Meeting Jesus

Recently I was listening to a sermon series preached by Alistair Begg called "An Extraordinary Encounter." In it Pastor Begg told stories from the gospels of Mark and John such as the man who was lowered down from the roof on a mat, The woman at the well, and Zaccheus the tax collector. These stories were not new to me, but it's always nice to return to familiar Bible stories to be reminded of the wonderful truths they contain. Iv'e come to realize that if a Bible story or passage is stale to me, It's my heart that is stale, not God's word. This time though God struck me with a super simple yet unfathomably profound truth that each of these stories contains. Each story records the interactions Jesus has with people as He travels around during His ministry. For the people that meet Him however, these encounters are literally life changing. So we hear this every time these stories are preached. But think about it. How could a short meeting with one man, that probably lasted no longer than a few hours at most, change someone's life? The answer is the simple truth God gave me. That meeting can change a life because that man is God. Let me repeat, and take a moment to let it sink in: these people MET GOD! Really, for truly, as literally and physically as possible met God. They did not meet God through some abstract and subjective spiritual experience that told them to follow God. God has used such things, but in these instances, these folks actually got to meet God himself. It blows my mind. God came down and walked along the paths of HIS creation and interacted directly with HIS creatures. He is not distant, leaving us to fen for ourselves, nor is he cruel, watching us from on high and laughing at our suffering. The beautiful good news of the Gospel includes this, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth," (John 1:14 KJV). God was right here on earth in the flesh, and one day He will be again. If we have accepted Him as our savior, we will see that glorious day.

Waiting for Heaven

Yesterday I was whiling away the hours on a restful Sunday afternoon by trolling Facebook. I came across a picture my brother-in-law posted that he had taken of a beautiful mountain landscape while on a hiking trip in Colorado. Oh! the memories that flooded back! How many times have I too gotten to enjoy the magnificent beauty of God’s creation during the years that I lived there? Whenever I reflect on that time of my life I am filled with a longing for the natural riches that Colorado has: mountains, favorite hangouts, and definitely family & friends that I don’t have here where I live in Beatrice, Nebraska. If it was up to me and money was no object, I’d move back to Colorado immediately. It isn’t up to me though, and money is very much an object that limits my choices in life right now, not to mention the fact that I have a family, a wife, and two amazing kids with another on the way (yep, you heard right!), and I love them immensely. My current residence is greatly effected by them. Still, in my most selfish moments I yearn for Colorado and all it represents: the closeness of my family and friends, the joy and beauty of the mountains that fill my heart. Since I cannot get these, I feel empty. If I dwell on this for too long, I despair. 

There is hope though. The Holy Spirit, very much God, and very much a person, feels my hurt and reminds me that this Earth, of which Colorado is just a small part, is not my home. I have Heaven to look forward to, and it will be greater than anything we can fathom. It is the dwelling place of all that the Apostle Paul shouts in praise to God in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (NKJV). The wisdom of God issues forth from His throne in Heaven; The knowledge of God leads us to find Him in Heaven. He judges the Earth from Heaven, and all His ways begin and end in Heaven. Before the creation of the earth, God was in Heaven. When all this time has come to an end there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth for us to dwell in. The riches of Christ’s sacrificial love has opened the gates of Heaven to all who accept Him, and when we shuffle off this mortal coil,  Jesus will be waiting in paradise with open arms to usher us into His majestic city. While my flesh may long for Colorado, my soul, stirred up by The Spirit, cries, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!” (Psalm 34:8, NKJV). If I trust in my flesh and my ability to satisfy it, I am finished. However, If I trust in The Lord Jesus Christ and look to eternity, I am bound for a Heaven filled with His presence forever! Amen! 

Which one do you trust? 

Why I listen to Praise & Worship Music

If you don't know me that well, it's very important to know that I LOVE music. If I'm not listening to music, I probably have a song or two stuck in my head. There is very little time in my day that isn't accompanied to some degree by music. The other (and much more important) thing you should know about me is that I love Jesus Christ, and I am striving to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. The crossroads of these two loves in my life have brought much struggle.

     In high school I took my love of music and turned it into my hobby. If my homework was done and I had free time, I would be on my family's computer listening to music online, downloading music (back when it was legal to share music for free), and researching genres and sub-genres of music. I prided myself in the fact that when I said I liked every kind of music (at least all the major genres), I truly meant it. It's something I spent many hours working on, and I became quite knowledgable on the subject. Honestly, I became a music snob.

