When I was in my early teens, even pre-teens, I was always the oddball. In high school I was the Jesus freak. I got kind of tired of it, I wanted to be accepted, I wanted to belong. I don't know how many times I have spoken about this, but I don't think I can overemphasize how depressed I was and how blind I was to God's glory. To God's awesomeness. I thought, did, said the most stupidest things. I thought I was on the top of my game, I thought I was perfect and I thought that I was better than others. But the truth of it all was that I partied, I drank, I rebelled, I lied. The summer before I came to PBA, I was scared, I wanted to stay in Miami, I wanted to stay in my comfort zone, I am so glad God directed my paths to PBA. I'm not saying that PBA is the best. God just used PBA to get to me, to wake me up. I'm not perfect. Like Paul, I've been able to see more of God's holiness, righteousness, goodness, and I can't help but to thank God for His grace. My flesh brought me down, but the Spirit has lifted me up. The more I see God, the more I see my sin, the more I see how ugly i am.
This past week I have had the pleasure of sleeping over my friend's dorms on the South side, I open the door and I see the intercostal. It is so beautiful, see the waves, feel the breeze, watch the sun set. Though finals has been so hectic, I am so glad to be reminded that God is so much bigger than the exams I am taking, bigger than my lack of sleep.
I just want to encourage everyone as summer comes up to have patience. I guess act like a turtle. Take things slow and look around. Watch the clouds, hear the laughter, smell the ocean, hold someone's hand in need, have some good ice cream. Take it all in and thank God for another day. So I leave off with some lyrics.
"You walk on waves
You run with clouds
You paint the sky for me to see
Your Majesty
Your Majesty
Is why i sing"
I'm outs
4/30/2008
4/24/2008
Psalm 13
Psalm 13
"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
for he has been good to me."
You know how when you read something it doesn't click, but then when someone explains it to you your like "oh man, thats awesome." Well thats what happened to me with this chapter.
King David feels all alone. I don't feel like that at the moment, but as I look back to my past, I wish someone had turned this page to me. When I was 16 I was feeling so depressed, everyone saw it. I stopped going to church and I just felt so alone. I tried filling my soul with friends, parties, drinking, music, nothing was filling me up.
Right now I just feel so much joy in my heart. Nothing really can bring me down. If you guys know me well enough, you know the circumstances that are occurring at home, I really shouldn't feel this good, I shouldn't feel so optimistic. But God is SO GOOD! I see his holiness, his grace, his righteousness. God is everything, without Him I am nothing. Compared to eternity my life is just a gust of wind, a sun shower, a milli-second.
Lately people have been telling me how optimistic I am, if only people knew, if only people saw my heart, if only people understood. God is so good. He is so great.
I'm not saying I'm not struggling, I totally am. I'm not saying I don't understand what other people are going through, I've probably gone through it or going through it. But like David says "I trust in Your unfailing love." It will never pass, cease, stop. It lasts forever!
I've been trying to attempt to explain to people how wonderful I feel and how everyone could feel this way, but I think God has brought me to this place for a reason. I kind of wish I knew why I do feel this way. Well, I guess the point of this blog was to encourage people to look past all the crap that is happening, to look past the present, focus on God, joy will fill your life. Anyway, read this psalm in your spare time and I guess understand what David is attempting to say. He is filled with sorrow, but then he remembers, so just remember.
I'm outs.
"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
for he has been good to me."
You know how when you read something it doesn't click, but then when someone explains it to you your like "oh man, thats awesome." Well thats what happened to me with this chapter.
King David feels all alone. I don't feel like that at the moment, but as I look back to my past, I wish someone had turned this page to me. When I was 16 I was feeling so depressed, everyone saw it. I stopped going to church and I just felt so alone. I tried filling my soul with friends, parties, drinking, music, nothing was filling me up.
Right now I just feel so much joy in my heart. Nothing really can bring me down. If you guys know me well enough, you know the circumstances that are occurring at home, I really shouldn't feel this good, I shouldn't feel so optimistic. But God is SO GOOD! I see his holiness, his grace, his righteousness. God is everything, without Him I am nothing. Compared to eternity my life is just a gust of wind, a sun shower, a milli-second.
