So proud of my boy.
Christ
Someone broke in our church.
Luz returned from volunteering at church today and told me how someone during the week broke in and stole two of the guitars used for the church’s band. Smashing the main glass door in to get to them.
This is actually a huge loss for the church, as it is a small church that spends nearly all of its resources on others and it’s own members in need. Where unlike other churches give little to anyone except for the pastor, our church is dedicated to helping as many people as they can. Especially it’s own members who are in need.
Like how every day, every member of the church who is in need food is given a free hot meal there at the church and a few bags groceries to get them through the week.
So replacing the glass door and the two guitars will have an effect. Because to replace them means fewer resources to give others. Chances are they will hold off I replacing them for a little while so just to make sure everybody on Christmas can get through the holiday. I just don’t yet know how this will impact the churches band until then.
However, knowing the type of people who attend our church, I won’t be surprised that when they find out tomorrow we find a few guitars on loan until or donated.
As for the thieves, I hold no ill will towards them, nor does the church. We are a very loving and forgiving bunch. And who knows maybe they needed to take them the pawn and feed their own families. Or needed them as Christmas gifts to give to their kids because they can’t afford anything and saw it as an opportunity. Granted, the odds are low that is the case, but I like to think in someway our loss will still help someone in someway.
Who knows, maybe one day they will feel guilty for what they did and come forward. The will probably be surprised when everyone wants to hug them. Or better yet, it’ll be something that helps them find their way to God. And they come and join us.
God is my motivation: Losing my weight
I have been overweight a large part of my life. I think around 9 may have been the last year I was at a normal weight. I never considered myself as fat, or even obeseBoise. However, according to health standards, I was.
I believe my weight can almost entirely be due to my caffeine addiction. My addiction to Coca-Cola to be more precise. I have made many attempts to stop drinking coke. However, I would always come back to drink it. Usually within days, at most a few weeks, but I always came back to my Coca-Cola addiction.
This addiction is my weakness, it how I am guilty of gluttony, and it is how I am failing God. As a Christian, I need to finally fight and overcome this weakness. Sadly, there are not exactly any programs like alcoholics anonymous for the Cola addiction.
So, I must do it on my own, with all the mixed pieces of information found on the Internet. And it has been a week without any kind of soda. However, I’ve been using a liquid caffeine additive, that I add to water to help with caffeine withdraws. Slowly, I will reduce my caffeine intake, but for now, I am knocking out the flavors and calories of soda, and this should help.
I am also doing this to show my faith in God and because He tells us in the Bible not to be gluttonous, and how money or other things have us serving two masters. In my case, it’s soda.
When I first wait in before starting to try to lose weight, I was 207 pounds, I now weigh 202.4 pounds. I still have a long way to go, but I’m not alone God is there. He is my motivation.
What Jesus suffered on our behalf, truly makes Him worthy of our worship.
We Christians hear it all the time, we even say it all the time. And that is “Jesus suffered and died for our sins.” But not everyone really understands just how he suffered.
When we envision what Christ went through, from the horrific whipping, crown of thorns on his head, to even him hanging on the cross. It’s not hard to figure out that He was suffering a great deal physically from this torturous event. However, what he suffered physically does not compare to how much He must have suffered when, Jesus took on our sin and became sin .
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
By taking on our sin Jesus (in the flesh) for the first time he became separated from the Father. And no doubt he suffered horribly from this overwhelming experience of taking on our sins. And we can’t really understand just how much he must have been suffering from this experience. After all, we sin so much that we have become used to this experience.
However, Jesus was not a sinner, so He would never experience the penalty of death/being separated from God as we do but, when He took on our sin for us he felt what we do/will feel. This must have been absolutely tremendously horrifying experience. Now He did not become a sinner when he took on our sins, he only experienced our penalty for our sins. And Him being somebody who has never experience what sinners have become so accustomed to in their daily lives. Means it must have been a real shock to Him.
But on our behalf (the sinners). Jesus as a man experiences all the horror of what it feels like to be separated from God. It is an amount of suffering that we the sinners cannot comprehend . As we squalor in our sins like a pig squalor’s in its waste, and are so use to it.
We could tell he was suffering as He was being made sin when he said,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46
So certainly from this we can see that He was suffering a great ordeal from this experience that He was going through. What Jesus went through physically, I doubt it compares in anyway to just how much He must have suffering from feeling distant from his Father.
Truly, Jesus is worthy of our worship. For he suffered so much for us sinners.
Is the Bible the Word of God? Or is Jesus?
I do not know how many times I have come across an article that says the Bible is the Word of God or heard some Christian preaching that the Bible itself is the Word of God. To me, this is disturbing, because they have turned the Bible from a collection of inspired books into one book That is nothing more than an idle self.
When we read the Bible, we noticed something right off the bat and that is that the Bible never cleans itself to be the Word of God. No author, no apostle, not the father nor the son ever claims that the Bible itself is the word of God.
