Who designed your blog?
Who should design mine?
Should I pay for a designer or stick with this
free stuff for a little while longer?
How much does it cost?
Do I have any friends that would donate
their skills and services?
Will a designed blog page with my own .com
make the site a little more popular?
I think the answer to all these questions are YES but what do I know?
That’s why I’m asking you. What should I do and how?
This passage was brought to my mind the other day and as I examined it I was convicted. The main gist that I came away with was that there are so many fakes out there. And God detests sin, all sin. The little sin and the big sin. The clean sin and the greasy sin. The sin that you can control and the sin that controls you. These seven sons of Sceva had a few sins on their resume – pride, envy, they were liars, probably some blasphemy in there. That’s not the huge part, but here it is: how many of us Christians are often times as fake as these seven guys?
Bam, yeah that hurt, I know.
We praise and sing and go to church and even tithe! We volunteer and sacrifice but we are never listening to the voice of the Lord. We just do things out of obligation and a lot of the time we do things to get someone else’s attention or approval. That’s all these guys were doing. Trying to look cool in front of the guys. The best part of this short story is that the man with the evil spirit called these dudes out! He was like, dudes, I know who Jesus is (in his head saying, ‘He scares the $#!* outta me!) and I even know about Paul, who’s almost as bad A as Jesus, but who the hell are you?
Zinnnng.
The evil spirit guy didn’t even wait on an answer, it’s obvious one of his sins he needed to deal with was patience. Anyway. He asked that question then just went to town on these guy’s faces. I mean, he wore them out. The Bible says, “He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.” Now that’s just embarrassing. I bet they say this one guy and thought fa sho the seven of them could take one guy out…guess not.
So that’s kind of the funny part, here’s the cool part.
We can agree, as believers, that God is sovereign. Completely. Which means he is ruler of all things. He could have stopped these sons from doing what they were doing anyway but he used an evil spirit. If that doesn’t display the power of Christ than I don’t know what does. And not only did this evil spirit just stop these guys form falsely proclaiming the name of Jesus but after the beating was heard about it brought glory to God and people came to know the real Jesus, the one Paul had been talking about. Not the “Jesus” the seven sons were shouting about. All the people in the area, the Jews and the Greeks, held God in high honor after this. People began publicly confessing evil in their life and began sacrificing their stuff, money, scrolls, lifestyles to be followers of the God who just used evil to fight evil and ultimately bring people into the Kingdom.
Because of all that the word of the Lord “spread widely and grew in power.” How awesome is that? I know I’m not the only one who gets jacked up from reading this story.
Let’s just make sure when we are “serving” our God that we are really serving Him. He’s better than no hearted attempts to catch another human’s eye. He is the Sovereign Lord who created everything and whom everything is created for.
As the One Prayer series kind of wraps up I’m stuck in the mindset that the Church needs to get together and show the world the love of Christ.
Serve. Love. Preach. Bless.
I love delicious things. Who doesn’t? I love cheeseburgers, steaks, twice baked potatoes, Smarties, PB&Js, Dr. Pepper and onions (to remain healthy) to name a few. Here’s what I’ve been chewing on for the past few weeks. I want to make this post a weekly one. I want you to see some posts by people I admire that maybe you wouldn’t come across any other way.
It’s so hard to find a church when you are new in the area. Check this site out and watch it grow. I hope the idea explodes into a reliable source for awesome churches across the globe.
NewSpring Church does what God says. I love this church. They aren’t afraid of change or letting God interrupt life. Check out what’s coming up for NewSpring over at Perry’s blog.
A couple weeks ago I learned about Mosaic’s Protege Program and today I read about the East Coast version at NCC. This is awesome. I might be the first to apply.
Quit worrying about what you want to be. Just be a blessing to everyone around you.
Don’t do things the way you always have — there may be some held back energy in your new way of doing things.
We finally moved in. My room is kinda(very) ugly right now but I’ll get some real furniture soon and it’ll look a lot better.
Well to say I should become a better/more consistent blogger would be an understatement.
That’s not what concerns me though, I really don’t care about that consistency for right now.
Sometimes I feel like writing random things that nobody really wants to read but by the time they have figured out they didn’t want to read it they have already read at least most of it so they say, “What the hey?” and just finish to accomplish something. I mean how hard is it to read a couple paragraphs anyway?
That’s not what this is about either. And it isn’t about Twitter taking over the blog world. For the record, I don’t think Twitter will take over blogging and if you do, than quit blogging and/or reading them. I don’t think I read any blogs that doubt the authenticity and usefulness of itself. If a blog on my reader seems to be heading that way I will find the ‘Unsubscribe’ button quick. Go check your stats, are you down a subscriber? It was probably me…
This is about how random my stats are. I don’t think I have any subscribers but I just like to see how many people stop by on the daily and what search words are used to find me. There are two real successes I’ve published on This and That. This and that. In that order, but the latter passed the ‘this’ a week or so ago and has only picked up speed since then. What is it about these two posts that attract people? Or better yet, why do people search for blogs on silly online video games that aren’t really that hard to beat or on dandelions that could be the most useless creation on the planet. Even more interesting — the ‘this’ post was one of my first. Ever. Shouldn’t I be getting better? Somedays I’ll get zero, nada, zilch, zippity doo dah day views. That hurts, no lie. But on this past friday, like 2 days ago I got the most views in a day ever. I passed my previous high of 51 on some day in April by 4. I haven’t posted since last Monday morning. (My Father’s Day post was late. I still love the Old Man though.)
