http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7KGLbeoBI

‘http://www.codesqueeze.com/the-ultimate-top-25-chuck-norris-the-programmer-jokes/

Write

How and ever do I get the bug to write again. I’ve lots any kind of creative writing but not just creative writing but to simply write and explain things, simple things like, thnak you cards, post cards, and employee performance tool. It’s just not happening.

I Will Go

I Will Go

Let Your kingdom come on earth. Let Your will be done
Let every kingdom of this earth bow.

Let the sinners sing for joy, we are saved by grace
Let every saint break through these doors and shout

You’re calling out, “who will go?”

I will go. I will live the life. I’ll give it all for Jesus Christ.
I’ll tell the world that You are God.
I will go. Hear my battle cry. Give me wings so I can fly
and tell the world that You are God.

Here am I, here am I, I will give all that is mine.
Here am I, here am I, Jesus come and spend my life.

I will go. I will live the life.
I’ll give it all for Jesus Christ. I’ll tell the world that You are God.
I will go. Hear my battle cry.
Give me wings so I can fly and tell the world that You are God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o&eurl=http://www.xanga.com/fyrebat&feature=player_embedded

Risk It!

The greatest risk to take is the ones that have the greatest opportunity. There are few times in life where the risk we take truly shape our lives.

One of the greatest risk we take is when we choose to turn from our sins and to follow Jesus. This is a great risk because Jesus asks us to surrender our entire lives for a greater purpose- the life Jesus offers us. We are to die to ourselves to receive a greater life God has in-stored for us. It is a great moment when someone comes to Christ and with the opportunities presented in a great moment there is great risk to take.

This is what I believe living life to the fullest is about. Is in Jesus, when we give it all to him we live it to the fullest by trusting God and risking it all. God Love’s Risk-takers and the funny thing is you don’t have to be one to be God’s risk-taker, but you have to make the first step in offering your whole self! RISK IT ALL!

So, I have to accept President Obama (elect) as my Commander in Chief. Despite my beliefs and convictions about politics, the greater conviction is my duty to God and country. I will follow.

Something about Church

The other day the question came up about what is the church? I ask myself this all the time. Church is more than what we see today in America, this institution that has influence and facilitates religious services, it’s more than a building or a place where people gather.

We can look in the book of Acts, the early church and how it was then in early Christianhood. People met in temples and in homes. Jesus met in people’s homes and he had large gatherings. I don’t to get too much into it, because I’m no expert and I have my own frustrations with the Church or how people go about Church and perceive it. However, I will add that church to me can be a glimpse of heaven.

A while ago I posted about John’s McCain’s response about what faith means to him and how he lives it out. This was civil forum that Rick Warren’s church had organized. I was very touched by the story he shared. 

 

vietnamese kept us in prison in conditions of solitary confinement for two or three to a cell.

they did that because they knew they could break down our resistance. one of the techniques that they used to get information was to take ropes and tie them around your biceps, pull your biceps behind you, loop the rope around your head, pull your head down between your knees and leave you in that position. you can manage, it’s very uncomfortable.

one night i was being punished in that fashion. all of a sudden the door of the cell opened, the guard came in, a guy who was just what we call a gun guard. he just walked around the camp with a gun on his shoulder. he went like this and then he loosened the ropes. he came back about four hours later, he tightened them up again and left. the following christmas, because it was christmas day, we were allowed to stand outside of our cell for a few minutes, and those days we were not allowed to see or communicate with each other although we certainly did. and i was standing outside for my few minutes, outside my cell. he came walking up. he stood there for a minute and with his handle on the dirt in the courtyard he drew a cross and he stood there and a minute later, he rubbed it out and walked away. for a minute there, there was just two christians worshipping together.

i’ll never forget that moment so every day —

The aspect of church in this story is toward the end.

“he came walking up. he stood there for a minute and with his handle on the dirt in the courtyard he drew a cross and he stood there and a minute later, he rubbed it out and walked away. for a minute there, there was just two christians worshipping together.”

During that divine moment in John McCain’s life, “two or more were gathered in His name.” That to me, in the middle of human suffering, in the middle of strife, despair, hopelessness, pain, cruelty, loneliness- there was God. That is the church, where believers despite their circumstances gathered in his name to worship Him. Church is a community of believers wholeheartedly and broken, seeking after Him, desperately wanting him. In John McCains’s church, he was truly desperate and truly broken along side another believer. Together in a strange circumstance that I believe God can truly orchestrate, the two men had their Church.

Peace.

Anointing with tears and perfume....

“she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.”

The story of a sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50, is a true depiction of God’s love story with us. What I love about this woman is that despite her ‘sinful life’ and even her rejection from society (Pharisees) she is still able to realize who Jesus is. She is truly broken down at the feet of Jesus.

With her tears she wets Jesus’s feet, and she wipes them with her hair then she pours the perfume over his feet. This is an act of true worship in human brokenness. She is this woman, that everyone has labeled a sinner, written off as un-redeemable and unlovable. But, she does not let that hold her back from giving her best to Jesus. With her tears she washes his feet, with the expensive perfume she anoints Jesus. With a humble heart she immediately falls in love with Jesus, seeking his forgiveness as she continues to kiss his feet.

Sometimes I have to wonder as a Christian if I can recognize who Jesus is in my brokenness, to fall in love and accept the forgiveness.

Faith, not about me.

“[Faith] is about building our lives and moving forward with confidence fueled by commitment to God’s truth. At the same time, the focus of our prayers must shift away from trying to get God to do what we ask or even asking God what He wants us to do; like the early disciples in the books of Acts, we are to ask God to give us courage to do what we already know.”

One of the reason’s I can be a slow reader in finishing a good book is because of deep and profound statements like the above. I go back end re-read chapters, and paragraphs that really resonate, that words are so well put in explaining these things about God.

In “Chasing Daylight”, Erwin, speaks so much encouraging truth about our destine, about living out this adventurous life for God, truly just seizing every moment God gives us.

I think for any Christian (or any religion for that matter) our faith is based off of feelings and emotions. We measure faith by how strongly we believe something will happen. Isn’t this true? The assumption is the greater our faith it will happen. We ask and we will receive.

It’s a bit of what I like to call naive faith. A lot of times adults will teach children to pray and ask God for things the want. So we develop this “Santa Claus God” who if we’re good and we ask nice, he will give us gifts. And we care that in mentality into adulthood and tell ourselves that when we pray and ask and it doesn’t happen it just means we simply didn’t have enough faith.

It is almost as if we have this false promise that if we ask in the name of Jesus that we should expect to receive. I admit my part of my spiritual up bringing and my prayer life was up helds with this “ask and receive” idea.

Here is the big BUT; Rick Warren puts it best in the first page of his book, IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. I love that, its so clear our faith is not based around us but on God himself. So the promise of Jesus:

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
Matt 21:22

God wants us to ask him, but really God wants us to ask of him that which reflects God’s own heart. Do our intentions an purpose represent that of God? Look at our prayers, and the things we ask for. There needs to be an understanding that when we truly love God, our desires and what we pray for changes. If we have God’s heart, and we want to full-fill his intent then we can confidently ask God in prayer.