Create in Me a New Heart

After reading this morning, Spurgeon's morning devotion, it was about a man who was about to die, and the pastor asked him what he wanted said at his funeral. He responded with Psalm 51:1-2. After reading Psalm 51, I was moved. This was the psalm that David wrote after his affair with Bathsheba. When Nathan confronted David with his sin, and David realized in the short time of the affair, he had broken just about all the 10 Commandments, he fell on his knees, and said in verse four, "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment."  It is something that we don't see too much in today's moral relativistic society.  He took action by acknowledging that it was against God, he had sinned.  It wasn't his mother, father, his friends, his job, or the number of things we like to hang our blame on.  Thank God for his saving grace, and mercy.  So with that, I go back to Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God,  and renew a right spirit within me", Amen.

Kairos Meeting

Today was the third Kairos team meeting as we all get together, and fellowship, pray, listen to talks, and get ready to bring the gospel into Zephyrhills Correctional on October 28 - 31.  This will be the 11th or 12th time that I've had the honor to go with these Godly men to bring the gospel to the inmates.  Over the 4 days, we will meet, and greet.  The men will listen, to 11 lay, and clergy speakers, and then discuss what the speaker said, and what they heard.  One of the men who wants to be on the team was an inmate during the weekend that I was the lay leader.  I remember him, and how he always came to the monthly reunions.  Now he wants to go back into the prison, and bring the gospel to them.  God is good!  Got to listen to a great meditation from Pastor Charles White from 1st Baptist Church of Lutz on God's parental love.  It's something if you've had children that you can relate to.

I have to admit, that I wasn't that excited about going to the meeting, but God knew where He wanted me, and now I have to admit that it was a blessing.  We also found out that our retreat center we usually use at St Leo Abbey has had some problems, and we won't be able to stay there, so we're looking at a Mennonite retreat center just a few miles north of where we normally stay.  Once again, when we thought we were going to have troubles, God came through.  The journey continues.

Interesting Stuff:

1. Popular Mechanics debunks the Katrina myth, http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/natural-disasters/2315076.
2. Phil Johnson, the 5 Historic Heresies
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3.   Heard this term "therapeutic deism" in Michael Horton's book, "Christless Christianity".  Now, it's "moralistic therapeutic deism", or watered down/secular version of Christianity.  An interesting article from CNN on our children, and their Christian beliefs.  Why Deuteronomy 6 is very important for parents to heed, http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/27/almost.christian/.
4. Now that's a catch!!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Christian Hosoi

Reading a blog on Tim Challies site, he had this testimony by Christian Hosoi.  I had never heard of him, but obviously he was a great skateboarder who got caught up drugs, was arrested, and sent to prison.  This is a great testimony.

Sounds a lot like me except I couldn't stand on a skateboard.  I love to see God work...

Random Thoughts for Wednesday 8/25/10

I saw this video on Randy Alcorn's site, EPM.org.  It was produced by Chik-Fil-A, and I thought afterwards, when my eyes were leaking, what an incredible video to show employees who have to deal with the public everyday.  Actually, I probably need to see it everyday.  It really makes you think about what others are going through when you interact with them during the day.  Like you, they're just trying to make through the day, except unlike them, I don't have anything to complain about, and I've been very fortunate.  I have to remember that I need to re-present Christ, instead of just dissing him.

Also heard this yesterday while listening to Salem Network's afternoon talk show by Dennis Prager.  Dennis is probably one of the best talk show hosts on the radio.  You can go to his website, www.dennisprager.com to see what he's about.  I like to listen to him because he's probably right 99% of the time.  I'll also admit that we're on the same page politically.  He will talk to differing views on his radio show, but it never fails when you try to talk to liberals, they usually resort to emotional vitriol, and try to dismiss you as one of the below categories without debating the issue.  To paraphrase what he was discussing when he engages liberals in debate, he has an acrostic, SIXHRB to describe their style of debate, which is to label, and then dismiss their opponent instead of debating by telling you that you're just a Fill-in-the-Blank:

S – Sexist

I – Islamophobic

X – Xenophobic

H – Homophobic

R – Racist

B – Bigot

Liberals are like children in their argument style.  They are extremely emotional.  They don’t deal with the issues, because most of them always use these tactics to deflect the argument to label their opponent and then categorically dismiss you.  Usually that's called a temper tantrum, and with kids they get their rear smacked, and sent to their room.  However, when these kids were young, they were probably patted on the head, while their parents said, "Oh, Jimmy's very high strung.", and then they just let him continue.