Lately people have been telling me how optimistic I am, if only people knew, if only people saw my heart, if only people understood. God is so good. He is so great.
I'm not saying I'm not struggling, I totally am. I'm not saying I don't understand what other people are going through, I've probably gone through it or going through it. But like David says "I trust in Your unfailing love." It will never pass, cease, stop. It lasts forever!
I've been trying to attempt to explain to people how wonderful I feel and how everyone could feel this way, but I think God has brought me to this place for a reason. I kind of wish I knew why I do feel this way. Well, I guess the point of this blog was to encourage people to look past all the crap that is happening, to look past the present, focus on God, joy will fill your life. Anyway, read this psalm in your spare time and I guess understand what David is attempting to say. He is filled with sorrow, but then he remembers, so just remember.
I'm outs.
4/16/2008
Global warming?
“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”
Genesis 8:22
There goes Global warming out the back door!!!
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”
Genesis 8:22
There goes Global warming out the back door!!!
4/14/2008
Church entertainment
So I had an interview today with my College Pastor, it was for a paper that I am writing for my English class. Well the topic is Church Entertainment. Everything that he told me I pretty much already knew, but he gave me more details and described it better than I could.
Well I've been struggling with this idea for some time and I finally get the chance to uncover my thoughts to the world, well maybe not, but it'll bring me some satisfaction to be able to write this down. So to my point.
"our culture has been entertained to death." So we know what is entertaining and what is not. And churches lately have been trying to compete for the youth's attention. There is no problem with entertainment, I enjoy it, who doesn't enjoy it? But when churches become so enthralled on the way the message should be presented, then it becomes a matter of having everything right instead of paying attention to what is really right, the Bible.
Some people hate on Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale because it is so big and there is probably no way to have a real church community, but though it is big and difficult to have a real community, the whole atmosphere of the church is quite invigorating. Instead of making sure that everything is right, they make sure that whatever they are doing is for God's Glory and you wouldn't give God crap, you would give Him your best.
The message that Pastor Bob Coy gives comes straight from the Bible, he has some creative ways of giving us examples, but its not "let me give you one verse and explain to you what it means to me." NO!! it should not be like that. I don't want to give Pastor Bob all the credit, God is working wonders through him, so I give God all the credit, but Bob has gone verse by verse in explaining what the Bible is trying to show us. he doesn't preach a sermon on lust, or dating, or drugs, he might use them as examples, but he doesn't preach on them. Pastor Bob has been showing God's holiness and how we're not.
In the bible, people are not preached to because of their sin, but because of God's glory and grace the people see their own sin. The apostle Paul even explains that the more he knows about God's goodness and holiness, the more he sees the sin within himself. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees God and he can not even explain God's amazinness, but one thing he says is "“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”"
Isaiah understood just by looking and understanding God's glory that he is disgusting, he understood his sin.
I see people leaving churches because they don't want to be entertained anymore, they want to be fed. The message has also become too warm and fuzzy, it's not challenging anymore. Some churches might be afraid that if they give people too much to handle they won't come anymore, but when did Jesus try to make it warm and fuzzy?
Another point I want to give out is about Jesus. How many people do you think would go to his church? He only had 12 apostles and one even betrayed him. Not until did they understand what he was explaining did it make sense to them all. He gave many illustrations and stories so the people could understand, but it was not different from the truth.
So 4 things that the church should be is:
1. God glorifying
2. Christ centered
3. Preaching is bible saturated
4. and Life transforming.
Without these for main things, the church is basically dead, it's not moving anywhere. Its a bunch of friends getting together and hanging out. We have to be more like Christ, as idealized as it might be, we need something to look up to. And so I finish off with something that Pope John Paul II said,
“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
I'm outs
Well I've been struggling with this idea for some time and I finally get the chance to uncover my thoughts to the world, well maybe not, but it'll bring me some satisfaction to be able to write this down. So to my point.
