I've Finally Found It!!!!
Hebrews 11 and Faith
This chapter of Hebrews is the bottom line when it comes to faith, but a self professed agnostic with funky blue eyeglasses from the great state of New Jersey has a great take on it as well. (Yes, I'm from Jersey originally). Here's a clip from her post (used with permission):
"The whole premise of the concept of faith is that you believe in something that cannot be proven, that’s why its faith. You are making a choice to put your belief into something, even if you can’t stick your finger in the wounds. So, to tell someone that their faith is wrong because well, duh, it can’t be proven is such a waste of time. What is it about “enlightened atheists” that makes them so much like fanatic religious people. I mean, when you really look at it, what’s the main difference? An extreme atheist is what I consider someone who not only makes the bold claim that they do not believe there is a God, but also want other people to agree with them, and will go to lengths to “prove” their claim to you. An extreme religious person is making a bold claim that there IS a God, but also want other people to agree with them and will go to great lengths to “prove” their claim to you."
The "Far" side of any debate can get quite hysterical. As a Christ follower, I believe it is our job to live our faith 24/7, not just Sundays and discuss it with people that are ready to listen. The choices we make and our actions will speak louder than any proselytizing we can throw at someone with deaf ears. Our job is to plant the seed and let the Holy Spirit take over from there. (Although, I'll say it's sad for someone to believe that this screwed up planet is all we have to look forward to!)
Read the whole post below.
www.emocrap.com
Thanks Quelyn
It's Great to be a Phillie!
Phillies fans have a lot to be Phanatical about right now. Not only are the boys 3 games over .500 this close to the half-way mark, they're also only 3.5 games behind the first place Mets. The last time we played the Mets we swept 'em 3 for 3 at Shea. Now we get them for a 4 game series at home! First place at the All-Star break? It could happen.
To top it off Ryan Howard just became the fastest in history to 100 HR's! Way to go Ryan!
Read the whole story here.
Online - Brad Paisley
I work down at the pizza pit
and I drive and old Hundai
I still live with my mom and dad
I 5′3 and overweight
I’m a Sci-fi fantatic
mild athsmatic
never been to 2nd base
But there’s a whole nother me
that you need to see
Go check out Myspace
Cause online I’m down in Hollywood
I’m 6′5 and I look damn good
I drive a Mazarati
I’m a black belt in Karate
and I love a good glass of wine
It turns girls on that I’m mysterious
I tell ‘em I don’t want nothing serious
Cause even on a slow day I can have a three way
chat with two women at one time
I’m so much cooler online
So much cooler online
I get home, I kiss my mom
and she fixes me a snack
I head down to my basement bedroom
and fire up the mac
In real life, the only time I
Ever even been to LA
Was when I got the chance with the marching band
To play tuba in the Rose Parade.
Online I live in Malibu
I posed for Calvin Kline, I’ve been in GQ
I’m single and I’m rich
and I got a set of six pack abs that’ll blow your mind
It turns girls on that I’m mysterious
I tell ‘em I don’t want nothing serious
Cause even on a slow day I can have a three way
chat with two women at one time
I’m so much cooler online
Yeah I’m cooler online
When you got my kinda stacks, it’s hard to get a date
Let alone a real girlfriend
But I grow another foot
and I lose a bunch of weight everytime I log in
online I’m out in Hollywood
I’m 6′5 and I look damn good
Even on a slow day, I can have a three way
chat with two women at one time
I’m so much cooler online
Yeah I’m cooler online
I’m so much cooler online
Yeah I’m cooler online
They got this one right......
This is my first "personality test" and it's scary how right it is.............
| You Are Guinness |
 You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around. |
Today's Zip It Award Goes to...........
...anyone blogging about the glorious arrival of the iPhone!
Seems to Be Working.........
"America, is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."
Joseph Stalin
Take Out the Trash!
I read a great post yesterday that discussed all of the distractions in this world that are keeping us from seeking His face and spreading His glory. It was posted by Russ Lamb from Faith Community Church. Those guys have some great stuff to say.Here's an excerpt:
As we look at today's society, I think it's time to take out the trash. In Nehemiah 4:10 "Then Judah said, "The strength of the laborers is failing, and there is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall". As we look at building the Kingdom of God there's alot of trash that gets in the way. We let "trash" distract us and get into ours lives that causes us to get away from God. A TV show here, a computer site there. And here's the deal with the trash, the enemy will hide in it to attack us. In Nehemiah 4:11 "And our enemies said, "The Jews won't know or see anything until we come among them and kill them and stop the work".
Read the whole post here.
When "Paraphrase" Becomes Rewriting
From the "This Blog Chose You" blog, a story about a new "translation" written by a former British Baptist pastor, John Henson, that was his attempt to omit language that is gender exclusive and homophobic. His version is titled "Good as New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures". Read all about it!
This Blog Chose You: Abominable "Paraphrase" Defies Scriptural Truth
Got a spare $100?
You too can have your very own square watermelon. Developed in Japan they are guaranteed not to roll off your picnic table! I just have one question....um....what was it.....uhhhh......oh yeah
WHY?!?!
Worth Fighting For
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill
Extreme Time Killer
Check out WILDCARD!
Just start draggin your mouse around the screen when the page loads. Be sure to click the #'s 1 through 5 on the bottom left for different patterns. I apologize to your bosses before hand!
