be the unrecognizable, beaten, dead body hanging on this cross? Justice been served to pilots plot? Maybe for some, but for us, his disciples, followers and friends we had lost more than they had gained. They gained attention and the satisfaction of a lynch mob, but we, in this moment, had lost our leader. A innocent man had been murdered.
In the first photo what we see is a group of people who all were there for different reasons. A short woman who he had called mother, friend, mentor and follower now was a human bubble of unanswered questions who stood low and felt deep. The worry on her face had shown through the wrinkles and sadness in her eyes. Her bones had become weary and her heart heavy, and to stop herself from loosing her mind, she had to be there to bid him his final goodbye. Mary his mother had an intimacy with Jesus that only a mother could explain. The angel Gabriel appears to her on a mission from God and says “you will birth the Savior of the World”; what does this mean? A virgin gives birth to the savior of the world? A young girl about to be married to a respected man in the community and now an angel from God appears to her when she can be no older than fifteen years of age and says, “Ready or not, from your womb comes the savior of humanity”. She is there at the cross not just because it is her son, but also because he is her savior. She is there because while she knows the will of God, that her sons blood had to be shed and he had to be sacrificed to save human kind, she also struggles in her on flesh, why him, why now, and more importantly why this way. His face that she had kissed so many times, his smile that could light up a room, his spirit that was contagious, all of these things that a mother had seen. She gave birth to him, she was there to love him, she was there to discipline him, she was there when he had his first scrape, when he got in his first fight, she read him books to go to sleep and was there on his first day of school. Now her son, who holds to offices, her first born and the savior of the world, is not just dead, but has been beaten, spit on, humiliated, and sacrificed like livestock; and all she can do in this moment is submit to the will of God. Past her tears she prays, past her anguish- she prays, past her hurt- she prays, past her anger and all consuming confusion she not only prays but her son looks up to heaven and teaches her to forgive with these words to the ones who have just nailed him to a cross, “father God forgive them (my enemies) for they know not what they do”. In the sight of God and the angels and in the mystery of God and His power, this is why Mary, the mother of Jesus, has to be there and has to witness this from the beginning to the end, she who has taught him everything she knows- now must learn how to forgive the ones, who have killed her first born son.
He has a family, a wife and children, he has to provided for his own. So you really cant be mad at this Roman guard, he like you and I is just simply trying to do his job. Please the boss, work hard and he gets to keep his job and maybe even a promotion. He’s not involved in all the court and legal stuff; he is a man who just wants his children to eat and his home to be taken care of. But can you imagine what’s going through his mind, he is a Roman Guard, so history tells us his physical frame and statue is as big as a wall and thick as cement. He has just taken this healer from Nazareth and whipped him with a leather cord laced with nails, bones, glass and anything that would easily pierce the flesh and rip out any human organ that got in its way. He mocked him, “you save people, now save yourself” words that were meant to not just hurt the Christ, but words that he wanted all who called themselves his followers to hear. He wanted to break there spirits, he wanted to make a fool out of a cause. If Jesus was a cause that went against this soldier’s boss and that could eventually affect his job, then he wanted to demolish that cause and all who believed in it as well. Jesus no longer was a man, he was an enemy, and it was this soldiers job to destroy the enemy that threatened Pilots Empire.
Isn’t it ironic how two men completely different both end up dying on a tree? And both in some way take their own lives. Judas, the money handler, one of Jesus’ closest confidants ends up betraying the mission out of envy and greed. This was not just one of the disciples, this was Judas. The there are many lessons to the life of Judas but I find it interesting that the artist would put Judas in this picture, but yet it is needed. Greed, shame, lying, deceit and betray all cause Judas to take his own life. Love, Mercy, Kindness and Forgiveness of Sins all are the reasons why Jesus had to sacrifice his life. The things that are evil to the world will eventually kill themselves and that is what is betrayed in the hanging of Judas. The characters that all of humankind need more of are all betrayed in the hanging of Jesus.
The disciple John is the one whom Jesus calls his “beloved”; the one whom Jesus loves. He was there at Jesus baptism, he was there at the transfiguration, he was there when Christ raised their friend Lazarus from the dead, he was there at the last supper and now he is here at the execution of his messiah. This is not just a friendship created by years of traveling with one another on a journey; this is an unbroken and unspoken divine bond. Intimate to the point were they shared a dream, personal to the point where they shared their emotions and now they share a mother. As Jesus is dying, as Jesus is forgiving, as Jesus is physically trying to hold on from the suffocation that is taken place to his body as he hangs by nails jammed into his flesh on a rusted cross, he gives John his mother. He reminds John of the mission that true and pure religion is to take care of the widows and orphans. He reminds John, that even in this brutality of death, there is still life that has to be taken care of by those who will trust and obey the commands of God. While Jesus hurts for his friend, his beloved, John- he still teaches. John is not here for John, John is here for the mission, he is here to remind us all that even in death Jesus has promised us that he is the resurrection and the life and those who believe in him shall not die.
The artist in this picture portrays an excellent skill of ivory carving that captures every detail, moment and touch for the viewer. The expression on the hanging Judas is solemn, as one who couldn’t stay alive in his own skin. The tree which he hangs on willows with sadness as it appears to be caught in the conversation of the winds. The artist carves Mary as a widowed woman, her face says, “confused” only because her heart is broken. John’s arm is extended as though he wants to touch him one more time or maybe the thought is crossing his mind to pull his dying friend off that cross. Johns face says, “I am here buddy”, when many of the disciples couldn’t stand to see Jesus like that John, his beloved friend is there. The Roman Guard who is just doing his job, appears to have a knife in his hand possibly going to stab Jesus in the side to try and cause him to die faster, but he appears to be stuck, stuck in the sudden glimpse of looking at the face of Jesus and wondering, “what if I just killed an innocent man?”. And the artist portrays Jesus in the best way with the beautiful brown color of the carved ivory, “I surrender”; he is not surrendering out of defeat, but rather surrenders out of victory. He has just sacrificed himself for the team. He dies, but you and I live.