"our culture has been entertained to death." So we know what is entertaining and what is not. And churches lately have been trying to compete for the youth's attention. There is no problem with entertainment, I enjoy it, who doesn't enjoy it? But when churches become so enthralled on the way the message should be presented, then it becomes a matter of having everything right instead of paying attention to what is really right, the Bible.
Some people hate on Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale because it is so big and there is probably no way to have a real church community, but though it is big and difficult to have a real community, the whole atmosphere of the church is quite invigorating. Instead of making sure that everything is right, they make sure that whatever they are doing is for God's Glory and you wouldn't give God crap, you would give Him your best.
The message that Pastor Bob Coy gives comes straight from the Bible, he has some creative ways of giving us examples, but its not "let me give you one verse and explain to you what it means to me." NO!! it should not be like that. I don't want to give Pastor Bob all the credit, God is working wonders through him, so I give God all the credit, but Bob has gone verse by verse in explaining what the Bible is trying to show us. he doesn't preach a sermon on lust, or dating, or drugs, he might use them as examples, but he doesn't preach on them. Pastor Bob has been showing God's holiness and how we're not.
In the bible, people are not preached to because of their sin, but because of God's glory and grace the people see their own sin. The apostle Paul even explains that the more he knows about God's goodness and holiness, the more he sees the sin within himself. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees God and he can not even explain God's amazinness, but one thing he says is "“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”"
Isaiah understood just by looking and understanding God's glory that he is disgusting, he understood his sin.
I see people leaving churches because they don't want to be entertained anymore, they want to be fed. The message has also become too warm and fuzzy, it's not challenging anymore. Some churches might be afraid that if they give people too much to handle they won't come anymore, but when did Jesus try to make it warm and fuzzy?
Another point I want to give out is about Jesus. How many people do you think would go to his church? He only had 12 apostles and one even betrayed him. Not until did they understand what he was explaining did it make sense to them all. He gave many illustrations and stories so the people could understand, but it was not different from the truth.
So 4 things that the church should be is:
1. God glorifying
2. Christ centered
3. Preaching is bible saturated
4. and Life transforming.
Without these for main things, the church is basically dead, it's not moving anywhere. Its a bunch of friends getting together and hanging out. We have to be more like Christ, as idealized as it might be, we need something to look up to. And so I finish off with something that Pope John Paul II said,
“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
I'm outs
4/13/2008
short poem
So I got kind of bored at breakfast yesterday at school, so I wrote a very short poem, I hope you guys enjoy.
The crowds surround me,
the voices overpower,
but through the mist of it all
I hear Your Voice.
The crowds surround me,
the voices overpower,
but through the mist of it all
I hear Your Voice.
4/05/2008
Sin
"'Everything is permissible'- but not everything is beneficial." When Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, he not only took the burden of dying for each and every one of our sins, for those who believe, but took away the power of sin.
I think its so funny sometimes when kids say what sin is, they say "its when I do something bad." I laugh because I used to say that, but that is not what it means. Sin does have something to do with doing something bad, but not quite. Sin means "to miss the mark." And what mark would that be? God's.
I sometimes feel discouraged because I don't like not meeting expectations and thats what happened. But through Jesus' death sin has no more power over us. I'm not saying that we should keep sinning because sin has no more power to put us in the grave, but do what is for God's glory, that might mean that you shouldn't drink, but it doesn't mean you can't, it just has to do with what the Holy Spirit is moving in you.
I think its so funny sometimes when kids say what sin is, they say "its when I do something bad." I laugh because I used to say that, but that is not what it means. Sin does have something to do with doing something bad, but not quite. Sin means "to miss the mark." And what mark would that be? God's.
I sometimes feel discouraged because I don't like not meeting expectations and thats what happened. But through Jesus' death sin has no more power over us. I'm not saying that we should keep sinning because sin has no more power to put us in the grave, but do what is for God's glory, that might mean that you shouldn't drink, but it doesn't mean you can't, it just has to do with what the Holy Spirit is moving in you.
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