a light re-lite

tonight, anne heartline passed away from a long bout with cancer. anne was my 3rd and 4th grade sunday school teacher. she has impacted hundreds of young kids for Christ through that ministry. she has also been in and out of hospitals for over 12 years (i'm not sure the count) and has impacted hundreds of people through that ministry as well. she has been encouraging and witnessing to patients and doctors the whole time. this lady lived this life in light of the next, and while she has passed away, she is now in heaven with God, which is must more glorious and where she would rather be even if she was health. this lady, anne, did not live her life for comfort, for money, or even for family, or for anything in this life. she lived this life knowing full well what is coming after this life. she lived for significance rather then success.

now then, how should we live our lives? how are you living your life? are you living to see how much stuff you can get or how many friends you can make on facebook? or do you live your life trying to impact the future? does your life have meaning? you must ask yourself this question. do not continue going through life living for yourself. you must do something more. see reason. to waste a life on things to gratify yourself when they won't even fulfill you is not a life but a depression. to look for meaning in places that will drive you everywhere but where actually meaning exist is not good but a journey that will quickly wane to the point of failure.

look to something better. anne looked to one thing and this one thing, she wanted everyone that she ever met to know about this thing because she knew that this thing could and would satisfy everyone for eternity. she knew that you would have to look not further in order to find the meaning in your life, that you could actually then live a life that is worth living. she pointed towards Christ. she lived for Him and she lived Him out. she did not merely claim Christ but she walked with Him. her life had meaning because of this. her life will be remember with this in mind. everyone who knows her will remember this about her, this is what she would want to be remember: Christ, not her. she would rather have you look at Christ then anything that she ever did. so i ask you now, look to Christ. stop living for this life and start to live for the next. live for significance and not for success. live with purpose. live with joy. live with Christ.

belief = something else

acts 16:31 "believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved..."

this post will focus basically entirely on the word "believe" just so that you who are reading this will be aware.

webster's new world dictionary definition of believe: to take as true, real; to trust a statement or promise of (a person); to suppose or think; to have faith

vine's concise dictionary of the bible: greek word pisteuo meaning to believe, to be persuaded of, to place confidence in, to trust, signifies reliance upon, not mere credence.

while i would say that these definitions are similar, the english definition is slightly misleading to the point of the verse. i would truly love to unpack this word and shed some light on what i believe this verse is meaning.

i have no idea how long i have been saved and if you were to hear my testimony, you would understand why i have a hard time pin-pointing my conversion. however, i do know that i have been saved for the past year and a half and i have been putting in quite a bit of study time since then, trying to make up for wasted, lost time in my life. in the time, i have yet to read, heard, or experienced anything that is contrary to what i am thinking about this passage.
in salvation, we have something glorious, something that we should not want to give away for any reason, a thing that brings us untamable joy and assurance, a relationship with Christ.
i enjoy sitting a sipping at a nice, hot cup of coffee, i like the taste of it and i really like the caffeine that is in it that wakes me up so that i can actually function through out the day. i bring this up because, while this is simplified, Christ should be the same way for us. we should crazy those quiet time with Him, He should be our sustenance for the day, that thing that gets us through a long hard day. He is always with us through prayer and meditation on scripture.
there is only one way to get through life, present and eternal, and that way is through Christ. as acts 16:31 says, all we must do it to believe on Christ. yet what does that constitute. there are no qualifiers or limiters in this verse on this phrase so that has to mean that we must believe on Christ to the fullest extent. not only that He created the world, but that He can and is the only one to save us. i think that many of us see both of those though and we can reckon with that and still live life basically the way that we want. however, Christ doesn't want us to live the life that we want, He wants us to live the life that He wants (because it is best for us but i won't get into that in this post).
God created us in His image. He created us for His glory. how do we bring glory to Him? by worshiping, praising, and living for Him, but making Him our all. this is what we are to do. when we say that we believe in Him (a believe that leads to eternal life), we are also saying that we believe that He is the only person in whom we can find enjoyment.
He must be the only thing that we find joy in. this doesn't mean that all we do is read our bibles and pray all day, but that in everything we do, we realize that it is truly from God, that we wouldn't have it unless He gave it to us, and we are enjoying it in a way that would please Him, and praise Him and thank Him for it. it is not enough to live a life that upholds the law of scripture if we do not have the attitude of scripture as well. if you up hold every outward law, yet partake in every inward law, then you are a white-washed tomb, full of dead men's bones, on the slow and easy path to eternity to hell.
wake up and smell the roses and the sweet life that could be yours in Christ. this world only looks appealing until you've tasted, chewed, and digested the goodness of Christ.


