So far, so good

Bible study has been everything I hoped it to be so far. I am at the basic stage now. At this point, before I read, I pray for insight from the Holy Spirit then read a particular chapter or passage. Then meditate on it until I find the application for my life. Then, write out a personal, practical, possible and provable application and then memorize 1 verse to help me remember the study and application. The studies have opened my eyes to ugly stumbling blocks in my personality. Namely, some of my buried predjudices that I didn't realize were still there and hampering my walk with the Lord. I am sure many more ugly and less desirable traits will be revealed soon.

It is really exciting for me because I know God is preparing me for His Glory and, at the same time, I am scared. Scared that I won't be humble enough to be all the He wants me to be. This is where His word will help me. I just need to constantly remind my self that it is not about me, it is about Jesus. I need to remember to measure myself to Him and no one else.

Always in His sight,
Me

In-depth Bible study

Hi, I have just finshed reading Next Door Savior by Max Lucado and I recommend it highly. Max has quite a way with words. He really gives you understanding.

Now I am starting on Rick Warren's 12 Bible Study Methods. I'm excited. It will lead me into in-depth Bible study and an understanding I previously didn't have. But it does require some aditional books, like The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and Nave's Topical Bible and Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary and several other biblical reference books. Gonna take some money! But I plan to get at least 1 a month to ease the burden.

That's all for now, God bless!

God is real

Ya know how some people say God doesn't exist? These people say the Bible is just a book written only by men. And, of course, the Da Vinci Code stuff. I got news for you, as far as I am concerned, the God of the Bible is very real and perfectly true to the Bible.

Let me backtrack a little(actually it will probably turn out to be a lot.) Not long after New Years I came to the sobering realization that I would be 40 years old in less than 6 months. If you know me, you know that when I turned 35 I was struck with a depression unlike I had ever known. It was so bad that it contributed to a minor heart attack. Well, I vowed in Janurary to not let that happen again. So I turned to God. At 35 I tried to do it myself and failed miserably. I borrowed Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, read it and it pointed me in the right direction. I am now closer to God than ever before and I know I am getting closer every day.

I am happier, more content, more peaceful, more confident, and more sure about where I am heading than I ever have been. Now, don't get me wrong, life is definitely NOT all peaches and cream. The rain falls on the just and unjust. There are still times when depression creeps in or a ford driver pisses me off on the hi-way, but, the Holy Spirit reels back in and ministers to me. Me! ME! The love of God fills me to overflowing in those times. IT IS REAL! There is a line from a Casting Crowns song that goes: "How refreshing to know you don't need me / How amazing to find that you want me"

The point is, He wants all of us. All we have to do is trust Him. Then, no matter what life throws at you, God is your rock. And it is all possible because Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane decided He would rather die and go to hell than live and go to heaven without us.

He chose the nails...

He Chose The Nails

Let me know what you think.

The Curtain is Open, Go On In

____________________________________
THE TORN CURTAIN - - -
by Max Lucado

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his
spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two
from top to bottom” (Matt. 27:50-51 NIV).

It’s as if the hands of heaven had been gripping the veil, waiting
for this moment. Keep in mind the size of the curtain—sixty feet
tall and thirty feet wide. One instant it was whole; the next it was
ripped in two from top to bottom. No delay. No hesitation.

What did the torn curtain mean? For the Jews it meant no more
barrier between them and the Holy of Holies. No more priests to go
between them and God. No more animal sacrifices to atone for their
sins.

And for us? What did the torn curtain signify for us?

We are welcome to enter into God’s presence—any day, any time. God
has removed the barrier that separates us from him. The barrier of
sin? Down. He has removed the curtain.

But we have the tendency to put the barrier back up. Though there is
no curtain in a temple, there is a curtain in the heart. Our guilty
conscience becomes a curtain that separates us from God.

As a result we hide from our Master.

That’s exactly what my dog, Salty, does. He knows he isn’t supposed
to get into the trash. But let the house be human free, and the dark
side of Salty takes over. If there is food in a trash can, the
temptation is too great. He will find it and feast.

That’s what he had done the other day. When I came home, he was
nowhere to be found. I saw the toppled trash, but I didn’t see
Salty. At first I got mad, but I got over it. If I was cooped up
all day with only dog food to eat, I might rummage a bit myself. I
cleaned up the mess and went about the day and forgot about it.

Salty didn’t. He kept his distance. When I finally saw him, his
tail was between his legs, and his ears were drooping. Then I
realized, “He thinks I’m mad at him. He doesn’t know I’ve already
dealt with his mistake.”

