I'm out of the loop, I can't do this anymore or like Michael Stipe, I might lose my religion if I listen to anymore of this "discerning" crap. I know our God, my family knows our God and with His help whoever I can reach will know our God.
So I bid adieu to Ken, Phil, Ingrid and all your watch poodle friends. You might not hear from me, but He'll hear me praying for you.
This is a great page to get all the "buzz" on the presidential race. The links below:
"Wonkosphere is for all political bloggers, writers and political enthusiasts who need to stay on top of the 2008 Presidential race but can't spend all day searching for the hottest and most relevant material. Wonkosphere tracks over 1,000 political blogs and web sites per day-including yours--and provides analysis of the political buzz that is timely and unbiased.
For each candidate, our unique analysis shows you their share of buzz in conservative and liberal blogs, highlights the most representative posts, and tells you whether the tone of discussion about the candidate is trending up or down. And the daily feature "One Step Ahead" gives prominence to those bloggers whose content was one day ahead of everyone else.
Wonkoblog, the official blog of Wonkosphere, posts timely comments about what's going on in Wonkosphere, and serves as a discussion community for our users."
Thanks to the "Reformed Chick" for the info....
The NCAA Football seasong kicks off today and what a way to start! Tonights game to watch is (2)LSU at Miss St. Some more great match-ups this weekend are:
Georgia Tech at Notre Dame
Oklahoma St. at (13)Georgia
Kansas St. at (18)Auburn
(15)Tenn at (12)Cal
(19)FSU at Clemson
Of course I'm interested in the Gators but playing W.Kentucky didn't quite meet the requirements for "great match-up".
...and disguised as a friendly tomato?
Well not exactly, but one is rotting our kids minds and blocking their walk with Christ! Well according to Slice of Laodicea it is.
Grabbed this little golden nugget off of Joe Thorn's blog:
In his book, Humility, C.J. Mahaney explains that, “Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence on him.”
He then goes on to quote Richard Mayo's sermon on "The Prevention and Cure of Spiritual Pride" in which Richard says when talking about pride:
“It is a big-bellied sin; most of the sins that are in the world are the offspring and issue of pride.”
A few of the examples of these sins sprouted from pride are:
Covetousness - because you believe you deserve something more than others.
Ungodly ambition - because you believe that you are most qualified, and the idea of someone else being preferred over you is an insult to your perceived worth.
Boasting - because everyone should know who you are and what you have accomplished.
Contention - because in picking fights you feel a sense of superiority over those who may (or may not) be in error.
Unthankfulness - because you deserve everything you get!
Selfishness - because others do not!
Self-deceit - because it’s easier to believe you are something, when in fact you are nothing.
A judgmental attitude - because you believe the errors of others are much more serious than your own.
Gossip - because you look so much better when telling others how awful someone else is. Mayo said that the proud “endeavor to build their own praise upon the ruins of others’ reputation.”
Complaining - because God should have consulted you before orchestrating the events of your day/life.
Hypocrisy - because you must hide the truth, your own failures, in order to avoid shame and accumulate praise.
I wonder if "Christ's pastor-teacher" has read this one.
If you haven't seen the work by this guy you have to check it out. He's got some pretty clever cartoons, like a spiritual versions of a political cartoonist.
This one kind of reminds me of a certain of the shoot and hide technique of a group of "discernment experts" who are called to be "Christ's pastor-teachers".
Check him out here ASBO
This is what some people out there call a "God thing". You know something comes along right when you need it, "Man, that was a God thing, right there!" Scrolling through my reader I found this post on Triablogue.
It's like Steve was writing in response to my Stained Glass Masquerade post!
God is here. I just need to shut my mouth sometimes to hear Him.
Searching around on Technorati I've found some other users of the Life Journal that we are using here a Journey and I thought I'd list them over on the left. Just thought it would be a great learning tool to see what other people are grasping in their daily readings.
Leave me a comment with anyone else you know of that's posting their entries!
In his post at IV Marks, How to Prepare Your Church For Discipline, Jonathan Leeman points out some aspects of Jesus' message that somehow get glossed over when teaching the Gospel:
- Christ came to purchase a people out of sin, so that we will sin no more.
- God calls his people to be holy because he is holy.
- We’ve been baptized into the death of Jesus so that the body of sin might be done away with.
- Through the new covenant, God actually changes people—he gives them new hearts and new desires.
- Christ calls his followers to repent and believe.
- A man cannot serve two masters.
- A house divided against itself will not stand.
- What good is salt that has lost its saltiness? It might as well be thrown out and trampled.
- Only he who perseveres to the end will be saved.
- If anyone says “I love God” but hates his brother, he is a liar.
