A Journey for This Year

Have you ever tried to read through the Bible and made it only for 2 weeks...or 2 days and then quit? Yeah, me too. It's the time of year for resolutions and though this isn't really a resolution, more just a desire for the year. I've invited our youth group in reading through the entire Bible this year. I found a cool plan from the You Version. It's a plan that has you read the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice in one year. It's nice because it doesn't just go straight through. It has sections from the OT & NT each day.

Follow along with that YouVersion link. iPhone users will find it in the App Store too!

Today's thought from Genesis 1: No matter how you look at it...God created it all...and it is sure good! Praise God!

Friday Thoughts

I take a break from the list of errands for a random posting of thoughts from today:

• New tires aren't cheap!
• I'd love to be in Nashville for the National Youth Workers Convention right now. They even have a "Live Blog" where you can view 5 youth workers blogging their thoughts as the convention roles on! Check it out!
• If you want to hear some serious preaching, check out the Cornerstone Community Church podcast (find it in iTunes) from Francis Chan in Simi Valley, CA. Brian and I saw him at the convention last year.
• In listening to the podcast, Francis spoke from 2 Timothy 3 about the last days...and that people would be lovers of self of which he said is the sewer pipe that the rest of the junk comes down. (the love of money, boastfulness, pride, etc...) The quote that made me think the most...and probably the most convicting was

  We will get to a point where we are more concerned about our standard of living than we are about other human beings actually living.

  Check out his series on The End Of The World for more...it's not your typical end times message!
• Speaking of standard of living...I'm enjoying the iPhone 2.2 software update. It's pretty cool directly downloading podcasts and then just listen away. No more syncing!

Well, so far that's my Friday...more errands next and some website work for Dennis the Dentist! If you're in Tigard, Sherwood, Newberg area and are looking for a dentist...check him out!

Free tour of the Holy Land

Okay, sorry I haven't posted in a while.

Want to take a tour of the Holy land, or all the places mentioned in the Bible? Want to do it for free? Well, Openbible.info offers a KMZ file for Google Earth that lets you look at all the discernible locations in the Bible. They even have a KMZ file that sorts out the locations by chapter! To download this file, go to http://www.openbible.info/geo/ and start your free tour.

HT to the Google Earth Blog.

Winter Youth - Day 2

Wow, I'm tired. I stayed up way too late.

Yesterday was a challenging day. I haven't processed it all yet. If I could try to summarize day one, it would be live your life for an audience of one. Day two is harder, but I think it would be don't trade the gospel for pleasure or performance.

Eric talked again about those people who after knowing Christ for a while (or grow up in the church) base their "How am God and I doing?" question by pointing to how they compare against other's live...and how much time they spend reading their Bible, going to church, etc.

He drew a picture with the heart of the gospel in the middle and two kinds of people, one on each side. The right side were those who have Jesus + pleasure and the other was Jesus + performance. On the pleasure side their sin is overt, obvious, their goal is happiness and they abuse grace, using it as a license to sin. The performance side's sin is covert, not usually seen as sin, their goal is worthiness, and they abuse grace by not using grace.

The point is that the gospel is offered to both. In fact, many (most?) of Jesus' teachings were such that those who were the obvious sinners always got the point, and were found forgiven. Yet those who 'had it all together' missed His message.

Eric's final point was great. If you don't realize, don't know that Jesus already won, already satisfied it all, then you will just be performing a cycle in your life. You will try to do a bunch of stuff to gain God's favor. When you sense that there is no hope in that, you will turn away, seeking pleasure. When you find that pleasure is empty, you come back to trying to read your Bible better and slip right back into performance mode.

I hope I've spoken well of what Eric shared. It was challenging and a great new way of sharing very old ideas. He's set us up for tonight's talk with this.

The start of the gospel is accepting His acceptance of you.

Hope you have a great day.

Winter Youth - Day 1

If days two, three, and four bring the same fight and strength of message that came from day one, I'm in for not only a real treat, but a lot to consider as I head back to real life.