      So when confronted with the musical faire offered on Christian radio, I have had a tenuous relationship with it at best. I mean for such a  musically knowledgeable guy, why would I want to listen to that uncreative, commercial stuff? I couldn’t stand the dj’s and the arrogant, self-promoting-instead-of-God-promoting attitude of KLOVE so I just didn’t listen to it much. I argued, if I wouldn’t listen to the secular equivalent of this music, then I didn’t need to listen to the Christian version. I could go on and on with arguments about the lack of artistic creativity/integrity in modern Christian music. I did have some such music on my ipod, and maybe two or three artists that I genuinely liked, but if I didn’t really like them, I didn’t give them much listening time. 

The other side of the coin was the amount of secular music I was listening to. For most of my music listening life from high school until a few months ago, the majority of music I was listening to was secular. As I grew in my walk with God, who I have found to be ever so much more patient and merciful than I realized, I grew in this too. I slowly weeded out the truly filthy or evil secular artists that I had convinced myself were ok to listen to because I finally admitted I had no business as a follower of Jesus listening to them. So I lived my life that as long as there wasn’t anything blatantly anti-Christ or anti-Bible in it, that I was ok to listen to it. Until a few months ago.

As God has grown me in Him, I decided that the rule would be one and done: If an artist even had one song that blasphemed God or said something totally evil, then I could not justify listening to anything by that band. I was listening to a lot of heavy metal via Pandora radio and Spotify. If I had free time, I’d be on the computer listening to music. I had Pandora on my phone too, so I was almost never without music. And if I wasn’t listening to it, I was thinking about it. I realize now, I was at the point where I was worshiping the music and artists I was listening to. I was still walking with God, and I felt the tug of the Holy Spirit in my heart warning me that I was drifting from Him, but at first I didn’t listen. I mean, I still kept to my standard for secular music, and it was my free time, right? Still I felt that tugging. 

Little did I know, the avalanche was just around the corner: one of my ultimate favorite bands, Black Sabbath, released this last year their first new album with (most of) the original members in like 30+ years! I was so excited! Then I heard there first single: “God is Dead?” Now I’ve always known that Black Sabbath flirted with evil, but I had concluded that they didn’t say anything outright evil or blasphemous, so they were cool. Now though I couldn’t ignore the lyrics like, “With God and Satan at my side/from darkness will come light,” and the repetition of the phrase, “God is dead.” I couldn’t believe it! They were one of my favorites, why would they write such stuff now? Upon further research I discover that one of their least popular albums that I had never heard of from the 80’s had more stuff about Satan in the lyrics. And when the guitarist was asked about them, all he said was, “Our singer at the time wrote them and I never liked those lyrics.” So why didn’t he tell the singer to scrap them and write new lyrics? I couldn’t escape these questions and I could escape the terms with which I felt justified to listen to secular music, one and done, and this was way more than one, thus Black Sabbath had to go. 

Now for some of you this might seem like a simple thing, but for me it was devastating. Not only was Black Sabbath a favorite, but they were one of the first metal bands I ever got into, I owned many of their albums, and hardest of all was the fact that most of the metal I was listening to, especially the new stuff I was discovering, was HEAVILY influenced by them. Every time I listened to any such artist I was hearing the things that made me love Black Sabbath. The whole support structure for my love of Heavy Metal was collapsing around me. It hurt, but I knew Jesus was more important that any band, so despite my desire to continue listening to them, away they went. At first I thought well, I have plenty of other artists I’m listening to, so they will more than make up for the loss of Black Sabbath. I continued my frequent listening to secular heavy metal, and that’s when it began: everyday I would find a new band I liked, give their lyrics a look, and discover ONE SONG that was bad, and out they went. After just a few days of this I was really getting frustrated. Was their no secular band that kept from writing even one song, one line of evil or blasphemous lyrics? It sure didn’t seem like it. Up till now, my satisfaction with music came from the fact that if one band I liked turned out to be evil, I could find another band to take their place. Now though it seemed like this was failing. I was so in love with music, what was I to do?!