- This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
That, along with a discussion we had last week at our small group about how we can be sure if we are truly walking in His light and not in darkness, got my mind back on a subject that screws me up inside every once in a while. I know that I am far from perfect. We're taught that but when taken in context with the above quotes it seems that I'm falling far short of His expectations. When called to repent, that is a 180 degree turn around and sometimes I feel like I'm stuck at 90. I'm luke-warm when Jesus demands that I be hot or cold. I feel like I should be on the blunt end of the accusations Jesus hurled at the Pharisees.
Thank you Disney (never thought I'd say that)! HSM is awesome and my girls love it. Even my 3 yr. old son danced around the house with his basketball singing "Get Your Head in the Game. My wife and I are big Grease fans but I don't know, these kids got it goin on. One thing I realized after watching them both pretty recently is how raunchy Grease actually is. Nothing overly conspicuous but still. I love this review for HSM from Time magazine:
Emmanuel Moody has picked the Gators over the Tarheels. This looks to be an awesome pick up and with his mandatory year off he'll have plenty of time to get Urban's system down. Among his accolades last year were the 2006 The Sporting News Freshman All-American honorable mention and also The Sporting News Pac-10 Offensive Freshman of the Year. A years a long time to wait but I think it will be worth it!
Here's a shot of my bro Bob Marceaux, aka Marso, aka Crazy Bald Cajun, aka The Asian Cajun. He just recently took a hop across the pond to Tokyo, Japan where he will be living for the next year. His family will be following soon. After that they'll be in Singapore for 2 years! What an opportunity to discover another culture and take his love for Jesus "...to the ends of the Earth." We'll miss them all.
"I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church Movement in its early days…. I had to distance myself, however, from one of many streams in the emerging church because of theological differences. Since the late 1990s, this stream has become known as Emergent. The emergent church is part of the Emerging Church Movement but does not embrace the dominant ideology of the movement. Rather, the emergent church is the latest version of liberalism. The only difference is that the old liberalism accommodated modernity and the new liberalism accommodates postmodernity" (p. 21).
Excerpt from Mark Driscoll's Confessions of a Reformission Rev. (Zondervan, 2006
1. You talk more about the Kingdom of God than you do your local church.
2. You are more in awe of the radical Jesus than you are the charisma of your pastor/preacher.
3. You feel a greater sense of community in the parking lot than in the pews.
4. You've oftened muttered leaving a 'church service', "there's got to be more to it than this".
5. You've often wondered why the church couldn't meet in the park or Starbucks once in a while.
6. You've cringed at the coldness and indifference of church people when someone shows up at our 'church service' that looks and smells different.
7. You've wondered why Christians only hang-out with Christians when Jesus seemingly never missed an opportunity to party with the riff-raff.
8. You've wondered what God does the other six days of the week.
9. You've had the urge to spill your guts to the next artificial inquiry, "I'm fine, how are you?".
10. You've had the compelling urge to join the preacher at the podium to present an alternative perspective.
11. You've wanted to fall to your knees while everyone stood for another happy-clappy song.
12. You've wanted to close a 'service' by shouting from your pew, "NOW WHAT?"
13. You sometimes find more spiritual depth and authenticity in the lives of those who do not go to church.
Thanks goes out to Larry Chouinard.
Eurofighter Typhoon jets scrambled for the first time to intercept Russian nuclear bombers approaching British air space, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday.
As relations between Russia and Britain deteriorate, the number of incidents in which Russia's submarines have been found close to British shores or in contact with Royal Navy warships has also risen.
The incident comes as part of continued Russian sabre-rattling by President Vladimir Putin. In two incidents this summer Russian Tu-95 nuclear bombers were spotted heading towards British air space off Scotland and over the US-held territory of Guam.
source: Telegraph.co.uk
Putin has already been outspoken on his desire to build Russia'a military strength back to what is had been in the past, and with their new oil riches this seems likely. His nationalist views are very scary and eerily reminiscent of Adolph Hitler. This is not the last we hear of Vlad!
Thanks to New Era, NY Yankees caps are now being offered in your choice of gang colors! They have the blue bandanna of the Crips, the red bandanna of the Bloods and the Gold Crown for the Latin Kings! Talk about marketing to a specific group. Kind of makes us being chastised for playing contemporary Christian rock music during worship seem a little less evil, huh? The first thing I thought of, and it is mentioned in the story, is this scenario. Say I have no idea what the insignia's mean. I like the hat, I buy it, I get mowed down in a spray of bullets because I unwittingly cross into a "rival" gangs territory. Bad enough they are glorifying this lifestyle, but innocent victims will pay for it. Here's the hats to stay clear of:
Desiring God has posted the videos from this years conference, looks like some great viewing to be had!
