Shootings in Colorado

I didn't turn on the news at all yesterday so I didn't find this out until today. Five people were killed in Colorado yesterday, 3 in Colorado Springs in the parking log of a church and 2 who were at a YWAM base in Arvada.

We live in a country where we are free to practice whatever religion we choose and I know that most of the time I take this for granted. All five of these people were out to serve God and lost their lives while doing so.

This incident reminds me of the underground church that is thriving in many parts of the world. The very real danger of losing their life is something that Christians in many parts of the world think about on a daily basis whenever they sneak off to church to worship Jesus or open their Bible in a dark closet. We hear stories of martyrs on the other side of the word and I know that I often times feel so far removed from their persecution and struggles because of the very freedoms that I've taken for granted.

Those that were killed yesterday serve as a reminder to me, and hopefully to you as well, that while we are free in Christ, we still live in a fallen world where there is a very real enemy who wants to stop the worship of the One True God. Let us bring glory to God out of such horrible circumstances to show the enemy that he will not silence us!

My prayers are with the families of those who lost loved ones yesterday.

Paris, France

As a few of you know, and many who do not, I am leaving next Saturday to go to Paris for a week with the family. I've never been nor do I have any idea what are the "must see" attractions of this city (other than the Eiffel Tower of course). That is where you come in! If you have been, would you be so kind as to make a few suggestions of places to go and things to see?

That would be fantastic!

New Love

When I turned 28 I said I had one goal. That goal was to find someone in which I could fall in love. I wanted to meet a girl who loves God more than anything and would eventually love me out of that love for Him. Turning 28 isn't some huge milestone but for some reason I made it out to be. I allowed myself to believe that being single at 28 somehow reflected who I was as a person and how I related with people. I wanted to search inside myself to figure out what the problem was so that I could grow and change into who I needed to be to have a successful relationship.

Not long after I set that goal I began to long to get back into the Old Testament. I started reading it from the beginning awhile ago and over time started getting back more into the gospels so that my attention was better held while reading. I had only a few more chapters of Numbers to go and looked ahead to see that Deuteronomy was another book of laws and commands so I wasn't super excited to start back. Something happened though. As I began to read Deuteronomy my eyes began to see way past a list of commands and rules. God's character and love began to shine through the stone tablets to the point where I found myself not being able to put the Bible down. I couldn't wait to read the next set of commands that he had for His people that He loved so incredibly much. Over and over again he would tell them that the reason he was giving them these laws was so that he could prosper them in the land that he was about to give them. He warned them over and over again that not following him would result in death and destruction but that if they would follow, he would give them everything.

God began to speak to me about my goal. Very gently and with words of affirmation God said, "no... I want you to fall in love with me." I would say, "but God, I do love you." Again I would hear, "I want you to fall in love with me." As a man, that is hard for me to hear. I've always loved God but have had a bit of a hard time seeing myself as a bride falling in love with a being that we so often think of as "Him" and "Father." It was almost as though I couldn't see through the masculinity of it all and that was keeping me from falling.

I'm falling for him though. I know this because I'm incredibly vulnerable to Him. I hang on his every word, I don't sleep but stay up late at night reading His Word. He's the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing on my mind when I go to bed. My whole world seems upside down. Things that used to not matter to me now bring me to tears. I blush at the thought that he loves me and that I am capable of pleasing him. Never have I truly fallen in love with Him like I am now and it's scarier than I ever imagined. In this relationship I have something to lose and have even more to gain. I have to think about everything I do and how it would impact my relationship with Him. I have to put Him first in all things.

Through all of this God is showing me what it's going to be like to be a husband and to be honest I, at times, feel like I don't have what it takes. I fail God, and he always takes me back because He is perfect love. If I fail a wife, will she stick around? Back to the vulnerability thing I guess. I know that you can't truly be in love if you don't allow yourself to be vulnerable and I don't know that I've ever allowed myself to be in any relationship. God is teaching me what that means through this new found romance with Him. And here's the thing, for the first time ever I'm not using my relationship with God to get something that I want. It's not about that. I truly just want Him. If that means I'm always single, so be it. I love God and am so excited about our life together. I know there will be tears and pain but I also know that I will never have anything better than what he as to offer me. If you ask me, the only real definition of a soul mate is God. He's the only one that we have been created to be in love with. We are our best when we are truly devoted to him. A wife will never be able to offer me that and thank God I'm figuring that out before I ever married. What a horrible burden to put on the woman you love. Talk about setting impossible expectations.

So I've let you in on probably one of the most personal things I've ever felt. But you know what? It's all about being vulnerable to God. I'm safe inside my relationship with Him to be who He created me to be.

Santa

How funny is seeing a "slap Santa's belly to make it more red than your opponents" banner on myspace... IN JUNE?

28

I'm 28 now... I have one major goal this year. But I've had this goal for quite a few years now and have not quite met it.

Hopefully I can change that!

Everyone needs a Ryan

So... yesterday I call up my friend Ryan after reading over a scripture that stumped me. I asked him to read the verses so that we could meet up later to have a beer and discuss what I had read earlier.

Later that night we met up and the games began. We read and re-read the verses and started talking about it and what it might mean. We talked about how it related to God's character and whether or not our interpretations were in line with that. Ryan came up with a great interpretation so we went to some commentaries and found that the majority of them agreed with what he had been saying.

