:A Christian Blog

This will most likely be a weekly part of this blog where I, oddly enough, ask you to go elsewhere to read other’s opinions about differing subjects. If a good post is made somewhere, I definitely want to recognize it.

So much more than a bowl of candy

The World is not Enough

If it looks like a duck

All of these deal with materialism, something that’s been on my mind lately. Why give my views on it though, when I can give you three? Feel free to read these articles, you can post comments here or on the author’s site. Also feel free to post your own articles on this subject or your ways of rejecting materialism in exchange for faith in God. It’s something that everyone wants to talk about, but few act upon it.

4 Comments

Luke 14:7And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them,

8″When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him,

9and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place.

10″But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you.

11″For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

12And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.

13″But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,

14and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

15When one of those who were reclining at the table with Him heard this, he said to Him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

4 Comments

A couple of days ago, someone searched for that that very question in a search engine and clicked on my site. It almost seems strange that a Christian would be asking this question, but in these times, where a lot of people claim to be Christian, so many in fact that I think the line has been blurred, it’s not that surprising. Of course, I didn’t have an answer for him at that time, but I hope to accomplish that with this post.

John 3:16″For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

17″For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

18″He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

So, there’s the answer. You must believe in God. I don’t see any rules or regulations to follow, the Bible is clear, whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. If you just can’t grasp the fact that it is that simple, then I encourage you to follow the two greatest commandments in addition to this, which is almost just as simple detailed in my 30-second Bible for Christians.

I’d also invite any of my readers to add their responses for anyone asking themselves this very question.

6 Comments

If you want happiness for an hour – take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day – go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month – get married.
If you want happiness for a year – inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime – help someone else.

–Chinese Proverb

At the risk of sounding like I’m a paid blogger for John Maxwell, I’d like to again return to one of his books previously mentioned, 25 Ways to Win with People. Specifically, one of the ways in the book, “Be the First to Help”. I found this after going through the book to do research for Invest and Invite and immediately knew I had to blog on it. It’s something I struggle with on a daily basis. I seem to be so attuned to my personal needs or focused on the task at hand that I will forget to do something as simple as offering someone something to drink. The author breaks it down into four simple points to be successful at being the first to help that I will comment on.

Make Helping Others a Priority. The first point in the book is the strongest for me personally. I need to have a notepad that has this point stamped at the top of every page so that I remember this on a daily basis.

Make Yourself Aware of People’s Needs. This is something that I really think comes natural to everyone. At some point in their lives though, they put this natural ability into the back of their head and forget it. If you make helping others a priority, I don’t think this point will be a challenge.

Be Willing to Take a Risk. The book makes the point that sometimes helping others may actually hurt you, such as helping someone in a competition in which you are a competitor. This is, in my opinion, one of the best situations to help someone, because it really shows them you aren’t helping to gain anything.

Follow Through Once You Begin to Help. Of course, to counter the last point, not following through once you begin or promise to help is one of the worst ways you can help someone. They think less of you, and everything you represent. The goal, of course, is to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

I really like this book because not only does it break Winning with People down into 25 different ways, it also sums everything up at the end of every chapter. An excellent book to use as a resource later down the road.

No Comments

Many of the Christian blogs I frequent has posts about the new 100-Minute Bible that has been released in the UK. “Proponents say it is a gateway to the classic, a crash course in Christianity that will provide a useful tool to reach out to the curious, the lapsed, and the ignorant.”

I’d like to submit my own version of the Bible called the 30-second Bible. This one is completely endorsed by Jesus and ready to hit the shelves as soon as I get a publisher. What’s in it you say?

Mark 12:28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

29“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

32″Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

34When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

Jesus broke it down into really simple terms, probably for days like these where there are many many things that aren’t covered in the Bible. Many Christians spend weeks upon weeks debating on things like abortion, stem cell research, and whether the newest TV preacher is actually the anti-Christ. I just find it really strange that loving your neighbor as yourself seems to be the one most forgotten. We mock, criticize, and sometimes pity our neighbor, but neglect to do one of the two greatest commandments that Jesus set forth to all Christians. Love your neighbor as yourself.

3 Comments

This post is filled with questions in my head surrounding talk about the new Supreme Court Justice nominee, Harriet Miers. Everyone wants to know how she will vote on this issue or that issue. James Dobson has even graciously assured us that Harriet Miers is a good candidate for the Supreme Court. Which in turn, has got him in some hot water with everyone else. That fallout caused Dobson to come back to the issue today and say this. Whew! Anyone else seeing more focus on the Supreme Court than the family here?

