Fired Up

If you got it flaunt it!

2009-02-17T12:37:00.005-05:00

You know the human body is a wonderful mystery! You can look on the outside and for the most part tell quite a bit about a person. For example if you were to see a person that was one solid muscle you could assume that that person spends quite a bit of time in devotion to their body. Now of course, there are those people with the natural genetic code that makes them naturally muscular or toned. But without a good bit of regular maintenance, that body will eventually fall. You could also look at a person's hair. Take one look at a person's hair, and it is usually obvious if that person cares what their hair looks like. Clothes... the same thing and on and on the list goes. This is were I become bothered. You see for all of the things that we are able to communicate on the outside by just what we look like or the clothes that we wear, we are very incapable of showing the world what we are like on the inside by what we show on the outside without the use of our mouths.

I say all of this to say this, the Lord has been so good to me! I wish that the world could know how good. I wish that I could wear one of those signs that you see people wearing in big cities to advertise a store or play. I would do this just so I could express how good that our God is to us. Because, after all, how do we tell people of the goodness of God. Can they see into our hearts and our lives and see what failures we were and then see in the same moment how good the Lord was to us in our lives, by seeing the circumstances and the events that He has orchestrated? Of course not! So I guess the real question is how do I get the word out? How do I "testify" to the goodness of my God in my life? I think that the answer lays in the small 4 letter word used earlier in this paragraph. TELL! That's right TELL! We must tell the world of His Love and Goodness and Mercy, and His working in our lives. After all, if we don't tell them then they will never know.

I think this is a wonderful way for us to view 1 Samuel 16:7 - But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” - ESV

The Lord tells us Himself that man is looking on the outside, so let's get the word out!

The Amazing Race worked!

2009-01-03T18:43:00.004-05:00

WOW! What a wonderful night of fun and excitement during The Amazing Race! 37 teens as race participants and 24 adult volunteers, and the house was packed. I would like to thank all of the adults for their help. It was cold, and some of you just sat out there and did not let it bother you at all. I would like to say awesome job, to the teens, you kept moving and had good, honest, wholesome fun.

I think everyone learned just a little bit about the other people on their teams. Things like, the fact that some of you have iron stomachs, slugging down that McDonalds shake concoction which consisted of a Coke, Double Cheeseburger, and fries. Some of you had no qualms about diving into a pan of pudding after some gummy bears. Some of you wanted nothing to do with putting anything in your mouth. I learned that not as many of you are as smart as I thought you were. Those riddles were too easy! I guess next time I will have to put them on the 5th grade level, like the history questions. We learned that Rudy can take all of you at four square.

The night for me was absolutely fulfilling and God honoring. Thank you to all that had a hand in putting it together. I look forward to seeing you all again next year!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T11:15:00.002-05:00

It is with all of my heart that I wish everyone one of you a Very Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful morning I had with my family. I woke up at 5.30 this morning trying to beat the kids up, and managed to knock down all of the decorations on the mantle. When my youngest woke up and saw her brand new Wii she looked at her mother and said, "what is it?". She was very unimpressed until she was bowling down the screen. What made the day for watching my oldest daughter opening her very first bible. She loved it and it showed! To send me over the top I walked back into the room later and saw her reading Matt 1. She was truly happy and excited to have very first bible that was all her own, and was quick to show me the differences in Matt 1and Luke 2 that we read earlier in the morning.

What a challenge to me, to treasure the Word of God as much as she did this morning. How we should all enjoy the Word like a little child. I hope that this morning every reader of this blog is able to testify to the love that they have for their bible. As I told my daughter, "where your parents, friends, jobs, monies, and plans will fail you, the Word of God will always be true!"

So to you, Merry Christmas! Enjoy the Word, and thank God for coming to this earth for you and allowing the very breath that you are breathing now.

Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T09:48:00.002-05:00

This morning I woke up to a house full of family and have the anticipation of friends arriving later. I smell food cooking and hear my children playing. I am able to sip coffee and read my bible. I am warm in my house at a perfect 68 degrees. I am able to look out at the cold and don't have to wake up in it. It was all of this that the Lord used to prompt in my heart a desire to read a Psalm of praise and of thanksgiving. I opened up to Psalm 145. WOW! With all that the Lord has given us we ought to truly be thankful and offer our praise. Let this be my public giving of THANKS to my Lord for all that he has done for me. Notice, I say for me. Although I am extremely thankful for what my family has been blessed with and how the Lord our God has provided for them, the only person that I can truly offer my thanksgiving for is me!