Yada Yada Yada,
I had 10 views Saturday, like a day ago, and so far today I’ve had one. Where is this (& That) going? I hope it is going up. I like to blog, maybe not all the time. But I do enjoy it. I also enjoy Twitter. I would love for you to follow me. I do not really enjoy FaceBook and MySpace is full of evil spirits I’m sure of it. What else is out there? I know, tons of stuff.
Networking is the new black.
This was about how random people’s searches on WordPress are. Whatever the reason, I hope I can write something not about 1-D games or weeds that will grab someone’s attention. I have your attention, I know, you’ve read this entire post. You the best.
One thing that always impresses me is to see grown men do things that I would be embarrassed to do. I’m not saying embarrassed as a very bad thing, in fact a righteous act of humility is what I look up to the most, but because I struggle with pride I have a hard time admitting when I know something is missing. Especially when I know there is something that I have to do to fill that missing piece.
There are a lot of men I look up to. A lot I could let myself daydream about being, or becoming rather, and a lot I never want to be like. There are successful men and there are men that make more money than I will ever see. Out of all these men, the ones I’ve met, the ones I may one day serve the Lord with, and the ones that seem like are on top of the world, the one man I want to imitate the most is my father.
My dad, we’ll call him “Dad”, is many things. He is an excellent example of change and growth. Dad is alive. He is a pastor that doesn’t get paid by the church. He is a pastor that is building up the Kingdom of God. He is a man who serves those who most people have never even heard of. They definitely don’t think twice about them. He loves the rejected and the denied. Dad is a giver. Dad is a lover, and a fighter. Dad knows Jesus and has one of the most unique relationships with him I have ever heard of. Dad loves his family and while his life is dedicated to sharing the Gospel, his life is dedicated to his wife and all four of his children. He has an uncanny way of knowing when things aren’t all right and he is an expert on strategic solutions.
Dad is a man. He is the man. Dad is full of humility. He is full of Jesus and wants to be more like him everyday. Dad was baptized the other day, just a few days after baptizing my little sister himself. (That’s my little sister by the way. I’m so jacked to know she understands the love of Christ and accepts the Gospel at such an early age!) Nobody could believe he hadn’t been baptized and from the way I heard it they didn’t care to encourage him in something he was lacking. He stood his ground. He knew being baptized was his next step in his walk with Christ and he wouldn’t let some confused eyes and closed minds get in his way.
Jesus was baptized, why wouldn’t every believer get baptized?
[It seems like] he was looked down on for stepping up and obeying the Lord. He knew he needed to be baptized and said so. Who cares what other people think? Who cares that he is a leader in his Church and in his community? He demonstrated Jesus’ life more in one moment than a lot of people do in their entire life. A lot of people do things to impress God and people seeing them but God will spit that trash out of his mouth. It is disgusting to him. But my Father was pleased with my father the other day. Dad allowed himself to be vulnerable in front of a crowd that looks up to him and honestly I think it bit him in the butt instantly but he knows that obedience is blessed. Dad inspired me just by telling me the story and he wasn’t telling me to brag, he was telling me as a friend. As someone he trusts. He said so.
I wonder whom else Dad’s act of humility and obedience affected by him getting baptized. I can’t help but to believe that it was more than just myself. I have no doubts that Dad’s life influences hundreds of lives now and even will after he is finished doing work here on Earth.
Dad is the man. He is a man after God’s own heart. He is a man that I want to be like. He calls me his son and says he is proud of me. I must be doing something right.
A heart change has been the topic of conversation among a group of friends of mine and I don’t think it will ever get old. Life is change. And a change of habits will still lead to death while a change in your heart will produce fruitful life. I was reading today in Colossians and Paul said at the end of chapter 2 that “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” He was talking before about how there is freedom from earthly rules and regulations when you are alive in Christ. When Christ lives in you there is no room for fake. The heart is changed and his strength motivates you to pursue him more. He shows us his love and we then love him, more and more, and allow him to mold us into what he wants us to be.
I pray that I continually am changing. I never want to go back being the one that dresses up to be a Christian everyday when reality there is only false humility, heartless worship, and sensual indulgence as soon as the door closes. God is not pleased with that and there is no life in that. I am thankful that the sins I struggle with are a big deal to God and that he can and will allow me to conquer over evil.
“You have come to save,
you have come to change
the world through us.
But change us first”
-dh