The State of Black Fatherhood

I wonder what it would have been like if daddy had of stayed, instead of leaving me behind, if he had just stayed focus and prayed.

If he had been there to hold me tight on all those rainy days, maybe now I would know how to swim through all of life’s unmanaged days.

I wonder what he would have said to those monsters in my bed room closet, Maybe now I wouldn’t be so scared to fight the monsters in the closet of my life.

Tonight I was at a friends house, and this was a home. Not because of the structure of the house, but because of the family in the home. A mother and father with a commitment. children who knew that they were loved and felt safe, even though all of them are grown and out of the house. What kept this family sane is that they have two fathers. A father in heaven who has walked their days out for His glory and a father here on earth who adores each child as an individual.

I don’t think we as a nation can underestimate the fact that people who grow up without fathers and without responsible fathers become broken adults. Regardless if you have a step father or grandfather, something is still missing in the human soul when a person grows up and realizes that their biological father made the choice to abandon them. We cant begin to have to conversation about fixing our nation without putting this as the number one issue we need to address. Kids needs to be taught morals and God by their fathers. Kids need to be taught to stay away from crime by their fathers. Kids need to be shown how to be productive individuals by their fathers. We cant fix health insurance problems in America without address the heart issue in America.

We have over 2 million men in American prisons today’s. 90% of those men didn’t have a active father or father figure in their lives. 95% of men who end up on death row made it their without a father in their lives. A society cant train up a child neither can a community- these two things can function as positive or negative resources but A father must train up his child and tech him how to be responsible.

I was sitting at this table tonight and the I was surrounded by love and laughter and joy- but to be honest with you all I could think of, and this is not fault of the family, is I KNOW and am CONVICNED that I would be a better person if I had that growing up. If I had the security of a father, the comfort of a home with the father as the protector and the encouragement of a solid father- I know that most of the mistakes I made, I would have never made them- because I would have known my worth in my fathers love and in his security.

Today I think that the truth must come out, regardless of how evangelical you may be, we all must confess that fathers are a must in a society with so much distrust. We must remind men that if you create a baby you must actively engage that child in a productive raising with morals and goals and love- because you will change a child no matter what, but will you change the child by being there or by being absent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj1hCDjwG6M


copy and paste the above link

Just My Opinion- I could be wrong but I doubt it!!!