My prayer for all of you is that you are able to give thanks for your lives. Though the Lord our God deserves thanks from every mouth with breath, is only in the regenerate heart that we are able to truly offer it up. My prayer is that everyone will realize that who ever has the Son has life and who ever does not have the Son has not life!

Lord, I thank You first for Your Salvation! When I think of what life would be like without Your intervention and grace, and mercy, WOW! Where would I be? Where would I be headed?

Lord, I thank You for Your grace! It is truly Your grace that has given me everything, and it is Your grace that keeps my heart beating and my lunges breathing. Your grace is what provides my needs and sustains my life. If it were not for Your grace I would have nothing. John 1:16

Lord, I thank You for Your mercy in my life! Lord, I know truly that if it were not for Your mercy not only would I be separated from you for eternity, but my life here would have been destroyed a long time ago. It was Your mercy that kept me, and Your mercy that keeps me everyday! How can I say enough to give Your mercy enough credit and glory? Lord, You are truly merciful! Psalms 40:11

Lord, I thank You for my wife! You have given me a wonderful gift in my wife. She meets every need that I have and is a wonderful encouragement to me. My only prayer is that I am able to reciprocate to her the gifts that she gives to me everyday.

Lord, I thank You for my children! How could I be so blessed to have any better children than what You have provided me. You have called one of them to Yourself already and I see Your wooing in the other. Thank You!

Lord, I thank You for my church! What a wonderful gift You have given me in a church that cares for me and wants the best for my life. Thank You for its' leadership and their desire to serve You!

Lord, I thank You for the ministry that You have entrusted to me! How could I ever have imagined that You would have blessed me with souls to care for and sheep to Shepherd! You have enriched my life with these your sheep that You have entrusted to me to care for and to feed. Thank You so much! I am so unworthy! You are awesome!

Lord, last of all, let me thank You for my friends You have most recently brought in my life; godly friends who desire to see me grow! How wonderful you are! I am so thankful for my "Ephesians 4" friends!

This is in no way an all inclusive list. That is not my intent. My intent is to acknowledge the Lord in my life, and give thanks for His gifts.

Lord, I offer my thanksgiving to You! I pray that You will be pleased with my offering. I fully acknowledge that you regard obedience over sacrifice. Lord may I always be obedient to Your Word over my own heart!

Thank You

AMAZING RACE

2008-11-14T15:23:00.006-05:00

I am truly excited! Two days ago I posted a call for help and the response has been great. 24 hours later and I am already 25% towards where I need to be. Where am I headed do you ask? To the Amazing Race BBC style! This New Years Eve the CROSSfire youth group is going to put on one of the most exciting and thrilling events of the year. Now I can't give away what the actual events are going to entail or give away the prizes but I can assure you that they are going to be awesome.

Some of you have already contacted me and asked what you need to do. Well here it is. If you are have already graduated from high school than you need to contact me and volunteer to help run the event. If you are not yet graduated and in the 7th grade or higher than you need to go to the BBC book store and cafe and sign up your 3 or 4 person team. Here is how I would do it. I would pick someone that is smart, someone that is strong, and someone with good common sense to be on my team. You are going to need all of those to be competitive.

The cost is going to be $10 per person to compete. Now I know that I said $7.50 before but let me tell you why I had to go to $10. This $10 is going to get you food, team arm bands, and help pay for the prizes for the winners. I think that everyone will agree that this $10 will be very well spent and go a long way in having a fun, and safe time on New Years.

Check in for the event will start at 9.00pm on New Years Eve and parents will need to pick up their teens at 9.00am on New Years day.

I am so excited about this and I hope that you all are too. Invite a friend, invite two. If you do then you already have a team. Here are a few things that you might want to consider when planning for this night of fun.

1. Bring a change of clothes (you never know what the event might be)
2. Do not bring IPODS, or personal game systems (we will have all of that for you)
3. Bring a good attitude and willingness to have fun (I will personally guarantee your good time)
4. Bring a flashlight (it's going to be dark)
5. Bring a big appetite

I look forward to seeing everyone there and very soon you will be able to find out more about this Amazing Race on bbcfnc.org

Idols of the heart.

2008-10-23T18:25:00.003-04:00

I have been confronted with how little we know about the god that we worship. Now I use the god with a lower case g, and not the name God on purpose. We all serve some god, for that is how we are created as people, to worship. What is apparent to me however is that we just don't always realize who exactly is the god that we are serving at any particular time.

