A day in the park

Today we weot for a hike in garden of the gods to enjoy the beautiful day.

It also gave me a chance to try out my new phone, but more on that later.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

About a month ago I said winter was officially here, well after that it went back to warm days. finally last night it snowed again, not much, but it was there. So we have a snowy thanksgiving... Somewhat.

Today we will be doing what every family does on thanksgiving, cooking turkey, mashed potatoes, and more.

As we get ready for our feast remember that none of it is possible without God providing it for it. Especially be thankful for our salvation that we did not deserve to receive when Jesus paid the ultimate price. If you are thankful that your sins are no longer counted against you then take a few minutes today to spend some one-on-one time with God. The word of God is living and active (Heb. 4:12) and it is our link to God, so take just a little bit of time with the One that has done the most for you.

Happy Thanksgiving and praise be to God!

We Make it Our Aim...to be Well Pleasing to Him

Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. - 2 Corinthians 5:9-11

We all know that God has called us to be disciples of Christ, and to make disciples of all nations, but how many of us really practice that?

A lot of Chrisitans don't believe that evangelism is important, or, if they do believe, they think that it is best left up to the "professionals". Despite what we may believe, what does the Bible say about this?

"for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10

"to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved." Ephesians 1:6

God the Son came all the way from heaven to seek the lost and to die for them. The Holy Spirit has bene in this wicked world for nearly twenty centuries, helping the church seek and win the lost. If reaching lost sinners is so important to God, it ought to be important to us. (1)

While we are not all called to be mass evangelists, like Billy Gram or Greg Laurie, we are all given the responsability to reach out to those that God brings into our lives. Jesus suffered and died so that we may be set free, why is it that, after being forgiven, we can not even bring ourselves to tell the lost about Jesus' sacrifice for them? Jesus bled and died for those that are lost, and we don't seem to care about the lost or about Jesus enough to share His love with them.

We all think that it is someone elses job, well what would have happened if the disciples thought it was someone elses job to star the church? The church would have never been started. Now the task has fallen to our generation, and we push it off and try to avoid it.

If we want to please God, then we need to do the work that He has set out for us, the work that Jesus came for and left for us to continue. If we know what judgment will be on people who die without Christ, then we must try with every fiber of our being to persuade them to surrender to Jesus Christ.

We don't need to wait for a huge evangelical rally to witness to someone; it only takes one person to witness to one other person to make a huge impact for Christ and turn that person's life around. Do a Google video search for "The Man from George Street". It is a short 5 minute video, but it has a powerful message of what just one man can do when he sets himself to do the Lord's work, even when he sees nothing in it for himself.

It's time that the Body of Christ pick up their Bibles and starts to do the work of Christ. Jesus didn't come and die so we could all be Spiritual Couch Potatoes. Jesus paid much too high a price for that.


Refrences
(1) "On Being a Servant of God", Warren W. Wiersbe, page 110

<(((><
Join our forums: Eternal Truth Ministry

Being a successful Christian

"This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." Joshua 1:8

Awesome, meditate on the Bible and we will be successful, having money, good health and well liked.

As much as I would like to see that statement in the Bible, the more I meditate on it the more I know that is not the case. Paul was a great example of this, He knew the scriptures, walked by faith and preached the gospel. Yet, Paul never had a lot of money, didn't have a position of power, was often jailed and beaten, and had some type of physical affliction that God would not take away, even though Paul prayed that God would.

So, was Paul successful? From here it doesn't look like Paul was very successful. So was the Bible wrong then when it said that we will "have good success"?

Before we say the Bible was wrong, or that Paul wasn't successful, here is another thought. By who's standards are you measuring success? Fame, fortune, health, a place of power, these are all criteria that the world bases success on, but Christians are not of the world.

1 John 2:16 "For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world."

1 Corinthians 2:12 "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God."

No, the success that God tells us about in the Bible must be different than our own definition of success. Paul was successful, he obeyed God in what he did, so Paul's success was in the Lord, and in doing the Lord's work.

1 Corinthians 15:58 "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

Colossians 1:9-11 "that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins."

Psalm 1:1-3 "1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers."

We will be successful in the Lord when we do His work, according to His will. As Joshua stated, we will be successful by meditating on the Bible day and night, and not letting it depart from your mouth. This is the only way that you will be able to walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him.

Fully pleasing God... now that's what I call success.

Does it not seem important that we be reading the Bible daily? How else our we to get to know our Lord? Every Christian needs to make it a point to read the Bible daily, this will help you have a Christ like attitude, and to avoid false doctrines.

It is vital in our relationship with the Lord, so make some time for it. God deserves at least a few minutes out of your day, right?

<(((><
Join our forums: Eternal Truth Ministry

Self Smart

Don't ever read books! They fill your brain and make you die earlier! .... or is that drugs?

Say NO to drugs.

<(((><Eternal Truth Ministry

All systems are go!

Captain, we get signal! Here is Malikai playing with some of our headphones. I still think he is the worlds cutiest baby.

Exhausted

Over the past week, I have been completely exhausted. Coming home from work late, spending very little time with my family because of work, plus all the other issues going on in life, I have just been dead tired lately.

This week I switched back to the day shift, which is better for me spending time with Danae and Malikai on my days off but things are a lot crazier at work during the day. Monday I came home so exhausted that I was in bed at 8:30 after getting home at 7pm. The entire night was wasted. Even with all that sleep, on Tuesday I was still really tired soon after arriving at work. To top it all off, in the next few days they might change the work times to 7 o'clock to 7 o'clock instead of 6 to 6 like we currently have it. This means that I will not get home until 8 pm and have virtually no time with my family on the days that I work. I can't wait to get a new job. A job that will allow me to have a normal home life, where I can plan to do Bible studies on a weekly basis, and concentrate on doing my school work on a regular basis.

Speaking of school work, I have been a bit behind in the church service part of my class. I was only able to do 4.5 hours last month instead of 8 hours of helping out at the church. I have a lot to make up for. Working every other Sunday really eats into my time, as well as being really tired on my days off. I should be able to make up some of that time when Danae and I start helping out at the church nursery.

Last week I had another interview, though this guy definitely wasn't a confidence builder, which was really discouraging. He basically said that since all of my experience was on Windows 2000 servers (when I was in the Navy) and I have no certifications I would never be able to get a job in the civilian world where they use Windows 2003. I don't understand that reasoning very well. Even though I haven't had experience on that exact operating system doesn't mean that I can't do it. Windows is windows, if you know one then upgrading is usually fairly easy. Oh well, I don't need to use that company, there are still others. Now to just get another job interview. I applied at a couple more jobs today, but still no luck hearing back from anything. I just want to find something before our shifts get all messed up.

Anyway, I'm really tired so I'm going to bed now.



<(((><
Join our forums: Eternal Truth Ministry