For starters, we had a great time with our group, much of the day hanging in our room, Safeway and conversing about subjects from God to how bad the boy's room smelled. Leading us in worship this year is Future of Forestry (formerly Something like Silas...and don't ask me about their name!). So far, they are doing a great job energizing us, helping us spend time listening, and singing some of the greatest hymns to a bit more modern sound. (Think U2, Chris Tomlin) Dave the horn guy is the MC. He's pretty cool. I hope that he can continue to mix up his routine.

Our first session speaker was Craig Gross of the not so often together Craig & Jake, and of XXX Church—an organization that calls itself the "#1 Christian Porn site" with its goals being to be an aid to people struggling with pornography.

Anyway, Craig told a few stories about different people down the road of sin. His main point was that sin is fun, but that it is fun for a season, and when we don't end it now, we don't know how that season will end. His stories emphasized that well!

(Real quick here, the theme of the week is The Gospel with light and dark being painted at the different sessions—Craig painting darkness and the way out, Eric Knox painting for us the light.

Eric is great! He shared the story of a guy on Venice Beach who could keep 15 plates spinning on 15 sticks. He talked about how for many of us, the Christian life becomes plate spinning. We become a Christian (or grow up one) and begin to add things to our life to, well, be a good Christian; things such as Bible reading, praying, going to church and the like. Not that these things are bad, they're great, but many do theses things "not to experience God's grace, but to gain God's grace." And worse yet, we do these things so that others will know that we are good Christians.

He shared the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector from Luke 18. He told how the Pharisee's was a plate spinner, comparing his deeds to all the other people he was not like. However, the tax collector laid low and said "I am the sinner." He didn't even say that he was one of many sinners, just the sinner. He acknowledged his need for God.

Eric asked us what would reading your Bible look like if you didn't have to read it? What would going to church look like if you didn't have to go to church? What would praying look like if you didn't have to pray. Because the truth is that we don't have to do these things as Christians. And any feeling that we have to do these things comes from a sense of basing your Christian life on others and their view of you.

Wow, this them echo's our pastor's saying of "Live your life for an audience of one."

I'd share more, but I've got to go wake my guys up and get to the first session for the day!

Invisible Children

I know its been a while since I've posted. I'm finally on Spring Break and so excited! There is so much I could talk about. I recently watched Crash, which brought up many racial issues. It makes you seriously question (if you haven't already) whether or not racism is dead. (Obvious answer: no.) What makes it good though is that the movie makes you think about the little ways you might show racism in everyday life. I can't recommend the movie "officially" on account of language, but it was a good watch.

Now to other important matters. On Thursday, I had the privilege(?) of watching the movie Invisible Children. It highlights a major problem going on in the Sudan and Uganda.

After 17 years of war in the Sudan, the people have become weary of the fight. Consequently, people are no longer joining the rebel group trying to take down the government. Because of this, the rebel army has gone into Uganda and abducted children ages 5-12. The rebels kill some of the children, mame others, and force the rest to begin killing people themselves. The children become brainwashed into anger, fear, and a life of killing.

Because of the fear of abduction, thousands of children from the small towns and tribes walk miles into the cities each night so that they can find safety and shelter. After their sleep, they walk home the next morning to continue life.

I can't describe the sickening feeling I had after seeing the terrible injustice that is taking place. There are ways to help, which are listed on the web site. I've posted the movie trailer too in case you want to watch.

Safe and sound

I do not propose to know the exact definitive answer on the issue of eternal security. It seems to me that stories of God's grace and the prodigal son, among others, plead for this view. On the other hand, there seem to be many passages which point toward the possibility of "stepping over the line" if you will.

It is on my mind because we had to do a "Eternal Security in Hebrews" project for my Hebrews - Revelation class. There are good arguments both ways, and I don't intend to choose one right now, or debate for either side. What I do want to do is ask a question.

Is the question Can I loose my salvation the wrong question to ask?...Or better question is, Is salvation only about getting into heaven?

If salvation is only about getting myself into heaven, then I suppose wondering if I can lose that salvation is a perfectly good question to ask. But if salvation begins now, and eternal life begins now, then a better question to ask would be Am I following Christ the best that I know how?

What are your thoughts?