(while writing this, my mind wasn't working well, and i was slightly, completely scatter-brained so hopefully this makes sense.)

power of prayer

of all the resources, books, and skills of handling literature that i have and have been taught, the most useful thing that i know when it comes to studying scripture is something that all believers have and that is the power of prayer.

when peter, the fisherman, wrote his letters that ended up in our bible, all he had was what he had been through and prayer. he was a simple and uneducated man, yet his works have lasted and will last until the end of time.

prayer is the key to unlock all the doors and gates to the scriptures. God is faithful to give to those who merely ask. ask for answers and He will be sure to give them to you. as christians, we have the Spirit of God in us who is wanting to reveal the secrets of God to you, but He is simple waiting for you to ask Him to reveal it to you.

pray and ask, God is good, He will give it

light of the world

matthew 5:14-16 has been on my mind for about 3 weeks now, and i have finally decided to write something about it.

"you are the light of the world. a city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp-stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

this is speaking to christian. if you claim Christ, this should be you.
light is the one of the things in this world that we can not live without. we need light of some sort, preferably sunlight. there is very little that we can do with no light, sleep and breathing are about the only things that we could excel at in absolute darkness. in plainness, we need light.
as christians, we are that light. we should be helpers, teachers, counselors, preachers, workers, instructors, and friends in everything that we do. lights are useful and in the same way, we should be too. we should be the people that everyone wants to do the work because we do it right and fast. we should be the ones that people call for help, not oprah or dr. phil.
a light in a dark room can not be ignored, so we too should be the same way. this does not mean that we are obnoxious but bright. we should have attention on us. if people want light, they will gather towards us, and if they strive to be in darkness they will shun us, but either way, we should be noticed and a response should have to be made, we should not, and can not blend in to the crowd. there is one time that we are to be obnoxious though, and that is when we are so bright in the current situation, that all others not of the light will have to shield their eyes from you and push you away. this can happen in two situation: either the light is so bright or the darkness is so thick, either way people will not like the light.
if you are not liked though, that is ok. for as the light goes forth and pierces the darkness, it can and should cause sparks, which God can then make into a new flame, which is all the more glorious. when hit with a spark, it hurts, people don't like it. but when that spark starts a fire, it doesn't hurt but makes more of itself (that kinda breaks down but that is ok, cuz fire actually does hurt, but whatever, figure out what i'm trying to say). when a new fire is started, it not longer cares but getting hit by the spark but does in fact, love it and will love the light. this is what we want, more fire.
fire is sustained by fuel, this fuel is the Word and prayer (among other things such as fellowship, etc. ). so if our fuel is the Word and prayer, then should be reading all we can and then praying about it as much as we can. this things go together and make us better.
i have more on this but it is now time for work
go forth and be bright lights. examine your lives to see if there is anything that Christ is revealing to you that will make you even brighter lights.

and the time of death?