Oops, I Did it Again (sin that is)
(Be patient, this is a long one but I feel it's worth your time)
I love my drums. No really, they stay in my bedroom, they each have their own padded case, I tune them often and cringe when someone else plays them. But you know what? Whenever I go into Guitar Center and see that big old Drum Workshop kit sitting there, man, I can just picture myself in the driver's seat!
You know what else? I just sinned. Not a minor one either. I broke one of the 10 COMMANDMENTS. It's way down the list, actually right at the bottom but there it is, #10, Thou shalt not covet. Most people think this is meaning coveting your neighbors wife but let's put the full text up on the screen. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbors."(Not that many of you have neighbors with donkeys, but you get the point!
Well that stinks, I can't complain that my neighbors grass is greener than mine without sinning again! And the 10 are just the beginning! The "Pentateuch" or the first 5 books of the Old Testament - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are filled with all kinds of things spoken to us from God that will cut
us off from Him in the afterlife. We really can't escape!
The Israelites spent their entire history - From Moses to the Birth of Jesus - constantly breaking the "Law". They'd be good for a while but were always being led astray. Either it was their own fallen nature or a neighboring country but they couldn't live sin free. They'd create idols to worship, borrow some of their neighbors if they were lazy, marry their women, fraternize with prostitutes in the pagan temples. They were a wild bunch.
You might say, "Why create all of these laws that you know your people will never be able to follow?" The ironic thing is, I believe that was the whole idea. WHAT? Do you mean that he made all of this rules that we couldn't follow and turned us all into a bunch of sinners just to turn His back on us?
First -
The Law didn't create the sin. The Law revealed the sin in us all. If nobody tells us what we are doing wrong, then we would continue believing how perfect we are. If we didn't instruct our children, they would grow up completely out of control, not even realizing that anything they were doing was bad. The Law was set up so we would realize we could never live up to God's perfection.
If we didn't know we were sinning we wouldn't have the chance to repent of our sins and reconcile ourselves with our Father.
Second-
The Law disciplined. In Exodus, Moses led his people to the land promised him by God and he sent out scouts to check the land and the inhabitants. Upon returning they reported that was indeed the land of milk and honey but the residents were of great size and much stronger then they were. After hearing this the people rose against Moses asking why they were led out of the land where they "had it so good". You know, Egypt and the whole slavery thing. They had it great alright. Caleb and Joshua were only scouts with faith in their God to deliver his promise. When God heard this he basically blew up like a dad who's child broke the last straw. All the people 20 years old and above would never see the inheritance. They would die in the desert. Their sins against the Father led them to their death.
If we aren't disciplined for sinning we wouldn't feel the need to repent of our sins and reoncile ourselves with our Father.
We are constantly being disciplined. Not by God but by the results of our sinning. We're punished with debt, disease, divorce, job loss, humiliation, depression and the list goes on. Yes it also leads to death! Maybe not right away, some sins will catch up with you sooner than others, like drug and alcohol addictions or obesity but none-the-less if you are an unrepentant sinner, which is unfortunately our nature as humans, you will die for your sins.
How could God let us go through so much suffering? Look at it this way. I've heard numerous times about parents sick and tired of their miscreant children. Eventually they will stop bailing them out of trouble and let them see the consequences of their actions. How much more ticked off do you think God feels when we continue embracing our sins after He gave His Sons life for us? It's no wonder He would turn from us like He turned from the Israelites and let them get taken into captivity.
Third -
The law shows us how undeserving we are of His love but that love will always be waiting for us that come to him in repentance and pray for our forgiveness. God took the Israelites back, Hosea took Gomer back and the dad took the prodigal son back. The Israelites not only had the Law to tell them what was right in His eyes, but also in the Law was a means of atonement. There was a huge formula equating the sin to what type and how many animals should be sacrificed. The Israelites atonement was in the blood sacrifice.
But hey, we have our own blood sacrifice. God so loved us that He gave His Son, Jesus Christ, to die upon the cross for our sins. He was the perfect sacrifice. The Lamb of God. So the rules don't apply anymore, right? WRONG. Jesus said He didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. He even made them more strict. Of course murder is a sin but Jesus said just being angry with your brother was on the same level. Adultery is with out a doubt sinful, but again He added an addendum. He said just thinking lustfully about someone was committing adultery. Being a Christ follower is no free ride! Plus, once you have given your life to Him, Satan really goes on the defensive. You have officially renounced this world and became his enemy! The darts of sin and temptation are really going to start flying.
Why did God make us this way; imperfect, sinning, proud, boastful? He didn't want perfect automatons. He gave us free will, the freedom to make our own way, right or wrong. He wants authentic a relationship with us, the kind that can only be had between a Father and son. He wants to correct us, praise us, discipline us and above all love us. That would be hard to do with a perfect robot-like person. He wants us to come to Him on our own accord, realizing this world has nothing for us and without Him we are lost.
It's not all bad. God gives us wonderful blessings when we bow to him. Rays of sunshine in the darkness. C.S. Lewis had a great quote that I am about to butcher but it went something like this....On our journey God has nice little bed and breakfast's along the way to give us a retreat and some relaxation but there will be hard times along the way lest we mistake this world for our home. I know that is nothing like the original quote but you get the drift.
If things were perfect we wouldn't look forward to our eternal life with Him.
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