So anyway, the point is that everyone needs a friend that they can call to discuss what they are learning about God. These conversations have helped me to grow in my understanding of the Word and have also strengthened my friendship with Ryan. Like I said... everyone needs a Ryan!

Thanks Ryan!

6.5

Some of you know, but some may not, that I've recently started running. About three or four months ago I decided that I wanted to try to run in the Peachtree Road Race which is a 10K race (6.2 miles). I have no plans to actually COMPETE in this race, in fact, I was just interested in running the entire thing without stopping in under an hour.

I started running about three months ago and began with a 3.2 mile route. It was difficult but I was able to do it and felt good about it. Over the past three months I had only added about a mile to that run and knew that I really needed to up my distance if I was going to run the Peachtree on July 4th. I ran my first 5K race this past weekend and felt excellent at the end which was encouraging to me.

All of that to say that today I decided that I would add another mile to run which would bring me to 5.2 miles. Well, after I ran the first 3.2 I was feeling good and decided to run it again and go for the 6+ mile run.

I did it! I actually ran an extra tenth of a mile in order to get me to the 6.5 mile mark just for the fun of it. I won't lie, I was pretty worn out afterwards and towards the end I was really pushing my body. It wasn't so much that I was so tired and couldn't breathe, it was just that my legs were starting to get sore which makes me realize I really need to strengthen them so I can keep adding miles to the run. I did the 6.5 miles in under 1 hour and 2 minutes. Not bad for me!

So this was a good day. I accomplished something I never thought I would be able to and will keep working at it to get better and better. I never would have thought that I would enjoy running as much as I do!

Someone said I should blog...

A new, yet very dear friend of mine said I should start a blog. I started one a couple years ago and never really used it but am not motivated to try again.

Let me first say that I'm not that great of a writer. You won't find fancy words and more than likely there will be a few grammatical errors. I will do my best to be clear and concise but when my emotions take over I'll write whatever I feel and probably won't proofread.

Okay, now that the disclaimers have been laid out here are my first thoughts.

Lately my spirit has been grieving a bit. It seems as though in an effort to be "relevant" and "post, post-modern" the church has begun to lose sight of "the line." We take our God given desire to see the lost come to Christ and begin to try new ways of reaching people no matter the cost.

Alright, I've been trying to write this thing for an hour now... I'll type something and then erase and retype... I've been dancing around what's on my heart for the sake of not sounding "judgmental." You'll just have to take my word for it and know that this is not written with a judgmental heart but from one that LOVES the church and people in general and only wants the best.

Here's what I'm seeing in the church that grieves my spirit. Drunkenness, bad language, smoking and sex before marriage. There, it's on the table.

The first thing that I see the most of is drunkenness so I will write about this one in detail but the principles are the same for the others I mentioned above. I love a good beer, I mean LOVE it. There are not many things that I enjoy more than sitting with a friend or two over a really good beer and discussing God, the church and life in general. Now I'm a light weight and know that two beers with an alcohol content of 7% or more is plenty. I go into the bar, or pub with that line in mind knowing that anymore than that and I'll be on my way to drunk. If I do cross that line then, I believe, I am acting outside of the liberty that God has given us to drink alcohol. As Christians (and I mean people who are truly seeking God and looking to grow in their relationships with Him) we are warned against causing other believers to stumble. Jesus says, "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large milestone tied around his neck" (Mark 9:42).

You might ask how me getting drunk may cause another believer to sin. It's simple. We are teachers by our actions more than our words. As other believers, who may not be as versed in the scriptures, see someone they look up to as a believer sinning, they see it as acceptable and many times mimic what they see which causes them to sin. Does that mean that the person that sins is off the hook since he didn't know better? Absolutely not, he is still responsible for his own sin. That is why Jesus is so serious in his warning. The result of our sin is not only that it will lead us down a path that is separate from Christ but we'll be taking others along with us. That's the power behind sin. It's like a deadly virus that infects an entire group of people. Not only will the host carrier of the virus eventually die, but so will all of the others around him if they catch it.

God gave us "wine" as a gift for us to enjoy. But the minute we go overboard with it and drink too much we have again destroyed something God has meant for good... not unlike sex.

The other side of this is that we, as Christians, are also being watched by those who are not believers. Jesus gave us our mission on earth in Matthew 28:18-20. We are to lead others to Christ and then show them the right way to live (make disciples). How, then, can we do this if we ourselves are given over to sin. Peter says this,

"Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us" (1 Peter 2:11-12).

Here's where I see the danger in all of this. I've noticed that the church is doing everything it can to reach the lost, as it should, but in doing so we have begun to participate in the activities of the lost in order to win them. We don't want to seem too "square" and culturally unaware so things like lighting up a cigarette isn't seen as sin but as a way to relate. Same with drinking, or using bad language, etc... I think under it all we know that these things are wrong but that we've been listening to the enemy (who knows how to best manipulate sin in order to lead believers away from God) who lies to us and tells us that we must do as they do for them to become one of us. Jesus never once participated in any activity that was not pure or holy. He was able to hang out with sinners on their turf, teach them about the Kingdom, lead them to life change and make new friends all without once compromising what the Father called him to do. That is our example. We MUST follow it!

I'm not sure how clearly I've communicated my thoughts but I suppose it's a descent first effort of writing a blog. If anything, maybe this will open a discussion between you and me (maybe even over a beer). :)