Here's the titles and speakers:
The Supremacy of Christ and Joy in a Postmodern World - John Piper
The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World - David Wells
The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World - Tim Keller
The Supremacy of Christ and Love in a Postmodern World - D. A. Carson
The Supremacy of Christ and Truth in a Postmodern World - Voddie Baucham
The Supremacy of Christ and the Church in a Postmodern World - Mark Driscoll
A Conversation with the Pastors - Piper, Driscoll, Keller
Speaker Panel
Found a link to the ESV Bible Onlne over at 5 Pointers blog. He pointed out a nice feature when getting into some serious reading and studying. Under options you can turn off the headings, chapters, and verse numbers. Who knows, maybe all online bibles have this feature, but it's pretty cool and I think it will come in handy.
Here's a great site to get some traffic to your site. It let's you post your blog and then you review it yourself. Who better knows what your site is about then you? Follow this link to get yourself on the sonar, Blog Reviews.
Here's a clever post on "A Little Leaven" that helped reinforce my stand against the "Dr. Phil" method of reaching the lost.
Depends on the listener, see scientific case study below (no, not really):
An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.
"Well," said the farmer, "it was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns."
"Praise choruses?" said his wife. "What are those?"
"Oh, they're OK. They are sort of like hymns, only different," said the farmer.
"Well, what's the difference?" asked his wife.
The farmer said, "Well, it's like this - If I were to say to you "Martha, the cows are in the corn"' - well, that would be a hymn. If on the other hand, I were to say to you:
Martha, Martha, Martha,
Oh Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA,
the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows
the white cows,
the black and white cows,
the COWS, COWS, COWS
are in the corn,
are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn,
the CORN, CORN, CORN.
Then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well, that would be a praise chorus."
The next weekend, his nephew, a young, new Christian from the city came to visit and attended the local church of the small town. He went home and his mother asked him how it was.
"Well," said the young man, "it was good. They did something different however. They sang hymns instead of regular songs."
"Hymns?" asked his mother. "What are those?"
"Oh, they're OK. They are sort of like regular songs, only different," said the young man.
"Well, what's the difference?" asked his mother.
The young man said, "Well, it's like this - If I were to say to you 'Martha, the cows are in the corn' - well, that would be a regular song. If on the other hand, I were to say to you:
Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry
Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth
Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by
To the righteous, inimitable, glorious truth.
For the way of the animals who can explain
There in their heads is no shadow of sense
Hearkenest they in God's sun or His rain
Unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.
Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight
Have broke free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed
Then goaded by minions of darkness and night
They all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn have chewed.
So look to the bright shining day by and by
Where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn
Where no vicious animals make my soul cry
And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.'
Then if I were to do only verses one, three and four and do a key change on the last verse, well that would be a hymn.
Check out more Musings of an Old Pastor
Thanks, Don
"Well worship to me, in a sense, is really the Gospel. Because it's us dying to ourselves and really giving credit for life, and peace, and love, and everything that we have to God--and thanking Him for those things, and giving Him the credit that He deserves. There's a great scripture in Romans that says, "Brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." It goes on to say that "this is your spiritual act of worship."
A lot of times within America, and within the church, we kind of feel like worship is music and lifting our hands and that's a great part of it, but worship is not just that. Worship is when we die to ourselves and we allow God to come into our lives and change us and live His life through us. That to me is worship."
That's it but if you'd like to hear Mac instead of reading this jump over to worship.net for the video!
Below is the description a 28 year old stay at home mom gave for her blog Suburban Oblivion on Technorati.
28 year old stay at home mom from Alabama. Once dreamed of being a writer, now just dreams of peeing alone and finishing a meal in one sitting.
How many out there..hem..Sheri..can relate to this? Just substitute writer for whatever was given up for motherhood and voila!
This is a great response to the question above. It was given by Bob Kauflin at his blog WorshipMatters.
First, the idea that we should make "seekers" feel more comfortable in church begs for further clarification. We should make sure that unbelievers can understand what's going on in our meetings, and that we're not doing anything to make them feel unwelcome. But it's not our responsibility to make sure they're "comfortable." The church is different from the world. We've gathered to build each other up by rehearsing and celebrating the Gospel, calling to mind God's covenant promises, confess our sins, exercise spiritual gifts, and much more. "To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (1 Cor. 12:7). I wouldn't expect someone who doesn't know the Savior to be totally comfortable in that setting. Our primary goal is to make sure that unbelievers have the opportunity to encounter in some way the grace and truth of God revealed in Jesus Christ, expressed through his church.
Read the rest at the link above! Thanks, Bob.
How's this for a day at the plate:
Garrett Anderson of the LA Angels was 4 for 6. Ok pretty good, but wait there's more.
Those 4 hits consisted of a Grand Slam, a 3-Run HR, a 2-run Double and a 1-run Double! Yes, you added correctly, that's 10 RBI's in one game! Somehow along the way he managed to leave 2 men on base. All this added up to a spanking off the NY Yankees 18-9.