Slowly, quietly, patiently, The Holy Spirit kept tugging at my heart.  Then one night I was driving back from Lincoln with one of the individuals I work with and I had the local Christian radio station on. I’m still not sure why I turned it on. It was still the same music I had railed against so much to my wife, to my mother-in-law, and to others. It was still the music that I thought was good to sing in church, but boring to listen to any other time. As God The Holy Spirit moved in me that night, I just had an overwhelming sense of peace that I hadn’t had while listening to music in who knows how long. Then God showed me: It was the Christian music on the radio; it did make a difference! He also reminded me that a couple of years earlier when I was in a similar place,  worshiping some secular artists, He had called me to make Christian music the majority of my music. At that time I did it for a few days before wandering right back into my old habits, even if it was with different artists. Still, God waited. Then, years later this whole event came up, and He gently reminded me that He still wanted me to listen almost exclusively to Christian music, and after feeling the peace listening to the radio gave me, why wouldn’t I? 

So now I am really trying to make the vast majority of the music I listen to Christian, and most of the time it’s Praise & Worship/Christian contemporary. Don’t get me wrong: I still love metal music, but God has helped me rediscover some really talented, and most importantly God honoring Christian metal bands. There are a couple of big reasons though that I don’t listen to it as much: first, I’m still tempted, still drawn to the secular metal, and I do not want to get sucked in again! Second, you can’t worship to most Christian Metal! Sure they may say true things about Jesus and the Bible, but it’s not specifically written for the purpose of worship. And THAT is what makes the difference. There’s nothing about the style of Praise & Worship that makes it better than any other style of christian music, it’s simply that fact that’s it’s purposefully worshiping God. 

And God has also given me the epiphany recently that worship is why we are here. Dear brothers and sisters, don’t waste your life trying to figure out why God put you here. It’s quite simple: to learn how to worship him. Psalm 23 ends with this line, “And I will dwell in the House of The Lord forever.” While it is a beautiful piece of poetry, it still is God’s word, and it still is true: we who believe in Christ will in eternity dwell in the house of the Lord forever! I believe that Heaven will be one big church service forever. And if it’s going to last for all eternity, we have a lot of worshiping to get ready for, so shouldn’t we get started? But remember: everything we do in obedience to God is worship. Psalm 119:7 says, “As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should!” So clearly we need to worship Jesus, and we need to see how our obedience to HIm is true worship!

To my brothers and sisters in Christ who still listen to secular music: I do not want you to think that I condemn you for your choices. I did write this with you in mind however, to hopefully shake you out of the complacency that we get into when we fail to take the time to examine our actions. Why do you think it’s ok to listen to secular music? Have you ever even thought about it? I don’t care whether or not you conclude that it is or isn’t ok to listen to secular music, I just want you to think about it, and search the Scriptures to find what you believe. And always, always brothers and sisters, may we ever grow closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and may we make the priority of our lives to worship Him in everything!   

A Sinner's Song

Am I just another lost soul to you, screwing up this world?
If only you knew the tapestry of pain
That my life has unfurled

I hear words like burdened, lost, and love
I'm so very burdened
I'm so very lost
I so need love

You say you have the answer
From 2000 + years ago
In that old book

Why should I give a (damned)?
Is that what you think I am?
I hear words like burdened, lost, and love

I don't need the words of men
I wonder if you have what I really need
Can you show me God?

I hear words like burdened, lost, and love
You say Jesus is love?
I don't need the words of men

Why should I give a (damned)?
Is that what you think I am?
Can you show me God? Can you show Me Jesus?

God, are you there?!

Can you?

