the bible

i got into a great discussion last week with a couple of my friends over personal beliefs about the Bible. While my complete views and beliefs about the Bible are vast and would take a long time to write down and explain, I found a quote by my boy voddie baucham that summarily explains why i believe the Bible to be true.

"I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents, written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies, and they claim to be divine rather than human in origin."

you can find the entire blogpost here.

This quote by Spurgeon really hit me today:

"God will have you turn your eye off yourself and look unto Him. The hardest thing in the world is to turn a man's eye off himself; as long as he lives he always has a predilection to turn his eyes inside and look at himself; whereas God says, 'Look unto me. [Isaiah 45:22]' From the cross of Calvary, where the bleeding hands of Jesus drop mercy; from the garden of Gethsemane, where the bleeding pores of the Saviour sweat pardons, the cry comes, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." [Isaiah 45:22]

MOMMY!

My mom flies into today. It's been so long since i've seen her. The excitement overflows......:-)

Poverty

I thought this was an interesting website. click on the pictures. read the stories. be reminded that even in this country there are people who are in desperate need of our help. the church's help. these are the people Jesus came for....

hypocrisy

thought this was a great article on the hypocrisy in the sports media....

The Personality Driven Church

found and interesting article on yahoo today dealing with the wake of the Ted Haggard scandal and mega-churches. definitely helped me to be reminded that the church is just more than just one guy and that celebrity pastoring is not Biblical. I think that is one thing that appreciate about my church. We refuse to be a personality driven church. Jesus is our senior pastor. Jesus will lead our church. all efforts point to Jesus. all church structuring is done so below Jesus. He is the ultimate leader at our church and I love that for many reasons, and i was reminded again today of them. my prayer today is that Catalyst will never be a personality driven church but instead a Jesus driven church that follows His lead.

P.S. found this quote in the article interesting..."So when Haggard fell spectacularly from grace in a scandal involving drugs and allegations of gay sex, many wondered if New Life, so tied to his public persona, would crash with him." I completely understand the point the reporter is making, but it struck me odd that she chose the phrase "fell...from grace." While we realize that Haggard will never fall from God's Grace I hope too that he will not fall spectacularly from our grace as well. While he has permanently disqualified himself from leadership and made the church look horrible as well, he should still be loved and helped and shown mercy, forgiveness and grace. I will try to in my heart, i hope you do so in yours as well.

Grace

Being humbled again tonight by the fact that I deserve death and a life seperated from God but for His own Glory he saved me....and not because of any worth that I have but because He is great God.

O Praise the one who paid my debt, and raised this life up from the dead!

Interesting

Had a Great Discussion Tonight with some folks about the discipline of the christian life...afterwards this quote by Friedrich Nietzsche is still ringing in my brain...

"The essential thing in 'heaven and earth' is... that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living." - Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil

(Also happens to be the title of a fantastic book that I'm reading...)

Sad

The headline of an editorial in the Kent Stater today read "have sex, but save marriage." The writer (Alison Pritchard) went on to discuss how college student shouldn't try to get married but should instead wait until later in life when they have had multiple partners and experienced life...The sad thing about this article was that it was based soley on the foundation of a very self-center view of marriage and love. Alison says, "College is a time to try relationships. Give it your all, and see what happens. If it isn't making you happy anymore, try out someone else.
We don't have to figure everything out right away anymore. There's time to change your mind. Find what makes you happiest and go with it." This is sad to me because it is exactly this kind of mentality that ruins relationships and marriages...
"Love is not self-seeking" ~Paul

Campus Focus

Went Down tonight and spent the evening with my CF peeps down in Ak-Rowdy. It was awesome. Almost 250 - 300 people packed out the Chapel Auditorium as we had a great time of worship and just hanging out. It was awesome to see that God is moving in Akron. Sometimes I'm so focused on reaching Kent and what God is doing there that I forget that he is doing some massive work on college students hearts right next store. So mad shot outs tonight to Campus Focus...You guys keep doing what your doing cause God is changing lives in Akron too....

worship

i like this video...cause i think we all need a friendly reminder that worship is just more than just sunday...and what better way to do that than with sarcasm...:-)

Ecko

So just when I was losing interest Lost hooked me again...So sad that mr. ecko is dead. i always like him. *tear* What's up with this monster......

what the heck

is she dead??? is syler DL??? what's up with this freakin symbol??? why do i keep watching shows that only pose more and more questions and never give you answers???

2 Months......

That's right....two months until the big day......it can't come fast enough

Dane Cook Vs. Atheism

Sorry to my atheist friends, but this is just down right funny......

Heros

Heroes. That's all I have to say

Tomlin

some interesting thoughts that on the new Chris Tomlin album here, i hate to admit it but he makes a great point.

not needed

it occured to me that God does not need us to accomplish anything that he wills, but instead for some reason he chooses us to accomplish His will. not sure if i'll ever really understand all that...

Relationships

So Tonight I am waiting in line for my tasty Quiznos sub. Lines at Kent State Quiznos are always so long and so often I have time to sit and ponder the wonder that is life around me. So as I'm pondering, I happen to over hear a conversation between two girls behind me that went something like this....."I've had it with getting screwed over by guys and always getting hurt. So I've decided to make a list of everything that I want in a guy, then every single guy that I meet or am interested in I will make sure that they meet every single criteria and if they don't then I won't give them the time of day. That way I won't get f'ed over by any more stupid guys." second girl, "that's a great idea." I thought to myself, no that is not a great idea. In fact that might be one of the worst ideas I've ever heard for a number of reasons. One: you won't ever find a guy to meet all your criteria, because if you think Mr. Right/perfect exists you are sadly mistaken. He does not. This is because all men are f'ed up people just like all women are. It's what happens when you rebel against God. Two: Thinking that a perfect guy will save you from heartache is horribly illogical. Even a perfect guy with the most perfect intentions can still hurt a girl, it happens all the time, trust me I know for experience. 3. Perfect guys, such as a guy that would meet the entire list of this girl's criteria are either a) taken or b) interested in girls who don't have lists telling them how perfect they are. Well anyways, to finish the story this girl just keeps going on and on behind me in line talking about how evil men are and how she needs to find the perfect guy to be happy and that she will never find him because men are scumbags (there was some serious, serious male bashing going on here). So I just keep listening and getting more and more annoyed at this girl, especially as she keeps bashing men. So finally I get so fed up I turn to her, and say, "I couldn't help but over hear your conversation and I just want to say that I hope that you find the guy that meets all your criteria, all 5 pages of it, and I hope that he breaks your heart. And then I hope that you find a guy that doesn't meet any of your criteria and he falls madly in love with you and sweeps you off your feet and loves you for the rest of your life." She just gave me the most bizarre look ever and stood speechless. I proceeded to order a regular turkey ranch and swiss and enjoy it immensely.

Congrats

Hey, just wanted to give a shout out to my pastor as their newly adopted baby was just born. Congrats guys. We're excited to have a new kid around the church.

Redemption

There is beauty in Redemption. A beauty that is often unexplainable. A beauty that warms my heart and chills my spine. This is because God is in redemption.