To quote Ben Grimm, 'Nuff said!'

School Starts

Ah, yes, it's The first day of school. The roads will be even more active, as thousands of people will attempt to place their children into their school seats via planes, trains, and automobiles.  Thank God, we all succeed each day! That said, today is kind of bittersweet, as my baby boy, oh year, young man is starting his senior year in high school.  It was 19 years ago, that our first one was sent off to school.  Nancy, and I were kind of scared, as we watched him get on the bus, and take off.  Now he's working on his Master of Divinity at Asbury, and he's starting a new job today teaching middle school math.

The one starting his senior year, Grant, somehow over the summer turned into a young man.  It's incredible, that's all I can say.  Of course he wants us to purchase him a car, which we would probably do, except for the fact that 3 of his friends who have/had cars, all had accidents in the school parking lot, so we'll depend on the bus for awhile longer.

I'm very proud of Grant, and thank God for his help in getting our family to this point.  I've made a lot of mistakes over the years, and have taken a lot of grace out of God's bank account, but then again, the repayment options are just to love him, which I will do continually.  That's what I call an "Easy Payment Plan".  Oh yeah, and that same grace has changed me over the years, as I have repented, and make the same mistakes less.

Love you Grant, and thank you Lord Jesus...

Interesting Stuff:

1. This is a great post by Phil Johnson, "BioLogos takes their complaint against Al Mohler to Huffpo".
2. As usual, Dr. Mohler's posts are spot-on, "Why Aren't 'Emerging Adults' Emerging as Adults"?
3. Soul-Toons, the guy's pretty good!!
   
   

This guy Brett McCraken wrote a book, "Hipster Christianity: When Church, and Cool Collide".  Supposedly, it's upset a lot of the emergents.  Julie Clawson, posted, http://julieclawson.com/2010/08/20/hipsters-faith-and-truth/, and J. R. Daniel Kirk, (why do we need J. R.???) at http://www.jrdkirk.com/2010/08/15/the-perils-of-ignorant-critique/.  Seriously, why do we need to integrate the church, so that it's indistinguishable from the world?  Anyway, if you want to find out if you're a Hip Christian, take the quiz at http://www.hipsterchristianity.com/quiz.php.  I'm NOT!!

Let's get going

I've always wanted to do a blog, so I figured, what the heck.  You might read it, and then again, you might not.  I did Facebook for awhile, but got tired of it.  I looked, and saw that I had all these friends, and realized that they really weren't my friends, but acquaintances.  Then, I found myself getting upset too much reading stuff, I probably didn't need to be reading.

My day starts early, and I read the Bible, about 6 years ago, I started one of those read the Bible through in year plan, and I've kept it going.  I also read Oswald Chamber's "My Utmost for His Highest", and Charles Spurgeon's Morning Meditation.  I spend a few minutes perusing some of the blogs listed on the right, before I have to get ready for work.

There might be somethings in this blog, that I've copied from bloggers like Tim Challies, and Trevin Wax, so I want to say thanks.

Interesting Stuff:

1. Malatya - is a documentary of three Christians who were murdered in Turkey inside a Christian publishing company by three teen-age Muslims.  The trailer is below:
How to Become a Successful Religion - this is a little tongue in cheek, but then again there are companies out there doing it now with church growth.  How to Be a Successful Religion at Christianity Today.
Are we as Christians in the United States really suffering, and are we really being persecuted?


Ghassan from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.