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Passion For the Word

So in mexico I had alot of time to think and really focus on God, not so many distractions and one thing really hit me that I thought I would share.

I realized that the reason that I had such a hard time finding times to read my bible and seldom remembered what I read for very long or got excited about it was because all I was doing was reading it because that is what you should do.

It hit me on this trip that I need to have a passion for the Word. I need to want to know what God has to say, and I have just been praying that God would give me a passion for the word. That God would give me a desire to know him more. And it has been cool having that desire and that I want to read the Word and I get excited about what I read.

Anyway I think someone told me a while back that you have to have a passion for the Word but I kinda let it go, sometimes it takes it really hitting you yourself for you to realize.

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Short Term Missions

This is in responce to a comment my dad made to me in passing today when talking about my last blog. He said I struggle with if we are using our money wisely when we spend so much money to send people out for short term missons.

I understand and agree to a point, we spend so much money and wouldn’t that money be better put to use if we could just send them the money that we pour in to it rather than sending people for a few days. But there are two things that I think are important to realize, first off the relationship aspect of things, the way we do short term missions through AIL at our church allows us to work with the same people every year and as we are down the our biggest focus is to love on the kids and show support for the pastor. I think it is good for the kids to feel that love from out siders and also I think it is so good for the pastors family to have that support to feel the encoragement that we are right there with him supporting him and we believe in what he is doing. Second what the poeple going on the missions gain, on each of the missions trips I have been on they have all been a big spiritually growing point for me. The refocus you on God in a way that other things can not do.

In closing I just wanted to say like Matt said in his comment on my blog is we need to be careful not to just be focused on money, sometimes in our rich country it is just easier to just send the money but it is so important that we are actually phsically and emotionally invested in the people we are supporting for our sakes and theirs.

Anyway we leave tomorrow for Mexico, if you guys could be praying that would be great.

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Have we lost Focus

James 1:27

27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Mathew 25:37-40

37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

John 21:17

17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

My question is this, have we lost focus from that goal? I like how James puts it, this is what is acceptable religion to God, caring for those who need it and keep our selfs pure. Yet in our church today we seem to working so hard to make things nice an easy for us we tend to forget about all those in need.

What if instead of buying the best chairs and building the nicest building and buying the nicest coffee machine and the news game station for the youth. What if we let all that go and we used that money to pay for those who are in need.

What about the money christian spend trying to do research to prove that Evolution is false and God created all things. I think we need to be taking that money and using it more wisely and instead of trying to prove that God created all things just know he did. The bible says he did why do we need proof. I truly believe that the only thing these studies have done is given me doubt, I do much better when I just believe on Faith that God created all things rather than trying to prove to my self that it is true. Because sure Evolution makes sense but if I simply believe on faith that God created all things it will be much easier.

I believe if we did this church’s would drop in size dramatically. All those boarder line Christians who many more conservatives Christians would say are not Christians at all(a whole other topic for another post). But after the church had been weeded down to those true Christians that are there even if it is not convenient(see What is church?) I think the church would grow like crazy because when someone would think about Christians they would think about those on fire for God and I know God would move if we were more focused on him.

I believe we need to start letting go of the things that we love, we need to use the money that we so commonly throw in to little things for ease at the church and start using that Money to pay for the poor and need both here in the US and around the world.

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Why God?

So many people ask the question why God, and so many people say why would a good God let this happen to me. Why do some people seem to have it so perfect and others have it so hard? I would say that the answer to that is this, When did you forget this is God? The creator of the Universe the all powerful one?

It is put so perfectly in Romans 9:14-16:

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[f] 16It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

God choses what he wants and he has a plan for everything(Romans 8:28). So at some point we must stop trying to figure out why God and say Yes God your will be done. Because God is all powerful and he has every right to do anything he wants but we do know that all things are done to bring glory to him. So in the end as long as our desire is to bring glory to God as it should be we need to learn to trust, stop asking why and start saying Yes.

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Proverbs 10

When reading Proverbs 10 for my devotions today 2 verses hit me:

9The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.

Basically though sometimes the easy way seems the best though sometimes the wrong way seems easiest. Always take the way that is ok and rightious in God’s sight. For your walk with be secure the fear of someone finding you out will never be there, the problems that come with lieing and sinning will catch up to you.