However we do find that the Bible does talk about a person as being the Word of God is person is Jesus. So we are left with an interesting question. At what point did Jesus ceased being the Word of God and the Bible took over as the Word of God? It does not tell us anywhere in the Bible that this ever took place. And we have no source outside the Bible that would be in any way reliable to tell us that the Bible has taken over the job of being the Word of God.
When we read the Bible we also find that the Bible is often described instead as “Scripture,” “the law and prophets,” and “it is written.” Not as the Word of God.
When somebody proclaims the Bible the Word of God they have just transformed the Bible idol. And that is where I find it disturbing. Because now the term “Bible worshiper” really starts to make sense. Especially seeing that the Bible itself idle.
What makes it worse is that those who call the Bible the word of God are often the very same people that think that you must believe in a secular interpretation of the Bible that they have in order to be saved. So no longer is a person’s salvation and I am God’s grace but instead is The pendant upon the Bible or somebody’s interpretation of the Bible.
Jesus himself even worn people that salvation does not come from Scripture but it comes from him. In one such case Jesus was talking to a group of religious leaders who had been searching everywhere in the Scriptures To see Jesus as the Messiah. But they just could not see a as the Messiah because they did not believe in him.
“And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. (NKJV John 37- 40)
They completely miss the entire point because they were searching scriptures for salvation when their salvation was there, staring at them in the face. And the same goes for those that believe their salvation is going to come from believing in any Particular interpretation of the bible.
Simply put the Bible is not the Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is not something to be worshiped and if anybody wishes to proclaim it to be so. They better have Scripture that shows that at some point Jesus ceased being the Word of God and that title was transferred to a mixture of books that we call the Bible.
Preaching the gospel without using words.
I have notice that many… perhaps even most nonbelievers are turned off by being preached to. Many even get angry and hostile at the Christian preaching to them. I suspect part of this reason is because they keep hearing the same passages over and over again.
It is somewhat like how a child may wants his mother or father to watch the same movie over and over again, because, the child really likes the movie and wants his/her mom or dad to like it as well. The child’s parents may watch the movie even though they do not like it the first time. However, after the first ten times. They may just get sick of it. And will just get frustrated or even angry every time the child puts the DVD in the DVD player.
So imagine perhaps an atheist. (S)He may have sat down with a real interest in what the Christian was saying to him for the first few times. Now imagine that vary same atheist who was for whatever reason not ready to come into Christ arms. Hearing John 3:16 and thousands of other bible passages preached to him, ones a day or once every other day for 10, 20 or 30 years. You can imagine just how frustrating it is going to be for him or her. By doing this and trying to witness to a person over and over, we can be actually driving a wedge between the atheist and Christ instead of bringing him or her closer.
This is why I primary preach the gospel without quoting from the bible it self. Or trying to preach to them in a way they do not know I am doing it. Now this idea may sound strange to some because many of us are use to the idea of going around to nonbelievers and quoting some passage from the bible to them. However, are behaviors, actions and just how we live are lives can be vary effective way to bring people to Christ. Jesus tells us that when we witness to people we are not just to use words but to use are deeds.
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16 NKJV)
Our deeds can and often do play a huge deciding factor in bringing people into the arms of Christ. People who otherwise would not be convinced by words alone. People who are just sick of hearing the bible read to them over and over again. And I suspect that would be the majority of nonbelievers.
We are even told in the fallowing passage that a husbands can be won without a word being said.
“Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives,” (1 Peter 3:1 NKJV)
This passive approach of using are deeds, are behaviors and actions to bring people into the fold seems to be vary powerful. And why is this so powerful? The answer is because Christianity becomes attractive to the nonbeliever? Think about it. The earliest Christians Could not go around just preaching the word of God to people without fear of imprisonment or even death. Yet for some reason people flocked to them. And they quickly gained numbers. And they did this, not by standing on a street corner holding a sign or going door to door. They did it by how they lived their lives. They did it by being examples to the nonbeliever.
No matter what damming or insulting thing that people said about them, no matter how they where treated. They always conducted them self’s in a positive fashion. Attempting to be Christ like. They lead people into Christ arms by their deeds.
“Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.” (Titus 2:9-10 NKJV)
So I use my deeds to preach the gospel without quoting from the bible it self (At lest most of the time). So when people see my deeds, they may want to learn about Christ. And what Christ has to teach them. And once I have their attention and their willingness to learn about Christ. I can use words because now, they are willing to hear what I have to say. When previously they where not.
However, do not get me wrong. I still do use words when I think that the situation its self warrants it. Or is the best approach I have for that given circumstance. I just personally think that preaching the gospel with my deeds are the best and approach to use today. At least in a mostly Christian nation where nonbelievers are sick of having the bible read to them.
Just remember however, that Jesus used both words and actions to convey his message to all of us.
Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, (1 Peter 3:1 NKJV)
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