the title of this has little reference to the actual content of this post, except for the fact that it has the words "time" and "death" in it.
so, first on time after death. since we know that God is outside of time and that time was in fact made for it's usefulness to man, i believe that when we die, it will instantly be the end time because we will then be outside of time as well. there will be no more day or night. so while time may in fact pass, it won't matter to us, it will all be the same. i have no real solid scripture for this, it's just a thought at the moment to me.
but with that, i am excited to die, not only because it means the end of this life, but mostly because it is the beginning of the next life. i am excited for the second coming and to see Christ fully glorified to the upmost. He will finally display all His glory for all man to see, believers and unbelievers and we will all bow the knee and worship Him, which will be a great and marvelous day. the sad part is that some will then be sentence to eternity in hell. which since there is not day or night for the time pieces that God had set up at the beginning are done away with, eternity will seem like one day and that day will last forever. that forever though will be either in agony or in utter rejoicing and praise to God. i look forward to singing with a good voice and learning for all of eternity about the character of God. i pity those who have not been elected to have God's pleasure bestowed upon them. however, with that, since we don't know who it is that is elect, we should be evangelizing to all of those that are around us. for if we know of the gift or curse that will coming in the end, we should be excited about it and telling everyone and wishing no one to hell for lack of telling. we should not be selfish enough to keep the glory of God to ourselves because we are afraid of what men might think. men are stupid, in generally, and it doesn't matter what they think, only God and eternity matters. we have a mere 80ish years on the earth to do what it is that we are going to do, and in that time, what we do will effect all of our eternity. don't think that you get 80 years, think and live like you will get only one more minute, and at the end of your 80 years, you will be proud of how you have lived them, never regretting but glad of how you spent them.
go out and live, for tomorrow we die :)

it's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's superman

as a young male, i simple love to watch a good super hero movie with some cool effects and stuff in it. i love the idea of a person fighting for what they believe in, the greater good, and using their super powers to do it. i am enthralled by it, it excites me. why do young people like it though? why do we like to sit and watch other "people" do amazing things when we know it can't happen and that we ourselves will never be able to do anything like it? it is, i believe, the little man syndrome but not the one that we normal think.
the normal little man syndrome is that a small person get big toys, basically. this one though is that a little person, i.e. a human, looks to "big people" i.e. super heroes, instead of the original big person. we all love to be friends with the biggest guy cuz we then have protection from everything, or at least everything that is smaller then the person. we long for this and we need it. we like to feel protected. we like to watch people with god-like powers because we like to feel protected or important or powerful.
God was, and is, and is to be the first and only big person. we are like this in our nature because God made us this way in order that we would be in awe of Him. we love to watch super powers because we love to be amazed. God has ever super power and more, He has all power, yet so few tend to look to Him. we might say because we can't see His power, but just watch a sun rise and you see His power in moving the sun into the correct position of the sky, providing light for us, and making it all beautiful to our eyes, all at the same time. He could have simple made light, like He did the first day, and not have given us all the beauty to go along with it. God is good though and He wants to do those things for us, so that we have even more reasons and reminders to praise Him for it. we are under and can be best friends with the God we created the world in a word, flooded the world with a word, clothed the lily in it's beauty, and who saved us from our depravity. we should be looking to Him all the more and forgetting about the people who have only imaginary powers. look to the one who has all power.

the mind of a child

i went to the beach today and while sitting there in the sun, i was listening to some of the kids play around me. it was interesting to me to hear the things that these kids cared about, nothing really out of the ordinary, just the basic things but things that just don't really matter. this then caused me to compare it to an old person who is on their death bed, and the only likely and probably things that they would think on would be death and what would happen after death and the things of life after death.
so, why the change? how do we go from simple having fun to thinking only of the things of the next world? while i may only be 19, it seems to me that the closer we get to death or the time that is suspected for death to come, the more we tend to think on it. no baby thinks of death, but a 110 year old person should have it constantly on their mind.
while this may be the norm, what if it wasn't? the old are always saying how they wished they would have lived while the young are always saying how they are going to live but what if the old lived how they had wished while the young would live as they plan. much more would be accomplished if the youth embraced their youth and if the old would train to youth how to do it.
i am a 19 year old who shook hands with death then turned and came back. i would say that i am one of the few youths who are living as the elder because i now feel like the elder. with this though, even though i have made mistakes that i already regret, i now can live the life that i would have wanted to live if i had lived to an old age. the youth must start to act old when they are young so that when they are old they will then have a life that they can be proud to have. we must live the lives that we plan and not just simple plan them.