Second:

18 He who conceals his hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool.

When I first read this I was kinda like ok so do not hide your hatred for someone, but also don’t talk about them. Kinda like how does that work but it really does, I feel like this verse is saying if you have  problems with someone go directly to them and deal with it quickly, don’t talk bad about them but rather go to them and talk about the problem right way. Deal with it don’t store it up and make sure you do not use it against them, don’t use something they did against you to make others have a problem with them.

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What is Church?

There is a professor at Multnomah bible college that was quoted saying church is this:

Church is the gathering of people who share some common beliefs and religious standards but who’s true allegiance lies somewhere else.

When I was being told about this it really hit me. How true is this for so many people now. If something else comes up then we do that instead of church. Instead of making church our first priority and making putting time in at church helping to grow the church rather we spend time on other “noble” causes.

When the chance to go to a Football game comes up, or the chance to play with your team in whatever sport it may be comes up, or when your friends ask you to do something, why do we say to our selfs Oh it is just one time I am just missing church once not a big deal. It would be better if we thought to our selfs, I can go to a football game some other time, I can miss this game with my team I have lots of others, I can hang out or go do something another day because today what really matters is that I am in church worshiping God.

So yes church is simply a gathering of people with common interests who’s true allegiance lies somewhere else. Don’t let your self be one of them, get your priorities right make sure your true allegiance is to Jesus Christ and to following him, not to something of this world.

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Correction for the wise

In Proverbs 9:8 it reads “Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you.” Just an interesting though and the verse before it says you are setting your self up for insult when you correct the mocker for they have no interest in changing there ways. I see several things in this verse.

First don’t waste your time correcting those who will not listen to you. If you have tried once or twice and they do not listen then leave them alone and do not waste your time and energy trying to help them.

Second don’t take offense when people correct you. When someone corrects you it shows that they believe you might actually change they view you as worth the time it takes to correct or make wiser. If you become angry at peoples corrections then you are proving yourself not to be wise but if you take that correction gracefully and think about it and change something if need be you will be seen as wiser and you will be wiser.

Third if you never receive correction from anyone maybe this means that you have ignored people 1 to many times and they feel you will not listen… you are not wise enough to take their advice. If you are not getting corrected I can assure you of one thing it is not because you are perfect, far more likely is that you have turned down peoples advice to much and they do not view you as someone worth “guiding/helping”

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Christian Music?

As I was riding in my car today I was listening to a song “only one” but Yellowcard it is a nice love song in which the singer says “Scream my lungs out to get to you, you are my only  one”. Steven my brother was riding with you and said good song what is it about. Note that Steven listens to almost all Christian music I listen to about an even mix of Christian and secular. I could tell he was asking if it was a Christian song or not. I just find it kinda sad the way Christian music has gone now, I feel like people are too afraid to actually praise God in there songs and cry out to him in a way that people will know what they are talking about. I feel like it is becoming more of an industry a way to make money a way to become know as a musician not a place where people write songs of worship to God. When I go buy a “Christian CD” I want to know that it will be worshiping God boldly I don’t want to have to wonder if it is about God or some girl.

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Abortion Should be Legal!

Ok before you freak out listen. What I mean is there should not be a law against abortion and I strongly believe that. I have heard people say it is just wrong because it is against my religion. The last place I heard it and it made me mad was at the pregancy help center dinner in 2007. He is trying to support why abortion should not be legal and is reasoning sucked and it just made me mad cause if people are trying to support pro-life with these arguments it is no wonder that abortion is still accepted and legal in the US.
What I think is that we should not be outlawing abortion on the grounds that it is wrong because as a religion we value life and believe that God values all life. Because I do not want to live in a country that bases its laws on what the biggest religion believes. Because then if ever another religion becomes prevalent then laws will be made against what I believe to support them. Basing any law on any religion pulls us away from how our country was meant to be in the first place, completely free from any religion with complete freedom of religion.

But I still believe it is very wrong that abortions are being allowed all the time. ABORTION IS MURDER and that is how it should be tried that is how decisions about abortion should be made. No abortion can ever be legal because it is murder and that is completely out lawed in any way shape or form in our country. When you stop and think about it I do not see how anyone can say it is part of the womens body and she has a right to do what she wants. You can see pictures that is a little baby in there and I do not see how anyone can deny it.

So just to be clear in case this was in question at all from what I have put above. I do not support abortion in any way I simply do not believe there should be a law against it because it would overlap the murder laws. I think we need to enforce the laws of murder against abortion. It is no different from any other murder so it should not have its own law. It should simply be tried as premeditated murder.