Be Ye Kind

My experience at CBU hasn't necessarily been the best due to transfer problems, bad professors, and discrimination against me participating in certain events because I am in the DCP (Degree Completion Program). Although, they do have a wonderful cafeteria!

BUT my favorite experience has to be every time I go to the bathroom...this sign makes me laugh every time!

By Your Side

"By Your Side" has ministered to me so many times. It has helped me get through some tough days. I just close my eyes and let the words minister to my heart. It is by Tenth Avenue North. You can listen to the song in the video below the lyrics.

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

(Chorus 2x)

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go

(Chorus 2x)

Nominalism in the Church

John Piper talks about Christian nominalism. This is a great video that is very short. Please check it out.

Nominalism: The doctrine holding that abstract concepts, general terms, or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names.

People want to receive Jesus as sin forgiver because they like being guilt free, rescuer from hell because they don’t want to burn, healer because they want to be disease free, protector because they want to be safe, and prosperity giver because they want money.

People want heaven but they wouldn’t mind if Jesus wasn’t there. They want to go to heaven without being heavenly minded here on earth.

I always like to share1 Corinthians 16:22: “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed.”

One must love Jesus to go to heaven.

What a Great Reminder

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing" (1 Cor 13:1-3, ESV).

Nothing will be profitable unless it is done in love. This is a great reminder for me! No wonder Jesus told us to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves, because nothing will be gained unless it is done in love.

What love is: patient, kind, and it rejoices with truth. It bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things; it never ends.

What love is not: envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. It does not seek its own, it is not irritable or resentful, and it does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

In order to know love we must know God, because "God is love" (1 John 4:8).

The only way we can act in love is if we are in love with the King!

CTA...GAY?

We truly live in a crazy society. Since I work for the CNUSD and I am taking classes at CBU on education, I am learning that the school district in California is messed up! Did you know the California Teachers Association (CTA) sent $1 million of union dues in order to campaign against Prop. 8? There have been so many teachers that have been fired due to a "lack of funds." Obviously there isn't a lack of funds if the CTA can donate $1 million to support gay marriage. Many teachers that do not support Prop. 8 are angry because the CTA is using their money in this campaign. The sad thing is, I work at a public school and I haven't even heard about this, but I am thankful that my father did. There is only one word that comes to mind when thinking about this: corruption.

Joseph or Jesus?

The following is taken from the Mormon Research Ministry (mrm.org). It is a quiz that is offered to Mormons in order to help them understand that they make extreme statements about Joseph Smith. Upon first reading it, Mormons would say that the correct answer to each question is Jesus. Although, each quote is specifically talking about Joseph Smith. The intention of this post is to help us contend for the faith and share the true Jesus with those of the Mormon faith; to point away from Joseph Smith and lead them to the deity of Christ.

1. His teachings "are the foundation of our faith. Everything we have is a lengthened shadow of [him]."
2. "I pray we may learn from his example, that we might incorporate into our lives the great principles which he so beautifully taught; that we ourselves might emulate him;..."
3. "I honor and revere [his] name... I delight to hear it; I love it. I love his doctrine... I am his witness."
4. "He died for those he loved. He reigns in the realms above."
5. "The more I learn of him, the more I love and revere him."
6. "I look to him. I love him. I seek to follow him."
7. "He not only gave us joy, happiness and opportunity here, but also a great hope in the life to come."
8. "Today, this Sabbath day, in many thousands of congregations, perhaps as many as twenty-one thousand, in many areas of the earth, our people have sung or will sing the praises of [him]."
9. "Of noble seed, of heavenly birth, he came to bless the sons of earth."
10. He was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."
11. "Church members are interested in learning more about [him] because they love him and they love the gospel he brought forth."
12. "How great indeed is our debt to him. ...Great is his glory,... We stand in reverence before him... Let us not forget him. Let not his memory be forgotten in the celebration of Christmas."
13. "...and he shall stand in due time on the earth, in the flesh, and fulfill that to which he is appointed."
14. "The light, provided to the world by [him], illuminates the confusion, clarifies the principles of the gospel, and helps lead men and women to their own eternal reward, if they will but endure to the end."
15. The "work that has been carried out by President Young and his brethren [of the Twelve] has been in accordance with the plans, and designs, and Spirit, and instructions of [him]."
    

If you would like to see the sources for all these quotes, click here: sources

"Glory!"

Psalm 29:9 (ESV)

The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth
and strips the forests bare,
and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”
Psalms 29:9

Wow. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), so shouldn't everything in us cry out "Glory!" to the Lord just as everyone, or all, did in Psalm 29? Shouldn't every single thing we do be crying out "Glory!" to the Lord? Oh Lord, help us.

God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him.

Persecution or Seduction?

Charles Spurgeon, writing 150 years ago, speaks poignantly to the problem in the church today: "I believe," he asserted, "that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church."

Do Christians face persecution here in America? Most people would say no, but I disagree. C.J. Mahaney believes that Christians aren't persecuted merely in a physical manner:

Today, the greatest challenge facing American evangelicals is not persecution from the world, but seduction by the world. Unlike so many of our Christian brothers and sisters who live in countries with oppressive regimes—where the church is flourishing, by the way—we in America don’t face imminent threat to our families, livelihoods, and well-being for professing faith in Christ. Our peril is far more obscure and far more insidious. We aren’t under attack from without; we’re decaying from within. Our success as ambassadors for Christ, as witnesses of the life-changing power of the gospel, hangs in the balance.