May I state the obvious application? God isn’t angry with you. He
has already dealt with your mistake.

Somewhere, sometime, somehow you got tangled up in garbage, and
you’ve been avoiding God. You’ve allowed a veil of guilt to come
between you and your Father. You wonder if you could ever feel close
to God again. The message of the torn flesh is you can. God
welcomes you. God is not avoiding you. God is not resisting you.
The curtain is down, the door is open, and God invites you in.

Don’t trust your conscience. Trust the cross. The blood has been
spilt and the veil has been split. You are welcome in God’s presence.
____________________________________
From Next Door Savior
Copyright 2000, Max Lucado
http://www.maxlucado.com/shop/detail2.php?pid=B158H


____________________________________
HE CHOSE THE NAILS VIDEO - - -
Many of you have let us know how much you have enjoyed the online
presentation of He Chose the Nails. As Easter approaches, please
pass on this video to friends, family, churches and whomever else you
think might find it encouraging:
http://hechosethenails.net/

PALM WEEKEND MP3 - - -
Looking for a story to inspire you in the coming Holy Week before
Easter? Download a free MP3 sermon, "The Perfect Story," originally
delivered by Max on Palm Sunday of 2005. Then revisit the following
web page next week for more free MP3 Easter sermons.
http://maxlucado.com/easter/

____________________________________
GIVE IT ALL TO HIM VIDEO - - -
Take 7 minutes to focus on a continual acceptance of Christ's
sacrifice. Watch this video parable and consider the burdens God
desires you to give to Him.
http://maxlucado.com/give.it.all/

Another powerful message

HIS FINAL PRAYER WAS ABOUT YOU - - -
by Max Lucado

As Jesus stepped into the garden, you were in his prayers. As Jesus
looked into heaven, you were in his vision. As Jesus dreamed of the
day when we will be where he is, he saw you there.

His final prayer was about you. His final pain was for you. His final
passion was you.

He steps into the garden, and invites Peter, James, and John to come.
He tells them his soul is “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of
death,” and begins to pray.

Never has he felt so alone. What must be done, only he can do. An
angel can’t do it. No angel has the power to break open hell’s gates.
A man can’t do it. No man has the purity to destroy sin’s claim. No
force on earth can face the force of evil and win—except God.

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” Jesus confesses.

His humanity begged to be delivered from what his divinity could see.
Jesus, the carpenter, implores. Jesus, the man, peers into the dark
pit and begs, “Can’t there be another way?”

Did he know the answer before he asked the question? Did his human
heart hope his heavenly father had found another way? We don’t know.
But we do know he asked to get out. We do know he begged for an exit.
We do know there was a time when if he could have, he would have
turned his back on the whole mess and gone away.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t because he saw you. Right there in the middle of a world
which isn’t fair. He saw you cast into a river of life you didn’t
request. He saw you betrayed by those you love. He saw you with a
body which gets sick and a heart which grows weak.

He saw you in your own garden of gnarled trees and sleeping friends.
He saw you staring into the pit of your own failures and the mouth of
your own grave.

He saw you in your Garden of Gethsemane—and he didn’t want you to be
alone.

He wanted you to know that he has been there, too. He knows what it’s
like to be plotted against. He knows what it’s like to be confused.
He knows what it’s like to be torn between two desires. He knows what
it’s like to smell the stench of Satan. And, perhaps most of all, he
knows what it’s like to beg God to change his mind and to hear God
say so gently, but firmly, “No.”

For that is what God says to Jesus. And Jesus accepts the answer. At
some moment during that midnight hour an angel of mercy comes over
the weary body of the man in the garden. As he stands, the anguish is
gone from his eyes. His fist will clench no more. His heart will
fight no more.

The battle is won. You may have thought it was won on Golgotha. It
wasn’t. You may have thought the sign of victory is the empty tomb.
It isn’t. The final battle was won in Gethsemane. And the sign of
conquest is Jesus at peace in the olive trees.

For it was in the garden that he made his decision. He would rather
go to hell for you than go to heaven without you.

___________________________________
From And the Angels Were Silent
Copyright 1992, Max Lucado

Great little essay

Nice little essay on the void in the soul I wrote about earlier.

Growing Your Soul
by John Fischer



Your soul is the place where you know there is a God even before you meet Him. The soul is that in us which longs for the right thing. And once we come into a relationship with God, it’s the place where we commune with Him. The soul can be filled with God or devoid of Him, but if it is empty, God is the only thing that will fill it. We can throw all sorts of pleasures and loves in there, but none will satisfy like God, because the soul was made to long for Him and no other. When God breathed into Adam, he became a living soul, forever longing for God’s breath to fill him again.


