Beautiful picture

I saw the most beautiful picture of the church (the body of Christ) tonight! The church was doing what it was made to do; build each other up and glorify God. An empty room filled with nothing but college students, about 80 of them, scattered throughout the room. All of them there for the purpose of worshiping God with a worship team made up of their peers. A break in the music; and a man, the pastor for college students at this church, says that he feels there are people in the room that need encouragement and to be prayed over. The keyboard player beautifully plays underneath it all while students come up front for prayer and encouragement. After a good amount of time has passed and many have been up front the students begin to gather around each other to pray for their friends. A girl in the corner stands with her hands high and her eyes closed swaying back and forth as if dancing with God. Others sit on their knees in silent prayer. What a beautiful picture of unity in the body of Christ; the very thing that was prayed for at the beginning of the evening: Romans 15:5 - May the God who gives you endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Giving your very best

I'm a coach. And sometimes what I see and experience makes me think, "Is it all about winning and losing? Is that the greatest purpose of what I do? Or of sports?" Maybe it's about giving your very best. If you believe that God created you, don't you think you owe it to Him to give your best? Even if you don't believe that, don't you at least owe it to yourself? I don't remember the times I won or lost so much as the times I gave it my all or just gave up...

What's your motivation? Why do you do anything? Satisfaction? Glory? Reward? Whether God allows you to be successful or not, He deserves to be praised either way!

Ask one thing of yourself. Give your very best every day. When you fail to do that you are letting yourself down, and possibly others around you. Win or lose you can't expect any more from yourself than your very best effort. When you've given your best, that alone is something to be proud of. Never give up! Press on toward the goal!

Romans 15:20

Romans 15:20; Paul says, "It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation."

That verse summarizes how I've always felt about missions. Taking the gospel to people who've never heard Jesus' name. I heard someone say once that, "No one deserves to hear the gospel twice until every person on Earth has heard it once." That's bold and maybe a bit harsh, but I think I agree with it. I think, "What good could I do in a group who hasn't been reached? Maybe I should just join with someone else's effort."

I feel like I can't argue with someone who's already made up their mind about God, but I would love to talk to someone who's never heard of Him, or who believes in a false god.

Just some randomness that I thought I'd write down...

Ted Haggard

Do you assume that everyone that teaches you something is able to execute every instruction that they give you without flaw every single time? If you’re in sales does your sales trainer ever make a mistake and you then proceed to say that that person is a fake and a liar because they messed up a sale? I’m a coach. Do you think that just because I know how to teach someone else how to pole vault or long jump that I can execute a perfect pole vault or long jump once, let alone many times over? Of course not! I’m an awful pole vaulter and my long jump form is terrible. Just because someone teaches something that does not mean that they themselves can perfectly perform that task. Ted Haggard teaches people (among other things) how to live a righteous life before God. That certainly doesn’t mean he himself is able to do so. Shouldn’t we give a pastor the same grace in failure that we give a teacher or a coach?

Salvation & The Matrix

Salvation is much like Neo taking the red pill. He didn’t find the answer (Morpheus and Trinity). The answer (Morpheus and Trinity) found him. They found him and offered him the answer, but it was up to Neo to take the pill! We don’t find God, God finds us (or shows Himself to us). Then He gives us a choice, the red pill or the blue pill. He presents us with the truth and we have to decide if we want to find out how deep the rabbit hole really is…God finds us, opens our eyes and gives us a choice: follow Him…or don’t…it’s our choice!

Worship!!!???

I've been "researching" about worship in the bible. It's really helped me see worship in a whole new way and at a much deeper level. In the first half of the Old Testament it talks a lot about bowing in worship and offering sacrifices or burnt offerings as worship, but doesn't really include "praise". Then in 2 Chronicles it starts talking about how the Levites would be designated to praise God with music while others were worshiping by bowing or offering sacrifices. Anyways, as I was sitting here listening to a song thinking and reflecting on what I've been reading I started thinking about how praise goes along with worship and then (you know how your mind goes from one thought to the next and then ties things together in a nanosecond...) I started thinking of how there are so many ways to worship and all are equally valuable. The five ways that I thought of off the top of my head were; bowing/reverence, praise/music, reflect/listen, talk, sacrifice. And then I (randomly) thought of that book The Five Love Languages and how there are different ways that people express love and expect to receive love and how that's the same as worship; there are different ways that people like to express worship at different times. So I looked up the five love languages and they are quality time, touch, gifts, acts of service, and affirming words. Then I wrote them on a page across from each other and realized that the five that I (God) came up with for worship seem to match the five love languages!!! Check this out...

Giving Praise (via Music) --------> Gifts
Reflection time with God/Listening to Him --------> Quality Time
Talking to Him --------> Affirming Words
Sacrifice (time, your life, etc) --------> Acts of Service
Bow/Reverence/Touching the face of God --------> Touch

Ahhhh!!!! God is Good!!!

So what's this blog for anyways...?

Okay, this is my first post so I want to use it to explain the point of this blog. I am planning on putting random musings up here. I don't really care if anyone reads it besides me. That's not the point. I was just thinking that if I'm going to journal some of my thoughts, I mights as well do it online...Also, I am expecting most of these thoughts to be pertaining to God or something I'm reading in the bible. So consider yourself warned...