blessed? or cursed?

while listening to the New Testament today at work, i heard the passage of Matthew 6:25-34 which talks about how God cares for His own. hearing this made me think back on something that i have been thinking on for the last couple of days, which is that what ever God gives to us, whether bad or good, is really for our best. even thinking of myself and my ailments, they are all perfect for me, for the have made me grow so much and have also helped me in deciding what i think God what me to do with my life. it is interesting though how if i tell a nonbeliever about my life, they instantly say, "oh, i'm sorry" while i have to quickly reply, "why? im not." the world can not make sense of people who are calm and joyful in the face of a difficult situation. it doesn't make sense to them.
also, thinking upon this more also brought to mind David in the Old Testament. in 2 Samuel 24:10-14 david got into trouble and he is faced with a choice of three punishments, one from nature, one from man, and one from God. David choose to be punished by God because he would rather put himself into the hands of a merciful God rather then into any of situation. now if david could trust God in punishment, shouldn't we also trust Him in everyday life? the answer is yes, for we do serve a merciful, loving God who wants the best for us. this does not mean that we get what we want because what we want is not generally what is best for us. we must learn to submit, wait, trust, and then to see the fruition of God's blessings, for even a "curse" can turn out to be a blessing.
a 17 year old athlete dying would seem like a curse, but a year later, no one who was effected by the boys death and resurrection would change what had happened, because we can now see that through this "curse" huge blessings came from it, whether it be learning to trust God, learning what to do with one's life, or anything else that someone else might have experience through it all. our God is good, we must learn to fully believe that, and trust that our good God will bring about good for us.

duality of man

when created and put on this earth, God put into man passions that drove men to better this life. we are people of duality, having multiply passions and interests. this is perfect, for God created us this way, but only when our supreme passion is that of Christ. all other things will fall and burn, yet Christ has defeated death already, He will not fail.
with these passions, there must be a balance, with the balance tipped towards God. how are we to accomplish this if the things of this world are ever pressing, to the point that we forget the God who is ever present. a correct view of God will help us, as well as putting things that we would trip and fall over that will remind us of our great God. the greatest help to us though it prayer, for that one thing helps to strengthen us and allows us to commune with God, with no need of a priest. this is the best of blessings, to be able to call on God.

of God's faithfulness

perhaps the most obvious example of how faithful God is shown through life in general. for if God ever were to not be faithful, even for a second, all would cease to exist for God is the one to hold it all together.
it is also shown more fully, however through His faithfulness to remember and fulfill all of His promises and prophesies. He is the only one who has never failed and will never fail because He tells us that He will never fail. all other beings and religions have fallen at some point, but God is perfectly faithful and has not lied yet.
He is faithful

make war

man's man

well, i just finished watching the disney movie "tarzan" and while this is a completely vile movie because it is laced with the evolutionary hypothesis (thanks leila) which is slowly conveyed to the children who watch the movie in a way that they love, tarzan is a man's man. he kills a leopard with a spear, which i can safely say that i will never do, and can tree surf which is pretty cool.

while watching this, i actually got sick to my stomach and had to fight tears because i wanted to be like that to my future family (if God wills). looking into tarzan's actions further though, it is not so much that he can do all that stuff that is amazing, but the fact that he is willing to try. it is not the fact that he can kill the leopard, but that he is willing to try to fight it in order to save those that he loves. while i can never even run after a guy, one thing that i am willing to do is to die for someone i care for. i know for sure that if given a choice, i would gladly give up my life for just about anyone for the simple fact that 1) i know where i am going when i die 2) that place that i am going is going to be amazing 3) i would rather leave this life then to have someone else leave it who is perhaps not ready to die or who may enjoy this life more then i would enjoy it or the fact that i could perhaps not stand to live without that person (such as my unknown future wife or current family) 4) perhaps my sacrifice could bring about the one who i saved salvation which would be worthy of dying 1000 times or more in order to save that one soul (though it is really Christ through Scripture that saves).