So growing your soul means to enlarge your capacity for God and truth. It’s all about learning to walk with God -- listening to Him through His word and through the natural revelations of Him that come through the things He has made, which includes all the people you know since they were made in God’s image. Growing your soul can also involve finding God in the ordinary life and activities we share in every day. It’s about being more conscious of the presence of God within you as you go about your normal routines of life. Growing your soul doesn’t only happen through spiritual activities like praying and reading the Bible; it can also happen in the way we do everything else. It’s a God-consciousness that enlarges as we grow it. When Paul says to pray without ceasing, he means to be more of a soul-conscious person.


This may be hard sometimes, even for the most mature of believers. We all go through times when everything around us seems dry and barren, spiritually. Our souls still long for God. David’s soul longed for God in a dry and weary land where there was no water (Psalm 63:1), and like a deer panting for water, his soul panted for the Lord (Psalm 42:1).


This is important to know, because it is not a longing that is over once we meet God. We still long for Him because we long to know Him more, and we sometimes lose sight of Him even though we know better. Just as we must regularly take in physical food in order to stay alive, our souls must have spiritual food in order to grow and be healthy. If your soul is undersized, it is because you haven’t been paying attention to it. It’s been telling you all along what it needs and wants. It’s time to do something about it.


[Today’s devotional is taken from John Fischer’s introduction to “The Better Life,” PurposeDrivenLife.com’s free monthly online newsletter. Our current issue is on “Growing Your Soul,” and it is going out today. Sign up here to have yours delivered to your email address.]

6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. -
John 14:6 (New International Version)

My original girl

5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
- Matthew 19:5-6

I was reading a blog that has awesome writing, she eloquently lays bare her emotions almost every day, and she was talking about relationships and such and I posted a comment that was way too long so I just cut and pasted it here.
2 or so months before I met my wife I had just ended another empty relationship and by empty I mean neither one of us were getting what we needed. I came to realize I was fairly pathetic, I was 25, I had no direction, no purpose, no ambition, I drank too much, I smoked too much(cigarettes and weed), and I could not "connect" in a relationship to save my life.

This revelation brought me to tears. Through these tears I talked to God. First time in many years. Well I take that back, I yelled and cursed at God many times prior to that day. None of it justified. Anyway, I told Him what I wanted in a mate. Tops on the list was that she had to be a good person from a good and decent family, integrity and truthfulness was up there too. Good looking was mentioned but was quantified with "at least something about the outside that would match the inside" As I was telling Him this I came to realize that this type of girl would probably be found in a church.(duh) So I told Him that I would be open to a church going girl, I told Him I promise to try going to said church if He would just send me the one.
Well, short story long, the day I met my wife, I didn't realize it yet but deep down I knew she was "THE One" To this day, I can tell you exactly what she was wearing, what we said to each other, and what I said after she walked away, that was 15 years ago. We complete and compliment each other. I got what I needed in a mate and she got what she needed.

I didn't remember the little talk with God until many months later when we were talking engagement. I was floored. God listened to an honest heartfelt plea from someone who resented and cursed Him. Not only did He listen, He gave me everything I had asked for. I firmly believe that our purpose and happiness are planned out by God since before time. My wifes experiences and upbringing made her the perfect one for me and vice versa. The point is, I knew that I could love this girl for the rest of my life and never ever regret it. I knew it with every fiber of my being. I thank God for her.

Word of advice from experience, if want ability to cook in a mate, you better ask for it! :-)

Easy to be misled...

I'm worried about my friend. I don't really, really know him, except from the internet, but it has been a couple of years. I think he's pretty much lost and wandering. He has, to an extent, said as much. I believe, very much, the old saying "You have to stand for something or you'll fall for anything" I don't know what my friend stands for. I don't know because, I have been there myself, and see people like this all the time. I have always, at my core, been a logical person. This logic brought me to God.
Let me explain: If you believe in a divine creator, then it would stand to reason that this creator would have a reason for creating you. In essence, the meaning of life. Your life. Understandably if I was creating life, I would want this life to love me. Should I create life that loves me because that is the way I hard wired it to? In other words, basically a mindless robot. Or, should I create it to have a totally free will, give it a mind and hope that life might stumble upon me and hope it loves me? Instead, I would create a being with a free will, a mind of its own. BUT, within that mind I would leave a void. A void designed specifically for me and could only be filled and fulfilled by the creator.
Now this being, with the free will and mind, will try to fill this void with many things. Some things, people, situations, schools of thought may satiate for a bit, but the hole remains. The other things may feel right but ultimately will fail to give us the need that only the creator can fill and make us whole. Once this life realizes that the creator loves them like a father loves his children, and the life accepts this love, this life is complete, feels full, sees purpose and a plan, no longer feels lost. The Creator happy, the created happy.
I believe everyone and everything has a purpose. Every life will fit into the purpose and the plan, but it has to chose to.
When we look elsewhere for fulfillment we can easily be fooled into believing we only have to look inside ourselves to find our purpose. That is tantamount to making ourselves gods. Eckhart Tolle is a perfect example. What he is speaking about is essentially New Age Godless "spirituality" Spirituality with out God is, really, just introspection. And borderline occult. I don't know about you, but, inside me isn't too pretty. I ain't talking about my organs either.
I want to be better than me, better, until, it is me, then, I want to be even better.