Our persecution is in the form of seduction from worldly lifestyles. As soldiers of Christ, let us stand up against the worldliness we face daily here in America. Let us neither be conformed to the world nor contaminated by it.

Inspired by the book Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World, Edited by C.J. Mahaney.

The Prosperity Gospel

The Prosperity Gospel Promises Health and Wealth

Please watch this short video:


The Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον) means “Good News.” Sadly, many people think that the Good News is that they will be healed of all sickness, become rich, never struggle financially, and will live a prosperous life if they follow Jesus. They think that the Good News means that they will live the American ream! That is completely wrong! We need to be living in the Father’s will, not the American dream.

It is not about living “Your best life now” but about looking forward to your best life in heaven. If Jesus wanted to have his best life on this earth, he would not have drank the cup of the Father’s wrath that He asked to be passed from Him. He would not have gone to the cross to become sin for us. If Jesus lived by the “Your best life now” lifestyle, He would not have died on the cross and I would not be a Christian. So I am extremely thankful that He did not live that lifestyle, and we shouldn’t live it either!

The Good News is that we get to become children of God and not experience the wrath of God against our innumerable amount of sin. We don’t have to experience this wrath because Jesus experienced it for us. We get to have fellowship with the living God in the present age and when we get to heaven. It is glorious! The Good News is that we don’t get what we deserve, and we get what we don’t deserve. Jesus took the full penalty of sin upon his body on Calvary, died, and rose again on the third day,so that we may become children of God. That is the Good News

THE GOSPEL

Christians should tell others about the gospel (Matthew28:18-19)

The gospel’s message is for everyone (Luke 24:46-47)

People should respond to the gospel with faith (John 1:12)

The gospel is powerful (Romans 1:16)

The gospel of Jesus (1 Corinthians15:1-5)

Believing the gospel brings a change to life (1 Thessalonians1:4-5)

In his book Crazy Love, Francis Chan says: It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.

Let us believe in the true gospel and not be fooled by this idea of prosperity.

Creative!

Just to show that I was thinking about Michelle while she was gone in Philadelphia, I decided to get creative with some play-doh and blocks while at work! All for her =)

What Did Jesus Become?

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption-- ³¹ that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:30-31).

Jesus is all of my wisdom, all of my righteousness, all of my sanctification, and all of my redemption. These are wonderful truths and also great promises. I don’t have to try and seek great knowledge because Jesus is my wisdom. I don’t have to try to do righteous deeds to gain favor because Jesus is my righteousness. I don’t have to try to get closer to God on my own because Jesus is my sanctification. I don’t have to pay for my sins because Jesus is my redemption.

Most important of all:

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor 5:21).

When I reflect on what Jesus became for me, I cannot glory in myself. It forces me to “glory in the LORD.”

Ambiguous

Ambiguous is defined as being unclear or open to many interpretations. This is a picture of a t-shirt that I recently bought. It makes me think of all the kids I work with at the middle school and how they are so confused in life. Then I started thinking about how our whole society is so unclear and open to so many different interpretations and values because they do not know how to define truth. This shirt shows a good description of the youth of our culture! Let us start for truth in this ambiguous culture.

Crazy Times

While standing on the second floor of Independence Hall in the dining hall, I looked out the window and started talking with some of the brothers. We talked about how different the city must of been when Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were being signed. We were just staring out of the window thinking about how crazy everything in the world is. I wonder what the founding fathers of our country would say if they could see our economy/society/culture/moralality. It would be pretty interesting! All I have to say is...Maranatha!

This is the area we were at when we thought about these "profound" thoughts, lol.

Philadelphia, P.A.

Since my girlfriend is in Philadelphia, I have been thinking about my past trip there in July 2008 with the SWAT team. I will never forget Love Park and how we were able to just love on the people there. It was such a wonderful place to witness at and share some true love where there isn't any love. Encouraging the churches to share their faith was also a great blessing. The historical sights such as Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and "the Rocky steps," were all really cool to see. Oh, and the cheese steaks were amazing!

I met a man named John Johnson at Love Park, where we had a wonderful conversation about the Lord and was able to give him clear understanding of what Jesus did on the cross. He told me his two main goals in life were to get baptized and follow the Lord's word. I was like "Oh snap, I can baptize you right there in dat fountain!" But, he didn't want to. When I got home I sent John a Bible and a few resources for his spiritual walk. It was so cool receiving a letter back from him and I can't wait to respond back.

When thinking of Pennsylvania, I am reminded of William Penn's prayer that is mounted on a wall in the middle of City Hall.

William Penn's Prayer for Philadelphia, 1684

"And Thou Philadelphia the virgin settlement of this province named before thou wert born, what care, what service, what travail have there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee. O that thou mayest be kept from the evil that would overwhelm thee, that faithful to the God of thy mercies in the life of righteousness, thou mayest be preserved to the end. My soul prays to God for thee that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thye children may be blest of the Lord and thy people saved by His power."