The record is 12 RBI's shared by Jim Bottmoley in 1924 and Mark Whitten in 1993. Whitten accomplished this with 4 HR's against the Reds.
Still, this is one amazing display of hitting!
So what's goin on over at Whitey's Fish Camp. Is this a weekend getaway for Klansmen? Another example of "The Man" exploiting catfish for monetary gain?
I'm sorry Whitey, I couldn't resist. It's actually a highly rated restaurant on the St. John's river. The review linked above says they're known for their "Famous All-U-Can Eat Catfish". I think I passed this place once on the back roads from Orlando to Deland. I know Sheri's mom would like to check it out.
Are you kidding me? This is a headline on tbo.com? A category 5 hurricane was about to wreak havoc on the Yucatian Peninsula and us spoiled Americans are ticked that their travel plans got screwed up. Here's a quote from Megan Kohut of State College, PA:
"I'm highly disappointed," said Kohut, who learned of the change only after she had flown in from Pittsburgh.
What happened, was her cruise cancelled? Nope it was rerouted and her itinerary was changed. Better put her on suicide watch.
I pulled this off of Night Owl's blog....Great analogy!
When I think of my mission here on earth, I am reminded of the term sacrifice as used in baseball. A batter bunts, (sacrifices themselves), in order for a runner to advance bases. In doing so, the batter is not only sacrificing themselves for the base runners, but for the team as a whole. Well now, there’s an interesting thought; when I sacrifice myself for one person, the team benefits. Should and must fit well in this example. The batter could say, “I should bunt” and then choose to just swing for the fence; and maybe get lucky. More than likely, they won’t get lucky; they will simply be an out with nothing to show for it. In the end, the team as a whole pays for the choice. One side thought here. When the coach says you “must” bunt and the player says “I should” bunt, there is going to be a price to pay for that choice. That price is going to be more than simply walking back to the dugout saying, “I ‘should’ have done what was asked of me”. Looking back, there has always been a price when I “should” have done what God asked of me but didn’t.
Thanks!
Check out these airports! Think a couple of prayers are sent up when landing here?
An alarming trend in steroid abuse among figure skaters surfaced this past weekend when Michelle Kwan crashed through the boards while attempting a quadruple axle.
From the New York Times by way of Think Christian here's some interesting things we've learned from the Weekly World News:
Q.: What does God look like?
A.: God “has fiery green eyes, flowing brown hair and stands 9 feet tall.”
Q.: What does God sound like?
A.: “A hundred baritones and a symphony orchestra rolled into one,” as recorded by a Soviet space probe.
Q.: Where is heaven?
A.: Heaven is 28,000 light-years from Earth, according to another space probe.
Q.: Where is hell?
A.: Nine miles below the surface of Earth, according to Soviet engineers drilling in Siberia (the Soviets played a curiously large part in these discoveries). Weekly World News reassured readers that those engineers had capped the hole after smelling smoke and hearing the cries of the damned.
Q.: How do you get to heaven?
A.: Through the Bermuda Triangle — did you have to ask? This was attributed to a Dutch physicist, who also reported that the passage to heaven was open 16 times a year.
Interesting stuff, I can't believe I've never learned this in Sunday School!
That is a beautiful image, fall foliage in the background, a mother and daughter together (I'm hoping) and a vivacious young woman making a heart with her fingers. Virginia is for lovers, of course.
So what's the problem? Why has this advertising been pulled? Well, it seems the heart symbol shown in their advertising is a hand gesture used by the "Gangster Disciples" aka "Black Gangster Disciples", a gang bases in Chicago know for their large scale crack-cocaine operations.
Oopsy!
(and I really hope that's a mom and daughter or this campaign's problems aren't over yet! The whole concept looks like an add for an Indigo Girls concert.)
Alright, it's true I like these two guys. Reggae music is a beatifully simple art form with it's roots in a type of non-violent protest. They were singing about the oppression of their people by the government and the church. Jamaica in particular has been a case study of how a local citizenry can be exploited in the name of cash and tourism. In the early days they were exploited for their muscles and brought as slaves to work the cane industry.
Because of this, and maybe some "visions" from their ritualistic use of marijuana, a new religion was formed, Rastafarianism. They regard themselves as conforming to how Africans should live as if they had never been brought into slavery. They believe Haile Selassie 1, the former emperor of Ethiopia is God incarnate, whom they call Jah. The name Rastafari comes from: Ras-(head, or Duke in Ethiopian) and Tafari Makonnen-Haile Salassie's pre-coronation name. They believe that Jah, is the 225th in an unbroken line of Ethiopian monarchs descended from the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. This, they argue, gives him the right to the titles: King of King's, Lord of Lords's and conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
OK, there it is in a nutshell and there may be some errors, forgive me. My point of this whole blog is, yes, I like reggae music but............