God is the love He gives to you and the love you give away. There doesn't seem to be much love in this world. that is, until that void is filled. Let me tell you something, God can cram a whole lotta love into that void until it just overflows to everyone around you. And you know what, this stinking world gets just a little bit better. This life is just a test for eternity. Answers for final exam found in your local Holy Bible. Study hard.

Mark 8:36: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but, loses his own soul?

Cheney fiasco

Ok, I might as well chime in, I think this needs more attention. :-) The only problem I had with it was Cheney delaying the inevitable. Now, my immediate reaction was that it was evil, the guy would die and the situation would be swept under the rug. Nice perception I have of our Veep, huh.
It turns out, this accident just highlighted Vice's total disdain for the public. It also created the perception of impropriety. I think there is more to the story. I think maybe Dick was drunk or tipsy, that was why no one knew until later Sunday after Tricky Dick sobered up. Sure Dick, you wanted to make sure info was correct...and not slurred. Maybe? I thought Bush was the stupid one? This country is in a lot more trouble than I thought.
Heed my words. If W. and Dick could get away with it, we would not have an election for a very long time, if ever. The war on tare has to be won. (and they can't leave any profits on the table. After all, you can never have to much money. You never know if you might shoot someone else.)

Been awhile...

Long time, no see. Had some personal changes to my heart. I read the book "The Purpose Driven Life" and it changed my focus from myself to God. I'm not telling you this to toot my own horn. I am telling you this because of what it did for me. It helped me to become the man I always wanted to be. A Godly man. When you look at me I want you to see the God in my life. Without God I am lost, a rudderless ship on the ocean. With God I am complete. No emptiness inside me anymore, forevermore.

Whether you feel empty, or lost or you think you got it all figured out, I reccomend God and His Son and the HolySpirit to you. You will not believe the peace that will come over you when you acknowledge and confess that you are a sinner and lost, confess your belief that Jesus died for you and then rose the third day to prove He is the Son of God. Then ask Jesus to come into your life, into your heart and help you to be the person God wants you to be. The funny thing is you won't change drastically. Just your ways will get better. God loves you as you are right now, but He wants to love you for eternity. Wouldn't it be nice to chose to live forever with someone who will love you absolutely forever. Amen.

Verse for this post: Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)
5: Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding
6: In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path.

Low Class

Why is it that people who are miserable want to make other people miserabler? Why are those type of people somehow always wind up around me? Why do these people always want something for nothing? Why do they constantly threaten lawsuits? Do they think I am a simpleton and do not have common sense? Why do they think I do not know my property lines? Why do people think I am as stupid as they are?

What goes around, comes around, you PATHETIC, LOW CLASS, FOUL-MOUTHED, OLD MAID, LOON!!!!!

Ok, I feel better now.

$3.00?!?

$3 again?!? Natural gas going up 77% in my area!?! As long as big corporations are making billions of dollars per quarter, that's all I care about! Bush et al want us to be a third world country. Filthy rich(them) unwashed masses(us) Even John Kerry looks good now! I thought Bush would be the lesser of 2 evils. Not so sure now.

Republicrat?

Thanks to Bush's and Taft's ineptitudes, I will probably vote democrat next elections. That is if they can come up with a platform better than "We're not Republican!" I still don't understand how Dems can look at you with a straight face and say "It's a womens choice to kill her baby, but, you better not kill that convicted murder!!!" Or how they can look at able bodied poor people who have been on welfare all their lives but somehow manage to have a big screen TV and drive a brand new Nissan, and say that these people need our help! Welfare is supposed to be a hand up, not a hand out!
Geez, I've almost talked my self out of it already!

More later, I gotta sleep

Hello

Just getting started. It's late. That's as witty as I can be.