If Col 3:23, and 1 Cor 10:31 are true than we should be doing all to the glory of God. All! Waking up, putting clothes on, school work, career work, witnessing, serving, loving, sports practice. I think we get the point. ALL! So if we are doing something that does not glorify God, who does it glorify? Where do those actions that are not glorifying come from and who are they intended to serve?

I would suggest, and not I, but many smart people that have come and gone before me, that we often have put ourselves in the place of God and therefore have built ourselves up as god of our own life. When I am awakened by my alarm clock at 6:00 am. and do not want to get up because I am tired, rather than rolling out of bed so that I have time to spend with the Lord God before the day begins, I am choosing to worship myself. When I am treated unfair at home by my family and I choose to retaliate or be as equally unfair, I have decided that I am the one that deserves justice, not the very God that gave His innocent life for mine. I am then worshiping myself and my desire to be treated right.

You see we all are worshipers of someone. I just think that many of us serve the god self, rather than the One True God, and Lord of all Jesus the Christ. It is easy for us to look back on the life of bible characters like David and see when he was serving and worshiping his self. However we see that David knew of his wickedness and tendency to place himself first. Psalm 58:3, and 51:5 are clear reminders that we all are wicked and seek after our own. Are we able to see this in our own lives?

I find that for myself I have to take the time and see what idols are truly in my heart. Sometimes I don't know what to call them but the bible called them things like, fear of man, conformity to the world, evil desires, lust and pride. These all play on individual pleasure and desire, rather than the ultimate glory of God.

So tonight when you are alone with the T.V., think about whom you are serving. Tomorrow when your alarm goes off, who will be the God of that moment? The next time someone is rude to you, who will deserve justice? I hope and pray that we will all serve the Lord and God of all Jesus the Christ.

Practicing what I preach!

2008-10-02T20:51:00.002-04:00

I have what most people would call a fairly boring routine in the mornings. I start my day one of two ways. If the girls went to bed at a decent hour the night before then I will wake up at about 4:30 am., spend 20 minutes in the shower and then poor myself a cup of coffee on the way out the door headed to the gym. If the girls did not get to bed at a decent hour then I will get up about 4:45 am., read my bible and then wake the girls up at 6:00. While they are getting up then I will listen to 88.7 where Dr. David Jeremiah comes on at 6:30am. During this rather monotonous routine the other day, I heard Dr. Jeremiah say this, "As a preacher if you are going to preach about something then you better be ready to experience it."

Well I have been making quite a big deal about "counting it all joy" as the Apostle James tells us to do in the book of James. I know that I am not a great preacher but never the less I have been shucking it about being able to count it all joy when we find ourselves in a time of trial or testing; knowing that those trials will bring forth a perfect or mature Christian. Well let me just say that the last 5 months or so have been quite the trial for my family and I: learning to balance schedules and family time; trying to know when to agree to participating in something and knowing when to just spend the time as a family. We have also been learning our new roles in the youth group. None of this has been easy and I don't think that we have gotten it all right, all of the time. Never the less I think that we have been able to say that we count are counting it all joy. Well that is with the church. My day job is a totally different story.

The past 5 months for me have a been a failure in this area of "counting it all joy" at work. I find it physically exhausting to be at work, and that is after 5 minutes of being there. Well today I was told that the job that I was promised that would facilitate my transition to working full time at the church has been taken away. Let me tell you that when I heard that "counting it all joy" was the last thing on my mind. Then what Dr. Jeremiah said came to my mind. Wow! What a hit in the forehead by the hand of God. When I got home I told my family about the trial that I was now facing and my eight year old immediately reminded me that it was my job to "count it all joy". WOW! Sometimes even eight year olds get it. Even when thirty year olds don't.

I know that we as a youth group have gone through a lot of changes this summer. Some of you are just absolutely tore up over them. I know this. My hope for you is that your Advocate knows what it is like to be separated from His world and to be placed here where He lived a perfect and sinless life so that you could have hope. I am praying for everyone one of you and I hope that you know that. I, in no way feel that I am smart enough, talented enough, or spiritual enough to lead you. My only gift is that the Lord has truly given me a love for you, and a desire to see you grow into Godly adults.

May the Lord grant us all the grace and the faith that we need to "count it all joy"!

Let's get started!

2008-10-02T19:29:00.002-04:00

Well here I go. I am off into the blogoshpere! My truest desire is to find more ways to communicate with those that the Lord has put into my path. I realize that everyone communicates in different ways and that for some this will be a very effective tool to communicate. So with that being said, here I go. I hope that you all enjoy and I really look forward to your feedback and interaction.