so, while i may not be a worldly man's man because i can do actually very little, i hope that i can say and that it can be said of me that i am a God's man, for that is all that really matters to me and all that really actually matters.

life isn't worth living if you don't have something higher to live for

check this guy out

this guy is amazing at piano, look him up and listen to all of his other stuff

Of Sin

looking upon my own thoughts and desires when i sin, i perceive that there can only be 3 reasons why people sin, and only 2 that can relate to me. 

first, the one that doesn't pertain to me. people sin when they do not know that there is a God or when they don't know the real God. if they do not know who they sin against, there is no possible way that they can uphold the law that this one that they sin against has put into order, so they must, therefore, sin. they have no real hope or choice. with this sin, comes death. so, this is a call to evangelize, for in order for people to stop sinning, they must know what it is that they are doing wrong. once they hear the Word though, they then have a choice, which leads me to my next two points.

let us say that once the person has heard the Word, that they believe. great, awesome, wonderful. now that they have a new found love for God, they will seek to know more about Him and to grow in Him and to be like Him, which wound mean that they are not sinning. but wait, aren't there any Christians today who would profess these very things? yes, there are. then how is there still sin if they are living like Christ? well, i can only see one thing for that, and it would be that in the moment of sin, the Christian, somehow, forgets about the God that has saved him and that he now serves and in that moment, he indulges himself rather then living for his great God. a Christian who is living for Christ can only sin when he forgets that he is living for Christ, for if he were living for Christ and had that on his mind, he would not sin. while it is a great sin to even forget about our God,  i fear that the last reason is far worst, and possible more prevalent in our culture. this reason however has two perspectives to it:

the first is perhaps the most common of any of them and that is that people hear the Word, and simple reject it complete. they live their lives in absolute rebellion to that of God's Word and in the end, they will be judged for this. this is incredibly sad to see though it is ever spreading to cover this earth in this belief, that people can choose the way to heaven that they want, however, the path is narrow to heaven, with many people falling away, thinking that they are going down the correct path when, in fact, they are going towards hell and the lake of fire and eternal punishment. while this scenario is terrible, the last one is much more grievous.

the last reason that man can sin is linking to the one before, but it is with a Christian rather then a nonbeliever. when temptation comes to a believer, and they then pause and think about this sin that has come to them, and scripture and prayer both come to mind, but it is not heart felt and instead of following what they know to be true in their heart, they follow what their body is telling them and they indulge in this temptation. this can only happen when a believer doesn't care that there is a God and that this God is watching them and what they are doing at this moment. this is a terrible grievous sin. it is like going up to Christ, while He is waiting to be nailed to the cross, and you taking the hammer and nail, and smiling to Him saying, "i'm doing this to you so that i may live how i like and not have to pay the price for it but to rather have you pay it for me." this is arrogant and shameful. we are not to sin so that grace may abound (Rom. 6:1-4) but we are to live like Christ did, a perfect life, so that we may show Him off in this world. we are not to indulge ourselves, but to indulge in Christ alone, for He is where our hope is found. 

if you examine your life to see why you are sinning, i believe that all those times will boil down to one of these reasons. if they do, i pray that you will repent and pray to God to help you in that area so that you may live like Him. life is short, and then you die. live this life as if it is all that matters, not is if it doesn't. live for Christ, for He really is all that matters.

absent

i know it has been awhile since i have posted but i was sick, then i was in europe for 2 weeks, then being jet-lagged, and then with my busy schedule at the moment, i haven't had time to blog, though i hope to start to blog every night soon, probably in about a week or so, for then my schedule is will be much more loose.