The Devil's Subtle Deception

It has come to my attention that many people do not know the truth about a certain cult that disguise themselves as Christian denominations such as The Church of Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormon church.  Before I get into this however, Let me explain why I chose to write about this. The reason is in the title of this post: this group among others are trying to convince people that they are just another denomination of Christianity. The truth is that they are not, but an evil cult controlled by Satan to deceive people and keep them from finding out the God's truth. That fact is that if you follow these groups beliefs, you will not be saved, but instead you will go to Hell when you die. It sounds harsh and I assure you it is, but it is better that I offend you now and you learn the truth then for me to coddle you and in doing so cast you off to eternal torment and eternal separation from God. My desire is that the truth of Jesus be made known to everyone on earth.
      I have chosen Mormonism because they are the group I hear the most people being confusing  about. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:3&4, " But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent.  You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed. The gospel of Mormonism is absolutely not the gospel of the Bible. Here are some beliefs from exmormon.org (I do not support nor agree with all the views of this site, but have used them as a reliable resource for facts about the Mormon church) of the outlandishness of Mormonism: God lives on a planet near the star Kolob; The sun receives its light from the star Kolob; God ("Heavenly Father") has at least one wife, our "Mother in Heaven," but she is so holy that we are not to discuss her nor pray to her; Jesus and Satan ("Lucifer") are brothers, and they are our brothers - we are all spirit children of Heavenly Father; Jesus was married; There are many gods, ruling over their own worlds; We can become like God and rule over our own universe; The Garden of Eden was in Missouri. All humanity before the Great Flood lived in the western hemisphere. The Ark transported Noah and the other survivors to the eastern hemisphere; Mormons should avoid traveling on water, since Satan rules the waters; If a Gentile becomes Mormon, the Holy Ghost actually purges his Gentile blood and replaces it with Israelite blood. 
     That is just some of them, and if that is not enough to convince you that Mormonism is NOT Christian, then I will finish with this belief of Mormonism: We should not pray to Jesus, nor try to feel a personal relationship with him. They also believe that Jesus and God are not two parts of the same person but two separate people. These are directly in contrast to the gospel of the Bible preached by Jesus Himself and later the Apostles. As I mentioned, Paul warned us in 2 Corinthians about "... a different Jesus...or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed." I should remind you as well that the Bible does record the famous story of someone who wanted to become like God, just as the Mormons say you can; of course that person was Lucifer. Thus we see that their father is Satan and not God. DO NOT BE DECEIVED BY THIS GROUP!!! 
     I could write so much more about Mormonism, and if you are tempted to join them, I encourage you to research it yourself and find the truth, but check your sources for bias on the subject. 
     I should also warn you about these groups: Seventh Day Adventists; Jehovah's Witnesses; Christian Scientists; also those with the Westboro Baptist Church (the people behind godhatesfags.com and godhatestheworld.com, who also picket veterans funerals). These people claim the name of Christ in some part of their doctrine but have twisted God's word in satanic proportions. 
     To any Mormons who read this, or to anyone a part of any of the other groups I mentioned: I write this not to condemn you or make you feel stupid. On the Contrary, I hope that you will read the Bible and the Bible alone and meet the real Jesus Christ who loves you and gave up his very life so you would not go to Hell. You have been lied to by the leaders of your group and you cannot get to heaven by believing their doctrine. Only belief in Jesus will get you to heaven. As for any believers reading this, I hope you are enlightened by this knowledge and are now more cautious about who you include as Christians. If you have relatives who are in any of these groups, Pray for them, and tell them the truth. Because in the end it's all about Jesus Christ and eternity anyway, and not just about being right.         

Philippians

Lately I have been reading the book of Philippians. I have read it before, and in the scheme of my Bible reading it was not that long ago. For a period I was reading it quite heavily; also, I have heard more than one sermon series on it. So why did God ask me to read it again? I haven't figured that out yet. I've already finished it, with reading each chapter twice. I do not feel like I have learned anything new from this reading, but I am sure that God has something new to teach me, or remind me of through this reading. So I will continue to read and reread the book and pray for understanding until I am certain that I have received the message God has for me there.

Matthew 28:20

As you well know, it's been a very long time since I blogged. To be honest, I have been putting it off. I have not felt worthy to blog as of late. Let me explain: Since I last blogged, I completed my student teaching. During that time I taught full time at Boys Town, all school day long five days a week, but I since I am married (which I wouldn't change for the world) I have a family to support and bills to pay, so I had to work full time to survive. So I was working two full time jobs, 75-ish hours a week. I got on average 4 1/2 hours of sleep a night with 18-20 hours of work a day. Not surprisingly I let my relationship with God slip. It isn't that I stopped praying or going to church altogether, but I prayed significantly less and my church attendance was similar. I know that it effected me spiritually, especially now that I am done with my student teaching and should have time to resume my previous walk with God. It is not that simple though; I have had some growth. I do spend more time with God than during student teaching, but I'm not back to where I was, or at least if I cannot go back, I am not where I want to be. It makes me anxious that Jesus isn't as important to me as I know He should be. So what am I doing about this? What hope am I clinging to? It is the truth Jesus spoke in Matthew 28:20, "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen." (NKJV). As I taught the students at Boys Town and worked at Walmart, it was only the presence of God in my life that kept me going, and now as I try to recover from the fallout of that period in my life, and seek find God's will for my and my wife's future, only God's presents keeps me going. Nothing else. Nothing is impossible with God. Amen.

A brief afterward: even though I am only working one job now instead of two, I even though I am not staying late so much since the holidays have ended, I feel so busy. I just want some time truly off. Some time to process all that has occurred recently and all that God has done and wants to do in my life. Mayhaps in the near future God will bless me with the time to do this, so I can finally get closure on that most difficult time in my life.

---