Question: Why don’t Christians start concentrating less on making abortion illegal and more on encouraging mothers to keep their babies so that even if it’s legal, they won’t want to do it? This all comes back to outreach in the church. The majority of mothers (I dare say all) don’t want to abort their babies, but they don’t feel like they can support them. If less basketball courts were built, and more permanent shelters for the poor were built, maybe more of them would keep their babies knowing they are going to be taken care of.

Am I wrong to think that all of this attention given to Harriet Miers by James Dobson and others is just missing the point? Have we become so small of an influence on society that we think we need the help of a law to prevent/discourage people from doing something we feel is wrong? Maybe we should lobby for judges that would require everyone to go to church, prevent them from smoking, and ban alcohol. Is that the best way to spread the gospel in the 21st century?

No Comments

Just thought I would point out that Rick Warren has made Fortune’s Top 25 People We Envy Most. A suprising list to make for a Christian I know, but even more suprising is their write-up about Rick.

From the article:
“The most influential evangelical since Billy Graham preaches in Hawaiian shirts and sandals. As if that weren’t enough: Warren gives away 90% of his income. And he’ll never wake up wondering if his job has meaning.”

God is giving a lot of responsibility to Mr. Warren, and from what I’ve seen, he’s using it in some of the best ways possible. Congratulations and keep up the good fight.

No Comments

There’s an interesting discussion going on at the Rapture Ready message boards that started out with an educated atheist asking “Why should I love God?” It’s interesting to me because it’s not from a scientific standpoint. He acknowledges God, but just doesn’t see what God is doing for him. There are many different replies along the lines of “He loves you”, “He sent his son to die for you”, etc. This doesn’t mean anything to someone who doesn’t want to believe and love God though.

I think the answer is that God is doing a lot for him already. God reaches out to all the world by teaching you and me to represent him physically. Casting Crowns has it right, “we are the body”. Chances are, God has helped him all along in his life, he may have even hired him for his current job. Where would we be as the human race without God’s teaching of love and charity? It’s definitely not in our nature. As children, we are completely selfish. I would hate to see a world without God. Anyone that couldn’t make it on their own would die. Anyone that had more than someone else would be robbed or killed. God is doing a lot for him and everyone else through us. It’s a great responsibility to represent God on this Earth. Do you make God glad that he is being represented by you?

No Comments

As I drove home tonight, I heard a commercial about how movie night is sweeping the nation’s churches. It offers a chance for families to get together to watch a movie (which it seems they could do at home), as well as, giving non-church goers a form of “free entertainment”. I, for one, am torn about this type of church marketing to try to get non-members to join. Should we really have to rely on movies, basketball courts, workout centers, and other perks to get people to join the church? I thought it was all about our life and the light that was shown through us. At what point did that lose it’s luster and become just a small part of bringing new people to Jesus? Shouldn’t we teach Christians that they, not the church, are the right reason people should come there in the first place?

Mark4:1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. 2He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3″Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”

Why would I use this parable here? Because I think anyone that you bring into the church because of basketball courts or movies are seeds being planted on shallow ground. They will start to grow, but as soon as things get tough, they will wither and die. I’m sorry if this post sounded a little like a rant, but it just amazes me how much a church has to do to grow it’s membership these days. When the tried and true method of spreading the gospel is within every single Christian.

3 Comments

I don’t know if any of you watched this movie last night on TNT, but it was probably my third time to see it. When you’ve watched a movie multiple times, you begin to notice things you never noticed before and thinking about things that you didn’t think of the first time you watched it. For me, it was the concept. I remember hearing the concept before I ever watched the movie for the first time. But why did it work? Why did a concept that is basically giving to others work so well when there are plenty of avenues to satisfy this Christian commandment? Pay it forward worked because it gave a person a goal. When you generalize charity, and ask people to give, and ask people to help, they don’t really have a goal. Pay it forward gave them that. Find three people and help them. A simple concept, but successful because it was definitive. I’m going to strive to not only be charitable, but to set goals each day, week, and month. Setting goals and meeting them gives an extra boost of satisfaction that already accompanies giving to someone.

Luke10:25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26″What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”

28″You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

36″Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

37The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

If you have trouble giving, then I encourage you to set goals for yourself each day or each week. At the end of the week, review and see if you met your goals. As I try to meet mine, I’m going to blog about things that helped me reach my goals each week. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any advice for my struggle to go and do like the Samaritan.

3 Comments