My turkey:
Monday, November 21, 2011
Thanksgiving At Stepping Stones
Luke's Day Care had Thanksgiving dinner this past Friday and they invited the parents too... here is their pre-dinner movie. Mrs. Blanca is in the yellow shirt... I love how she gets in there with the kids!
Sitting at the table with their name plates :)
Daddy Date
Daddy took Luke to the movies to see Puss in Boots... Luke had a ball... the next day, I look into the kitchen and here is what I see:
Luke was getting water everywhere when he was pretending to drink like a cat :) These boys!
Challenge of A Lifetime!
Luke,
When I hear things that make me look at Jesus differently, I want to share them with you. I think when we grow up in a Christian home, we forget how BIG God's grace is to us and how undeserving we are of Him. An easy tendency we can fall into is making Jesus an accessory in our life to help us "get through" it-- picking Him up when it is convenient or when we have time, or when we are in trouble, or when the stakes for speaking out are low. Luke, I challenge you to make Jesus ALL of your life and then it won't just be "getting through" to the next thing, it will be a ride of a lifetime! We talk about Moses, and David, and Paul and what courageous men they became in life, but the truth is, they are no different than you are- their God is our God. Be bold, be different, walk in the Lord, have secret moments with him, share your heart, cry out to Him, question Him, make the most of the time you have here with Him and KNOW Him. Find a man who does this well and practice faith like he does... it isn't easy and it isn't our nature, but you can find practical ways to "put on your new self" if you are just willing to work for it. Do it for no one else but you, and I guarantee you a life worth living!
I love you, Luke-- you have no bigger prayer warrior on your side than me! I want my family for God because I want you to be blessed!
When I hear things that make me look at Jesus differently, I want to share them with you. I think when we grow up in a Christian home, we forget how BIG God's grace is to us and how undeserving we are of Him. An easy tendency we can fall into is making Jesus an accessory in our life to help us "get through" it-- picking Him up when it is convenient or when we have time, or when we are in trouble, or when the stakes for speaking out are low. Luke, I challenge you to make Jesus ALL of your life and then it won't just be "getting through" to the next thing, it will be a ride of a lifetime! We talk about Moses, and David, and Paul and what courageous men they became in life, but the truth is, they are no different than you are- their God is our God. Be bold, be different, walk in the Lord, have secret moments with him, share your heart, cry out to Him, question Him, make the most of the time you have here with Him and KNOW Him. Find a man who does this well and practice faith like he does... it isn't easy and it isn't our nature, but you can find practical ways to "put on your new self" if you are just willing to work for it. Do it for no one else but you, and I guarantee you a life worth living!
I love you, Luke-- you have no bigger prayer warrior on your side than me! I want my family for God because I want you to be blessed!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Gay Unless You are Crhsitian Response
Luke, one of my friends found this article and asked what the Christian response should be... I am burying my response in this blog so that when you come against these moral issues, that you will know where your Daddy and I stand.
The original article was written by a non-Christian man who had a gay friend. His charge was that Christians are the most hateful to his gay friend when we spout ideals of love. The article can be found HERE.
It may surprize you that I agree with many points in this article. I think society, Christians and non-Christians, hold being gay as a far worser sin than others. The fact is God doesn't have differing degrees of sin- in His eyes a sin, no matter how small or big we may quantify it, is a sin and it seperates us from his presence- that is the whole reason he had to send Jesus to earth to take our place because he truly wants a relationship with his creation. I think some Christians may look at being gay as a lifestyle of sin- where you can't break out of it because you continually go back to it. You can be sorry for your sin, but not repentant. God wants repentance. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, the Bible says "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" When we make Him Lord of our lives, he gives us power to stand against sin and be a new creation by his standards. We can't go back to the former way of life because we don't want to. In Romans 6:2 it says "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" It is a constant fight to "daily die to our sin" nature and truly make Christ Lord in our lives, and honestly it is easier to let sin rule us- I think this is the state where a lot of "Christians", especially in America, sit today. 2 Corinthians goes on to say in chapter 6:3 "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited..." This is where Christians miss it. We can quickly go from love to judgement. The love we are supposed to have for non-Christians is to love them into salvation-- to show Christ in our lives-- when all they see is tearing down sinners, fighting in the church, church leaders leaving the ministry because of sexual sin, it makes Christians look weak. If we aren't set apart as God calls us to be, there is no reason to join us. The picture of a true Christian response to the artice about loving gays is this: we should hurt so badly for them that the sin they are in entangles them and grips them. We should pray they trust in God to pull them out of their sin. We know God hates homosexuality, so if they are Christian, they are in a perpetual state of seperation from God because of their sin. An awful place to be to taste God's mercy and then be distanced from it. When I read the article, I kept feeling sorry for the Author--his definition of love is to let go of the need to be better than others, he has searched religions and found them to all be phony. He wants to love, but has no moral basis with which to do so. My mind went strait to 1 Corinthians 2:14, that says "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned". It may not seem fair that God hates homosexuality, but it is God's perogative. He created the world and everything in it and he is the only one righteous to make the rules. It is a hard one to swallow because it does seem unfair that some poeple are born into harder lives with harder sins to overcome, but when they do, it shows God's power in our lives and gives him the glory... if we could do this life on our own, we wouldn't need Him.
The original article was written by a non-Christian man who had a gay friend. His charge was that Christians are the most hateful to his gay friend when we spout ideals of love. The article can be found HERE.
It may surprize you that I agree with many points in this article. I think society, Christians and non-Christians, hold being gay as a far worser sin than others. The fact is God doesn't have differing degrees of sin- in His eyes a sin, no matter how small or big we may quantify it, is a sin and it seperates us from his presence- that is the whole reason he had to send Jesus to earth to take our place because he truly wants a relationship with his creation. I think some Christians may look at being gay as a lifestyle of sin- where you can't break out of it because you continually go back to it. You can be sorry for your sin, but not repentant. God wants repentance. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, the Bible says "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" When we make Him Lord of our lives, he gives us power to stand against sin and be a new creation by his standards. We can't go back to the former way of life because we don't want to. In Romans 6:2 it says "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" It is a constant fight to "daily die to our sin" nature and truly make Christ Lord in our lives, and honestly it is easier to let sin rule us- I think this is the state where a lot of "Christians", especially in America, sit today. 2 Corinthians goes on to say in chapter 6:3 "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited..." This is where Christians miss it. We can quickly go from love to judgement. The love we are supposed to have for non-Christians is to love them into salvation-- to show Christ in our lives-- when all they see is tearing down sinners, fighting in the church, church leaders leaving the ministry because of sexual sin, it makes Christians look weak. If we aren't set apart as God calls us to be, there is no reason to join us. The picture of a true Christian response to the artice about loving gays is this: we should hurt so badly for them that the sin they are in entangles them and grips them. We should pray they trust in God to pull them out of their sin. We know God hates homosexuality, so if they are Christian, they are in a perpetual state of seperation from God because of their sin. An awful place to be to taste God's mercy and then be distanced from it. When I read the article, I kept feeling sorry for the Author--his definition of love is to let go of the need to be better than others, he has searched religions and found them to all be phony. He wants to love, but has no moral basis with which to do so. My mind went strait to 1 Corinthians 2:14, that says "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned". It may not seem fair that God hates homosexuality, but it is God's perogative. He created the world and everything in it and he is the only one righteous to make the rules. It is a hard one to swallow because it does seem unfair that some poeple are born into harder lives with harder sins to overcome, but when they do, it shows God's power in our lives and gives him the glory... if we could do this life on our own, we wouldn't need Him.
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